Ok, several month’s ago, my refrigerator quit defrosting. I would diligently defrost it, about every 4 weeks. Finally, I got tired of it. Money is tight, so I decided to try to troubleshoot and fix it myself. I, along with my father, used the multi-meter and tested the heating element for continuity and it was ok. We manually advanced the timer, to the defrost cycle, and no, it didn’t defrost. But it did show continuity. My electrician friend said most likely the contacts had gone bad in the timer, to replace it first. So we did. (yes, we bought the part from you all :)) Since I have replaced the timer, I have had to defrost it twice(it’s freezing up faster than ever before) Last week when I defrosted it, I actually went through the motions of unplugging and replugging the wires to the heater coil and such, to make absolutely sure we had plugged everything back in securely. I activated the defrost timer, manually, and the heater coil DID get red. So, I turned it back on, and I went on a trip this past weekend, for about 5 day’s, and while I was gone, it froze up again. I once again, did exactly as I stated above, and everything appears to be working. What am I missing? Is there something else that it could be, that I am just not aware of. I know that the thermostat is attached (sorta) to the coil, but could it be this. What exactly is the job of the thermostat? Any ideas or suggestions will be greatly appreciated.
What exactly is the job of the thermostat?
This thermostat shuts power off to the heater when the ice is melted off the evaporator coils. It opens just above freezing.
As an example lets say your timer has a 30 minute defrost cycle/time but the ice is melted off at 20 minutes, the thermostat shuts off the heater for the last 10 minutes as you do not need all this extra heat in the freezer compartment.
Any ideas or suggestions will be greatly appreciated.
I would replace the thermostat, it is more likely that it will go intermittent then the heater. Sometimes you can actually see that it is bulged a bit.
Note that it is also possible for the heater to go intermittent.
If you are away from home a lot I would replace both, probably cheaper than the food you have to throw out.
Just wanted to let someone who may see this and need the same help that I needed that IT WORKED! I changed out the thermostat, and it is now properly working. I was hesitant to post this reply until i had been a couple of sucessful weeks of NO ICE!! Thanks for your help. Gwyn