Logik Fridge LFC50S18 - Freezing in Fridge Compartment

[yucca15]

Hello,

I have a Logik Fridge LFC50S18 (it's Curry's own brand fridge freezer with the fridge on top).
Recently the back wall of the fridge compartment started developing ice - to such an extent that the contents of the fridge become frozen.

The top surface of the fridge has the light and control but changing this seems to make no difference.

The freezer itself seems to be operating as expected - no build up of ice (as it's frost free) - fan works as expected - and when I remove the shroud on the back wall of the freezer to expose the fan, evaporator fins, heating element there was no ice build up which makes me think that everything in that department is fine.

I have checked the seal for the fridge door and it looks fine - it does mate with the fridge body and when I sandwiched a sheet of paper between the fridge door and fridge body, there was resistance when I tried to withdraw it.

Any advice on how I can track down what is faulty? Could it be some sort of temperature sensor for the fridge which is misreading and sending an excessive amount of coolant to the fridge? Or the control/circuit board in the fridge? Are they one and the same thing? Is it even worth repairing?

Thanks in advance.

 

[ericmark]

Many years ago I had the same problem, was a Hotpoint fridge/freezer and we had taken out a maintenance contract so we had the Hotpoint engineer to repair it, and he condemned the unit as having damaged thermal insulation. Ice conducts heat so if I did a full defrost it would work OK for a time, then it would slowly build up again.

 

[yucca15]

Hello,

I find if I remove the ice from the rear wall, it slowly returns. The fridge still functions ... but food ends up being spoiled because it ends up bring frozen rather than just cooled.

So are you saying the insulation around the fridge is no longer functioning?

One thing I have noticed that some parts of the plastic interior (freezer and possibly the fridge) have cracked exposing the insulation underneath - particularly protrusions upon which the drawers slide. So are you saying that that might be causing the problem?

Thanks

 

[jj4091]

How old is the appliance & is it indoors rather than a garage?

 

[yucca15]

Hello,

It's less than three years old and its kept in the kitchen.

I've been doing some research and others have similar symptoms on other branded fridges (e.g. Beko) with the fridge having a rectangular frozen section on the rear wall which is exactly what I am getting.

The problem appears to be a fault with the thermistor which is normally embedded in the foam insulation to the rear of the machine. The solution is to cut the insulation to find the sensor, snip the wires to the old sensor, resolder wires to the new sensor and then backfill with expanding foam. Trouble is I don't know the location of the sensor - it could be anywhere! If I start randomly digging around, I could needlessly cut the insulation.

Does this sound like a plausible reason for my scenario?

I've been to Curry's "partmaster" website which has some exploded parts diagrams but of course there are no measurements. Worryingly quite a lot of parts for this fridge are just not available (https://www.partmaster.co.uk/search.pl?query=lfc50s18). I just wish I had stayed clear of this cheapo brand which seems to stop support supporting their products so soon.

Thanks

 

[foxhole]

Could be blockage in pipe work which causes that area to freeze, repair not usually viable , wrote off my fridge with same problem.If fridge is under 6 years old then you can make a claim as it’s unreasonable for it to fail so quickly , I claimed with Curry’s and got £120 towards cost of replacement .( my fridge was 5 years old)

 

[Harry Bloomfield]

One thing I have noticed that some parts of the plastic interior (freezer and possibly the fridge) have cracked exposing the insulation underneath - particularly protrusions upon which the drawers slide. So are you saying that that might be causing the problem?

That is enough to allow moisture through to the insulation and once it gets in, the insulation is wrecked.

 

[yucca15]

Could be blockage in pipe work which causes that area to freeze, repair not usually viable , wrote off my fridge with same problem.If fridge is under 6 years old then you can make a claim as it’s unreasonable for it to fail so quickly , I claimed with Curry’s and got £120 towards cost of replacement .( my fridge was 5 years old)

Pipework? I can't see any pipework inside the fridge. But it looks like there may well be pipework between the interior and exterior (behind the back wall) of the fridge which I assume is where coolant flows. I wouldn't have thought that was blocked because it is getting cold so coolant must be flowing.

Regarding the claim from currys - this fridge was bought from currys too. We may already have had some money back from then on the basis that we couldn't get a few parts for it before because they were no longer "supporting" it (less than 2 years old). How can manufacturers and retailers get away with selling products for which parts become rare as hen's teeth within 2 years??!?!?

Did you go to currys on the basis that the fridge had not worked for a "reasonable amount of time"? Obviously reasonable is subjective but given that a fridge just sits there with very few moving parts then wear and tear isn't really a consideration.

 

[yucca15]

That is enough to allow moisture through to the insulation and once it gets in, the insulation is wrecked.

So are you saying that once the moisture gets in, the insulator no longer acts as an insulator (water/ice will conduct heat)?

 

[Harry Bloomfield]

So are you saying that once the moisture gets in, the insulator no longer acts as an insulator (water/ice will conduct heat)?

Yes!

 

[foxhole]

Pipework? I can't see any pipework inside the fridge. But it looks like there may well be pipework between the interior and exterior (behind the back wall) of the fridge which I assume is where coolant flows. I wouldn't have thought that was blocked because it is getting cold so coolant must be flowing.

Regarding the claim from currys - this fridge was bought from currys too. We may already have had some money back from then on the basis that we couldn't get a few parts for it before because they were no longer "supporting" it (less than 2 years old). How can manufacturers and retailers get away with selling products for which parts become rare as hen's teeth within 2 years??!?!?

Did you go to currys on the basis that the fridge had not worked for a "reasonable amount of time"? Obviously reasonable is subjective but given that a fridge just sits there with very few moving parts then wear and tear isn't really a consideration.

Because manufacturers tend to give one year's warranty on goods, retailers will usually push you in their direction if the product breaks inside the first year. However, SOGA provides cover for goods bought for up to six years – in England and Wales.
The pipework carrying the coolant can break down internally reducing the flow causing freezing.