Fridge icing up

It built into a cupboard in the kitchen and fridge stat is set to 1.

The door's rubber seal seems good and has magnetic close.

The ice build up is on the back wall at the top.

Is this an indication that the stat is faulty?

Have you got a means to check the temperature of items in the fridge?

It could just be ice build up on the cooling pipes at the back of the fridge, which might suggest the insulation is poor - how long since it was defrosted and cleaned out?

Ours' has been doing the same for years now, and I've just got used to it. The back does collect moisture and drain into the bottom. I think it's to do with excessive moisture freezing on the back wall, which for us is from the veg -- carrots and leeks excrete a lot of water!

If your “ tubes” are blocked then it’s in need of repair or replacement.The pipes can get blocked by internal debris build up with age.

cwhaley said:

Ours' has been doing the same for years now, and I've just got used to it. The back does collect moisture and drain into the bottom. I think it's to do with excessive moisture freezing on the back wall, which for us is from the veg -- carrots and leeks excrete a lot of water!

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Apart from tomatoes and lettice, we keep our general veg in our (cool) pantry.

Harry Bloomfield said:

Apart from tomatoes and lettice, we keep our general veg in our (cool) pantry.

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Our pantry was knocked through in the 80s so not an option anymore. I do store potatoes in sacks in our old coal house (accessed from outside, under the stairs).

cwhaley said:

Our pantry was knocked through in the 80s so not an option anymore. I do store potatoes in sacks in our old coal house (accessed from outside, under the stairs).

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Our pantry used to be our coal store and outside, until I converted it and moved the access door to inside

I had a fridge/freezer on maintenance contract, it iced up within the year, and first time before I realised what was happening it stopped the fan running in freezer with the ice, we had people out to it around 5 times in it's 15 year life, each one would fit some thing and we were glad we had the maintenance contract, but would always de-frost first as normally that would fix the problem, until the last time when rather busy and did not defrost, the maintenance guy opened door looked at it and condemned it as uneconomical to repair.

It seems the insulation had been damaged, likely from new, and ice builds up inside the insulation, and ice conducts heat better than air, so it was running inefficiently due to ice build up, the guy had seen it many times before and knew straight away what the problem was, so best option is to monitor power used.

Most fridges and freezers have an annual power usage, so if it says 365 kWh then one should expect it to use 1 kWh per day, at 1.2 kWh no real worries, but by time it hits 1.5 kWh then clearly some thing wrong.

I did the test on all my units, and mothers freezer had a 65 watt motor, and in 10 hours used 650 watt/hours, it turned out thermostat faulty, was cooling to -24°C not -18°C which explained why the ready meals had cool centres when cooked.

Fridge normally 4°C and freezer -18°C so should never get ice in fridge, some thing clearly wrong, could be simply set too low, but you need to test.

ericmark said:

I did the test on all my units, and mothers freezer had a 65 watt motor, and in 10 hours used 650 watt/hours, it turned out thermostat faulty, was cooling to -24°C not -18°C which explained why the ready meals had cool centres when cooked.

Fridge normally 4°C and freezer -18°C so should never get ice in fridge, some thing clearly wrong, could be simply set too low, but you need to test.

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Good points!

I do a roughly annual check of the fridge freezer in the kitchen and the vertical freezer in the utility, with an IR thermometer, plus checking if I suspect something might be amiss. Checking the temperature around the outer case (same method) is also a good way to spot failed or failing insulation - It should be close to the room ambient.

Over the years we have had two such insulation failures - The first a very large chest freezer bought from Iceland (the food store), when there operation began long ago by my partner before we got involved. She had worked hard to buy it and was desperately reluctant to part with it while ever it limped along, despite its insulation being completely shot and the case rusty - in the old utility. The second was a stacked independent fridge + freezer we had in the kitchen and at around the same time. The insulation on the freezer had failed so we wondered if it might be worth while re-insulating, so got a guy out who was advertising repairs in the local paper. He claimed they could do it for a fee that made it worth while, so we let him take it away for repair. Once returned, it was little better than when he had taken it away. It was obvious he had only done a partial job, where the insulation was easy the scrape out. I often wonder if I might have been able to do a better job myself with the expanding foam they had used.

Our present replacements just keep soldiering on, but I do wonder if simply allowing a fridge or freezer with failed insulation- to defrost thoroughly plus lots of time, would allow the moisture sodden insulation to eventually drain?

I used the condemned fridge/freezer for few years more to brew beer. Since looking for 20 deg C it could do that without a problem.

ericmark said:

I used the condemned fridge/freezer for few years more to brew beer. Since looking for 20 deg C it could do that without a problem.

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I put some Barley Wine on last week, from a kit. Unfortunately I made a muck of it, not fully reading the instructions. The instruction said make up to 23L, but they were standard instructions for beer kits. Turn over the instruction leaflet and said for Barley Wine only 13L, but I had missed it. The result will be just a normal beer strength, rather than the usual higher strength of Barley Wine.