Refrigerator problem - freezer vents frosting over FAST

[SagaLore]

Our fridge is being extra stupid right now.


A few weeks ago we noticed it stopped being cold. Wife had to throw a bunch of food away and move some stuff to a cooler. Turned out that the coils were heavily clogged with dust/lint stuff. But cleaning that out didn't fix it. Then realized the freezer's vents were completely covered over with frost.

So a day of defrosting, turned on the fridge and it working fine again.

Or so we thought. Couple of days ago noticed that the freezer vents frosted over again, and it wasn't slowly - they were clear one day, then the next day almost completely covered again.

Here is the fun part. Wife turned it off again, tried to let it defrost - but this time it wasn't melting off. It actually got worse.


So what's going on here?

 

[BillGates]

Turn off (unplug?) fridge and the ice inside got worse (increased?). Sounds like either you and your wife have found a way to defy physics, or it's really friggin' cold inside your house.

 

[SagaLore]

Turn off (unplug?) fridge and the ice inside got worse (increased?). Sounds like either you and your wife have found a way to defy physics, or it's really friggin' cold inside your house.

No the fridge wasn't unplugged. The thermostat was turned off and doors opened, with a fan blowing on the frosted vents.

 

[olds]

Check defrost timer.
Check door gasket.

 

[Saint Nick]

In other news, how does one clean all of the dust out from a refrigerator? Some guy came and hooked up our water purifier to the fridge and he was freaking out about how dirty it was (we bought it used).

 

[SagaLore]

In other news, how does one clean all of the dust out from a refrigerator? Some guy came and hooked up our water purifier to the fridge and he was freaking out about how dirty it was (we bought it used).

I just used tongs to pull most of it out, then a can of compressed air to blow it out.

 

[BrunoPuntzJones]

Compressed air as noted above, they make brushes for them as well.

I'm guessing bad gasket as mentioned above. You may see if you can find a cheap chart recording hydrometer and see if the humidity is out of whack, what it sounds like to me. A gap in the door gasket or elsewhere could be causing it.

 

[Paperdoc]

Is this an auto-defrost fridge? Automatic defrost means the fridge periodically shuts off and warms up the freezer to melt some of the frost off it. That water collects in a pan under the freezer, and then drains away through a plastic hose that runs from under the freezer, out the back wall, and down the outside to a tray under the fridge next to the compressor. That's a warm location, so the water slowly evaporates from the tray. After melting out some frost, the fridge chills down again.

What happens often is that the drain hose gets clogged by dirt and old grey mold, usually near the top where the plastic fittings make several turns to get out from under the freezer. So you should pull the fridge out as if you were going to clean off the coils on the back, then look carefully at the hose running from top to bottom. Examine it closely inside the back of the fridge, just below the freezer. You may have to disconnect the hose on the outside and flush a bit of water through, maybe use a pipe cleaner or something to brush out the inside of the hose and the fittings it connects to. Then reassemble.

A blocked drain system at the top will not allow the melted water to drain out to the lower tray. So it just re-frosts the freezer really fast, and causes the system to auto-defrost too often.