Freezer?

Okay, first let me start this off by admitting I'm an idiot. The sooner we get that out of the way, the quicker we can move on.

I have a small chest freezer in the garage. It's relatively new, but it's a cheaper off brand. Anyways, the thing has always run great, and had no problems happily keeping everything we put in it frozen solid (and I do mean solid).

Seems over the weekend though, I made a stupid mistake. Working in the garage I unplugged the freezer and forgot to plug it back in. Most things defrosted. This is the idiot part.

Since then we've replugged it back in. The tricky bit is nothing's freezing. It's been running for a day solid now, and it just won't freeze anything. The compressor is running (I hear it), and it's hot to the touch. There's a cold line running out from it that's cold to the touch. The top 3 inches inside the freezer are now covered in frost...I got to thinking the seal somehow chose now to pack it in, so I put a good amount of weight on the lid but that hasn't solved the problem. The walls of the freezer are cold-ish to the touch. If it matters, the garage has been about +30 deg C (or around about 90F). I understand the freezer might have a lot more work to do at that temp but I'd hoped it could handle it.

So....I already have to throw out a lot of food, should I be shopping for a new freezer as well? Thanks for any help.

 

Hauger,

When a freezer is loaded with items that have warmed up, it may be struggling with your garage at 90 degrees.

This is no guarantee, but try helping it out a bit by placing a fan where it can blow on the compressor and one one of the freezer walls...the one that's the hottest. I can't count the number of times I've seen this happen. Your freezer may be ok. It's certainly worth a try. Once it cools down, you can remove the fan.

Good luck,

 

If that suction line is cold to the touch, that means your system is working. Having a heavy coat of frost inside on the walls is not a good thing, and will slow down the freezing process. How much frost is there on the top part?

Himeros

 

Thanks....I'll try the fan and hopefully that'll cool it down right. My thoughts were just that too, that it wasn't able to cool stuff sufficiently with a freezer full of warm stuff (that still needs throwing out) and a warm garage.

Regarding the frost....there's not much, just a ring around the top 3 inches or so on the inside of the cabinet, and at that it's not very thick. The frost is what got me to thinking it wasn't sealing right.

Thanks for the help....I'll post and let you know how well the fan works out.

 

Nope, the fan did no good. I'm pretty sure there's something wrong with it, the garage it's in has dropped to normal room temp (around 20-ish deg. C). I've written the manufacturer (Woods? Never heard of them), and I'm looking for warranty info....we bought the thing just over a year ago. Probably it'll be a year warranty, that's the kind of luck I have, but we're checking just in case.

Thanks for the help. Anyone want to buy a freezer that's really only good at cooling things?

 

Okay....status thus far....I've heard from WC Woods, they say it sounds like either a blockage in the cooling system or not enough coolant. I'm doubting it's the latter since the freezer is only about 14 months old and hasn't experienced any physical trama (ie: "defrosting" with a flat head screw driver").

I called the local servicer....the call out fee was $50 to show up, and $9 every 10 minutes. That's a lot to spend to repair a $100 chest freezer with no guarentee it'll work, but it offends me deeply to turf a relatively new-ish freezer.

So.....is there any way a DIY-er can either bleed the system (to remove, say, an air blockage) or self recharge, or am I better off going shopping this weekend?

 

Sorry it's been so long for someone to get back to you. I was out of town over the weekend with no access to a computer...not necessarily a bad thing.

I don't know about WC Woods' diagnosis...hard to say. I don't believe it's low in refrigerant. If that was all that was wrong, I believe your symptoms would be a bit different. I don't think your suction line would be cold at the compressor. That basically means that there is enough refrigerant to sustain evaporation all the way through the evaporation circuit. At any rate, for a $100 freezer, I believe it's a bust. Woods' prices are not unreasonable, but they would be hard to justify in this case. It's a throw-away appliance...the wave of the present and future, I guess.

The answer your question about repairing the freezer yourself is, in a nutshell, no. First, to be legal these days, you have "recover" the refrigerant, not just bleed it off. Second, once you've made any necessary repair, you will need to pull a vacuum on the system, then charge it with refrigerant. All this would require lots of equipment and know-how.

At a bare minimum, you would need gages, vacuum pump and refrigerant.

Good luck,