I have a [B]Kenmore[/B] bottom-mount refrigerator, [B]model 596 69872991[/B], serial# 0010160897. It came with the house, so I don't know exactly how old it is. It worked fine for the first three years we were here, however. Then, sometime last year, it began having this issue. The freezer will slowly begin to get warmer, but never hot. You can still keep things in it, to an extent, but it's too warm for softer foods like ice cream. Eventually, the back wall of the freezer will ice over and the top refrigerator area will get warmer and warmer. The first time this happened, we emptied everything and turned the unit off to thaw out over night. The next day we turned it back on and and everything was fine for months. Then it happened again, and again, and again. Each time, it seems to go even quicker than before, with only a few months between. Each time, I've taken the back panel off of the freezer to find the coils completely encased in ice. It's clearly blocking the ducts and keeping the upper fridge area from being cooled as well. On one occasion I even took a hair dryer to the ducts to make absolutely sure nothing was blocked. The bottom outside of the unit has also been thoroughly cleared of any dust. So following this logic, I continued to research the problem as well as I could and ended up testing the following things. [B]1) Defrost timer[/B] - I removed the from lower kickplate and turned the knob on the timer until it clicked, indicating the defrost cycle. It stayed like this for mayber 10 minutes before the unit started back up. I couldn't feel anything getting [i]obviously[/i] hot inside, though. [B]2) Thermostat[/B] - I unplugged the thermostat and tested it against my multimeter. It read 9.8 while submerged in a glass of ice water. The device itself does look to be visually damaged though, with one side bulging with a blue ooze? [B]3) Defrost Heater[/B] - I hooked my multimeter up to the wires on either side and received a reading of 33.8 on it. The wire coming off the left side doesn't seem to be connected to anything, though? It's bundled up with the loose cables for the ice maker, which I do not have. Is this correct? There doesn't appear to be an obvious connector for it anywhere. According to what I've been reading, this would [i]seem[/i] to rule out a lot of the obvious problems. Is this correct? What else can be done to further diagnose this issue? Thanks! :)

GE oven goes full blast - I've replaced the control board and the igniter, still won't turn off. Any ideas?