What can cause defrost problems in the refrigerator?

The defrost mechanism in a refrigerator heats the cooling element (evaporator coil) for a short period of time and melts the frost that has formed on it. The resulting water drains through a duct at the back of the unit.

If the refrigerator has a defrost problem the frost collected on the coils will not melt. Sometimes frost builds up to the point that it blocks airflow and the refrigerator stops cooling completely.

Defrosting is controlled by an electric or electronic timer. For every certain hours of compressor operation, it turns on a defrost heater for the set time to melt away the frost developed on the evaporator coil.

So defrost timer or defrost heater malfunction can be a reason of defrosting problem. If either of these components go faulty, the fridge does not understand when to cool and when to defrost.

And one of the most common issues is a broken defrost thermostat.

Defrost heater is connected to a thermostat. The defrost thermostat senses the temperature of evaporator coils.

When the evaporator coils become cold enough, thermostat sends signal to defrost heater to turn on.

If the thermostat is broken it may not be able to sense the temperature of coils and then won’t turn on the defrost heater.

If the defrost heater doesn’t turn on, the refrigerator will never start the defrost cycle and will eventually stop cooling.

From our many years of experience, we know that a common cause of defrost thermostat malfunction and defrosting problems is an unclosed or loosely closed refrigerator door.

So make sure that nothing prevents the refrigerator door from closing tightly (e.g. something standing on the refrigerator shelf or a sticking out bag, etc.)

Then you won’t need our help in refrigerator repair for a longer time.

But if it happened that your refrigerator not cooling properly or has any other issues, we are always ready to fix it.

Call us 770-231-1514 or request your appointment