I had a cooling problem last week in my fridge. The freezer was ice cold, but the fridge was at room temperature. I tested the timer with a multimeter and it was bad. I tested the defrost heater cable and it was bad too. After I pulled it out and looked at it, it was warped. The defroster heater cable must have went and blew the timer. I didn’t know how to check the thermostat, so I replaced it just in case.

The fridge has been cooling fine since, but a new problem has come up since repairing the cooling problem. The fridge runs all the time. I vacuumed off the evaporator cables, checked the seals on the fridge and freezer and they’re ok, pulled the fridge away from the wall to get good circulation around the condenser motor, the light switch in both the fridge and freezer turn off when depressed but it still runs constantly.

I’ve gotten the freezer to turn on and off by setting the control in the fridge to the normal setting, and by turning the dial in the freezer to the almost “off” position (Just before “off”) The fridge temperature is maintaining 40 degrees while the dial is at the normal setting and the freezer varies between 5 degrees and 20 degrees at the just before “off” setting. By doing this, the fridge does cycle on and off.

Is the new thermostat that I replaced when I had the cooling problem last week in the freezer bad? Low Freon or Freon leak? Damper Control bad? Any idea’s?

There is hardly any frost buildup when the freezer condensor motor, the condensor fan, and evaporator fan kicks back off. I would describe the evaporator coils as dull gray, uniformally, evenly, "lightly frosted." all over, top to bottom when the fridge kicks off.

One other thing that I noticed. I have opened the freezer door at least a few times when I heard the motor kick off to check the temperature in the freezer and fridge. The tempertature in both has always been at about 20 degrees freezer/ 40 degrees fridge. Only once did I catch the freezer in the defrost cycle. I could see that the evaporator coils were "cherry red" through the vent on the back wall.

Another observation: The outside air temperature has been cool (70 degrees) and not humid for the past 2 weeks, so I wouldn't expect it to run continuously when I had the dials in the fridge and freezer set at the normal positions initially.

Is this what you mean by half-frosted? I just took this picture a minute ago. It's all frosted up except at the bottom where I circled it in red.

The fridge was turning on and off while it was in the warmest setting, but has been on for about 5 hours straight, so I turned the defroster on manually and I put the temperature control back to the normal setting. The defroster is on now. Should I wait 24 hours for things to stabilize or should I give you a reading in an hour or two?

It's been about 4.5 hours (has enough time passed to get an accurate reading?) since I changed the setting in the freezer from the warmest position to the normal position. The freezer reads 31 degrees and the fridge reads 41 degrees. The evaporator coil is iced up on top and not on the bottom just like the picture I sent earlier. Everything in the freezer is soft (icecream, pizza, pretzels, cool whip etc. Even the ice cubes in the ice cube tray are turning into one big blob of ice.

Do you know what it could be and a ballpark number as to how much is it going to cost to get this fixed?