[tkrotchko]

When it rains it pours. Last week, I had my Jenn-Air range's lower heating coil fail spectacularly doing it's impression of a 1 foot long arc welder. Thanks to everybody for your help. I Replaced that on Friday, and now I came home and my refrigerator is warm.

Then, I realized the freezer is actually cold, although the refrigerator is warm.

I asked my son if it was open when he got home (he gets home before me), and he swears he didn't touch it.

So I assumed the cold air came in the top, pried off the light cover and found where the cold air inlet is. I cranked the refrigerator all the way up, and I felt cool air coming out. Not cold, but cool. I wish I had one of my old mercury filled thermometers to test, but I don't. So I'm making due with an outside thermometer in there.

So assuming the refrigerator door wasn't left open all day (and that is still a possibility in my mind), I'm assuming that something is either clogged or not blowing so the air is not getting to where it's supposed to be.

How should I diagnose it? Thanks for any help.

--Tom

Further Update 9 hours later:

It turns out neither freezer nor refrigerator are cooling as they should.

I've removed the back wall of the freezer and it looks like it just went through a defrost cycle, and there was no ice on the coils. I left the back off to observe the coils and they developed a fair amount of condensation/frost, but this might be due to the fact that I had the freezer open for a while.

The compressor/condenser is underneath and the fan is definitely blowing across the condenser.

Nonetheless, the refrigerator is struggling to get the internal temperature much below 55 degrees, and while the freezer must be below 32 degrees, it is certainly not close to 0.

[richappy]

If the freezer coils are only half frozen, you have refrigeration problems. Either a refrigerant leak, or a bad compressor/clogged capillary. Make sure your condensing fan is running and condenser coils clean.

[Carolyn]

We recently were given an Jenn Air side by Side refrigerator and we are having problems...either the freezer is too warm and thawing out food and the fridge is too warm...OR the freezer is working and the fridges is freezing food. What can we do? Is this fixable?

[tkrotchko]

Originally Posted by Carolyn

We recently were given an Jenn Air side by Side refrigerator and we are having problems...either the freezer is too warm and thawing out food and the fridge is too warm...OR the freezer is working and the fridges is freezing food. What can we do? Is this fixable?

I don't know... It appeared to me that my problem was a refrigeration problem and that because of the age of the refrigerator it wasn't worth repairing, particularly since the new ones use half the electricity of the old one.

But what I would do is remove the back wall of the freezer (it's about 10 screws or so) and observe the coils. Note that I don't mean literally the back of the unit, it's on the inside... the back wall of the freezer. It's a pain because there's not enough clearance, but it can be done.

If there is ice all over them, then it's probably an issue with the defroster (that happened once to mine). In my case it simply wasn't cooling; I think the compressor was shot on mine.

But do that and report back what you see exactly. It would even help if you could post a picture (if that can be done in this forum).

[richappy]

You have a classic case of low refrigerant or a worn compressor. Either one is big bucks or just bad news of constant repair. A check of freezer coils would confirm this. Or you could just have a bad condensing fan.