Inherited an upright freezer from my dad recently. Plugged it in & it runs, but not at cold enough temps. Also the top & sides of unit are warm, almost hot to the touch. Pulled it out & went back to my old unit. Now have it in my garage to work on / fix.

Trouble shooting: unit runs almost continuously regardless of the setting, sides & top very warm continuously, found water underneath unit due to what I think is condensation from the unit running continuously & side heat.

Dad must have had a problem originally since he had an extra control unit (the one on the front door) with it. I swapped out that other control unit, freezer did not get down below freezing, sides of unit very hot, & the "high temp" light remained on the entire test period. Went back to the other control unit - temps went down to freezing levels, but the same old symptoms were back (warm / hot sides, condensation forming below unit.

Can you provide help / suggestions? Would like to use this freezer as its 15 years newer than my old one & a frost-free unit. From reading other posts, my non-expert guess is that the defrost element is somehow remaining on continuously while at the same time the compressor also must stay running to keep cold. Any help is appreciated. Thanks Mike