I have a Whirlpool Gold with bottom freezer and french doors. The evap coils freeze up on a fairly random interval. I am sick of defrosting this thing. I figured one (or all) of my 5 kids cant remember to shut the doors, but my wife insists thats not the problem. We have tried using the forced defrost mode and it doesnt seem to help. I pulled the back cover off the freezer for the 100th time and decided to check the defrost t-stat and the element. The defrost cycle is adjusted by the circuit board for "optimum" defrost cycle. So I dont have a traditional defrost cycle timer. As I heated up the defrost thermostat it went from continuity to open as it should. Then I checked the heating element at the terminations. It had continuity. It was in the 29 ohm range and looked fine. I checked continuity between the element lead and the evap coils and also had continuity. This made me think that the current was not passing through the heating element, but could have a path to ground through the compressor. I again put it in forced defrost mode and made sure I had good voltage and it was at 99VAC between the legs of the element.

So, do I really have an equipment problem here, or do my kids need a refresher course on closing the doors.

The defrost terminator doesn't have continuity now. I wire nutted the leads together and should have had 120 v at the element. I only had 4 volts. Could the control board and the terminator both be bad?