Hello,

My 20 year old GE Monogram ZISW42DYA side-by-side has developed problems with the freezer portion. Starting about a month ago my wife noticed that items on the front of the middle shelves were not freezing as much as they should. At first I thought this was because the freezer was over stuffed and that cold air could not circulate. The problem kept expanding to more and more shelves. The control is set to 9 out of 9 (coldest) for the freezer and 5 out of 10 for the fridge (which is working fine).

Yesterday I looked at the condenser coils located on top of the unit and noticed they were completely covered in a moderate amount of dust/lint. After shutting off power at the fuse box, I carefully cleaned off the coils and removed as much dust as possible from the upper area. Restoring power I noticed that the unit was much quieter than it was before the cleaning. I emptied and cleaned the two bottom baskets that were full of defrosted items and loaded them with 16 ounce water bottles. This morning I was sad to see that these water bottles were not even partially frozen even after the freezer running for almost 12 hours!

I found a website that listed common reasons why a GE freezer will not freeze. Solution #1, clean condenser coils, I already tried. Solution #2 was Evaporator Fan Motor - I checked this motor by opening the freezer door and pressing the right most freezer door switch on the inside top of the freezer. A clearly can hear a motor turn on so I think this is not the source of the problem. Please advise if I need to check into this further.

The next three solutions I am not sure how best to check. They are faulty Start Relays, Evaporator Coils are Frosted Over, and Condenser Fan Motor failure.

I would greatly appreciate any advice someone can give on how to diagnose and fix this problem. My wife is upset that we will apparently need to throw out all the food in the freezer. I am much more upset that this may require an expensive repair or far worse a new unit! I should also point out I has a new condenser fan motor installed 7 years ago at a cost of almost five hundred dollars.

Thank you in advance!!!

Update: I just noticed that the "Energy Saver" switch in the fridge was turned on. It says to turn it on if moisture appears on exterior. There has never been moisture on the outside so I turned the energy saver feature "off" Wednesday morning after posting this question.

Edited by user Wednesday, October 23, 2019 9:14:59 AM(UTC)  | Reason: Not specified