Side by side Refer/Freezer have always operated near the max setting to keep both cold enough. When I got home from a week-long trip, both the freezer and fridge were cold, but not enough - the milk was bad and the ice maker had ice that had melted and dripped down into the freezer creating long ice sickles. There is a 0.25" frost on back of freezer and all the veges in the freezer were limp and thawed. I vacuumed the coils on the bottom of the unit, but it did not help. The unit is 12 years old and I will buy another one if needed, but need to know if I should call a repairman or just get a new one. I need to have this in the next day or two. Any help will be much appreciated. The model is a GE - 19.7 cu in, no frost side-by-side Model TFX20JR.

Thanks for the help. I was trying to decide whether to buy new or have this one repaired, so I called the repairman. It turns out it was a heater. Not sure what that is, but it's working fine now.