This is a secondary fridge/freezer that is in our unheated but attached garage. We access the freezer only 3 or 4 times a month usually, so there is no constant monitoring of what is happening in there. We have noticed on occasion recently that sometimes, but not always, the ice cream is not as hard as it should be but everything else was "still frozen".

A couple of days ago, we found everything in the freezer was soft. Still very cold, but becoming soft. I removed the back wall to find completely defrosted coils and the compressor and fan were not running. I put cup of water in and came back 1 1/2 hrs later to find the water very cold, but still liquid. The compressor and fan were not running and no ice on the coils.

I moved the cold control down and then back up and left the water in the freezer. I came back a few hrs later and the water was frozen (the plastic cup bulging at the bottom). It has now been 2 days and the ice has remained frozen.

Does this sound like signs of the defrost timer slowly dying. I believe this is an 8 hr timer. I believe it should only stay in defrost mode for 20 minutes, yet it seemed to remain out of the cold cooling cycle for more than 1 1/2 hours at one point. Now it seems to be working fine?

Thanks for any insight you can give me,
Suf

Thanks for the quick response!

By thermostat, do you mean defrost thermostat or cold control thermostat?

Regarding the ambient temperature, the freezer is in an unheated garage and the outside temp was about 16 degrees F at the time we noticed the problem. Unfortunately, the meat and other items were in the process of defrosting, something that I don't think has happened before even in the very cold outside temperatures.

This freezer has been in the garage for about 3 years, and we haven't touched the cold control in at least that long.

BTW, the complete model# is KTRS22KHWW00.

I appreciate your help very much,
Sufax

Denman,

Thank you very, very much for your analysis and information regarding ambient temperature! Your link regarding operating a freezer in a garage has answered my question as to whether there was anything really wrong with the freezer in the 1st place. I thought the outside temp may have been a factor, but I couldn't confirm it. Now I can.

I guess from now on when it gets that cold in the garage I will take stuff out of the freezer and let it stay frozen in the garage itself?

Again, I really appreciate your help,
Sufax