Hi,
I have icy buildup all along the back wall of my freezer compartment. The holes on the bottom of the cover have become completely encrusted in ice, preventing any air flow through them. Icy buildup is fairly even all along the back panel of the freezer, I have yet to remove the back cover. I am able to do a forced defrost and the ice does melt enough for me to use a credit card and scrape the ice off the back wall and clear it out of the holes to regain airflow. After doing this the ice comes back within a couple of days. To me it looks like the heating element is working because the ice does melt upon a forced defrost, although not completely.
My question is: where should I start?
Should I order a Thermostat(is that the same as the Thermistor?) I do not see a thermostat in the parts diagram only a thermistor. I have read and seen youtube videos on how to test the thermostat, seems fairly straighforeward.
Could it be the Defrost timer/Control board? Once again not on the parts diagram so I am not sure of the part # for that one.
Anything else it could be? I can hear the compressor running and a fan cycling on and off when I run the test cycles.
My thought is to order both of those parts and test the thermostat, if it has failed replace that. If it has not, replace the control board and hope for the best, not a cheap part.
First of all you need to take the rear panel off and look at the evaporator.
Is it completely covered with packed snow or it’s iced up partially?
If there is snow and the evaporator motor is running, then check the continuity of the defrost circuit.
You can do it from the control board.Unplug the unit, remove the control board(it’s inside the control panel).
Disconnect the plug J1, using the multimeter check for continuity between J1-5 and J1-1 (at brown and white).
If the circuit is closed - replace the freezer thermistor at the evaporator coil.
Try it and if that not going to solve the problem, replace the control board (you probably should replace them both at the same time).
Just ordered both parts. Will post how it went when I get the stuff. Thank you for your reply. Hopefully I will be sending the control board back. If not doing it myself is sure cheaper than hiring the appliance guy to come fix it at $75 an hour.
Ordered the parts. While I was waiting for the parts to come I poked around the forum a bit more and found that some people had luck unplugging the unit for 5minutes. I thought, what the hell couldn’t hurt, right? Well…to my surprise it worked!! After a couple of days the back of my freezer did not build up ice anymore. I could actually see water dripping from the coils into a hole in the back at the center as it should.
If you are having the iced up coils and frozen back wall of your freezer compartment I suggest running a forced defrost a couple of times to clear out as much ice as possible then unplugging the unit for 5 minutes. It worked for me. If that does not work then look into replacing the board or the thermistor.
It looks like I will be sending back the parts that I had ordered. Just saved myself $120. YAY. It is funny that when I called Maytag they never suggested that as a first step to remedy my problem. I was told just to use warm water and cautiously melt with a hairdryer and to make sure that the door was closed properly. What a waste of time.
If not doing it myself is sure cheaper than hiring the appliance guy to come fix it at $75 an hour.