Fridge area icing, now too warm

Refrigerator & Freezer Repair
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1

Hi All,

Hopefully you can help me with a strange issue I’m having. I’ve done some reading but this seems like this could be many different things:

Last winter the back of our fridge accumulated a lot of ice and things in the fridge were getting too cold and freezing. Thinking the temp was too low, I turned it up, the ice melted, and everything was back to normal; or so I thought.

Now the fridge is getting way too warm. I have the temperature set to 10 (coldest) and it’s still only getting down to 50 degrees in the fridge. The freezer is at 20 degrees.

I thought that it could be the defrost timer so I took a look at it. It seems like it’s been replaced recently (we’ve only had the house a year) and it has a window on it in which I can see the gears turning. Could it still be bad or should it be OK since the gears are turning?

I have a few theories as to other things it might be but I’d like to hear what you all think first.

Thanks!

2

Sorry, this is a model 511, not 550.

3

The first thing I would do is clean the condenser coil (on the right side of the cooling unit). If there is no proper air flow through the coil, the refrigerator will never perform properly and you can end up with a damaged compressor(s) due to overheating. You can check how clean is it by pointing a flashlight through the coil. If you can see the light - it is clean.

Gene.

4

[quote=Gene;29285]The first thing I would do is clean the condenser coil (on the right side of the cooling unit). If there is no proper air flow through the coil, the refrigerator will never perform properly and you can end up with a damaged compressor(s) due to overheating. You can check how clean is it by pointing a flashlight through the coil. If you can see the light - it is clean.

Gene.[/quote]

Thanks Gene. I had cleaned the coils a few months ago and it didn’t seem to make much difference. However, last night I looked at the coils in the fridge section and found a large chunk of ice in the upper left corner of the coils. I knocked off the ice then let the fridge run overnight. Unfortunately, it was at 55 degrees this morning so there’s still an issue (besides the ice build-up).

5

Looks like the sealed system is low on Freon and there is very possible a leak at the evaporator coil. This is very common problem for Sub-Zero’s.

You have to call a qualified tech to fix it.

Gene.

6

That was also suggested on another site so I called the repair place yesterday and they agreed that that’s probably the issue. They’re going to do the replacement for a flat rate of $300 plus the cost of the evaporator. Thanks for your help!