I’ve been having that whole “Freezer is cold, but fridge is warm issue”, and think I have it narrowed down to the defrost thermostat. When I tested it, it appeared to have continuity when it was supposed to, and not have continuity when it was not supposed to, but if I manually kick on the defrost cycle with the thermostat installed, the heater remains cold, and if I remove the thermostat and wire the heater up directly, the heater heats up when I kick on defrost.
I checked here for the same part number that my current thermostat is, and for some reason, it looks like it’s $45 vs the $10 - $15 that I see many other thermostats for. Is there any reason that I need to replace this with the exact same part number? Can I find another thermostat that uses the same temps (It says “L57-22F”) and just use that instead?
Also - when I go to hook this back up, are wire nuts sufficient, or should I just solder it in?
Can you recheck your model number and make sure you post a complete number? There are several options that come up when using what you posted. It is important to replace parts with the proper replacement. Wire nuts are fine as long as you seal them with silicone to keep moisture out by the way.
Thanks for the reply! The sticker in the freezer says
“plht217ta”
but if I open the refrigerator part, there’s another sticker that says “plht217tab2”, which I’m guessing is the actual full model number. If I plug the part number of the thermometer here in AppliancePartsPros.com, I do see this one for $45, but there’s another one for about $16 and if I put in “plht217tab2”, it says that it is compatible, so I’m hoping I can squeak by with this.
I know the $30 difference between this one and the actual part number isn’t a huge amount of money, but I have a new baby that’s a lot more expensive than I had expected, so every penny counts!