What's wrong with our refrigerator?

[DavidEBSmith]

I know somebody here knows this off the top of their head . . .

 

Recently the freezer compartment was 0 F at the bottom and 50 F at the top. Repairman came out and replaced the evaporator coil fan, which wasn't running.

 

Now the fridge is too cold - at the lowest (warmest) setting, it's 28-30F in the fridge compartment.

 

The evaporator fan is running a lot, but not continuously.

 

Is it coincidental that the cold control went bad? Is the evaporator fan installed wrong?

 

This is a 12-year old Whirlpool top-freezer model.

 

(And no, I don't really care that a new model would be more energy-efficient. )

[Mister Tee]

The wind chill

 

http://bmwsporttouring.com/ubbthreads/ubbthreads.php?ubb=showflat&Number=426416#Post426416

 

unit may not be working.

[OoPEZoO]

Longshot but.........We had a problem with our fridge last year that was causing weird issues. It turns out that we had too many bags of frozen vegetables pushed to the back of the freezer. Since they somewhat comform to odd shapes (especially when shoved to the back), they ended up covering a few of the vents in the back of the freezer compartment. I didn't even notice the vents until this happened. It apparently screwed up the airflow throught the cooling system and was causing all sorts of weird things to happen. Super freeze in the freezer, spoiled milk in the fridge.......followed by thawing in the freezer and frozen drinks in the fridge. Anyway, I moved all the food away from the back of the freezer and it has been working great ever since.

[pokorskij]

I don't have a clue about what might be wrong, but could you close the door. It seems you might be cooling the whole Mid West.

[Twisties]

I don't actually think this will help, but until someone has a better idea, unless you already have evidence against this, try turning it all the way down (coldest). Maybe the service fellow crossed the wiring.

[Unhofliche_Gesundheit]

fridge chapter of my fix it book does not address the problem of fridge too cold - an unusual problem.

 

some musings..:

might the fan be stuck on (always running)?

i don't think they are supposed to run all the time. edit - you checked that.

so yo might be right - maybe the wrong fan or bad install - i.e not fully connected - all conductors? i would phone the guy that installed it and ask. also maybe some warranty on the work?

 

maybe your fridge was a long time in decay and you have the temp control set too low and now that is is working correctly it is just too cold - reset the temp control higher? edit - no you checked that.

 

my value add i guess is only to say; there are a lot of appliance repair sites on the web - fyi -hint hint.

 

my new fridge uses 1/3 the energy of the old one - but the real reason got a new one was aesthetics!

[enfoman]

Sometimes on these fridges there is a door that directs the airflow to the refrig side from the coils on the freezer. this is controlled by the temp knob. it may be possible that the knob might be 180 out or the thermostat for the frig may not be working and constantly blows cold air until it reaches it's preset fail safe mark. Another problem may be that the air is not flowing properly through the freezer as oopezoo pointed out. One unit I had, I think frozen peas went in the vent holes on the front floor of the freezer and really scewed up the air flow. thanks kids! I'm not tech, but have figured out a few things in the past.

 

Bob

[ESokoloff]

I would suspect that the evap. fan replacement has to do with the refer compartment over cooling.

Perhaps a panel or baffle was not properly installed allowing too much air flow to the refer section.

 

How cold is the freezer compartment getting?