Fridge Freezer Going Kaput ?

IsThisOneFree

Hi All

Moved into a new place in March which had an Ariston integrated Fridge Freezer included.

I can't remember exactly when, but at some point I started to notice some ice building up on the back of the inside of the fridge compartment. This was even with the gauge set to 2 (out of a possible 5). It's now built up to be a fairly hefty chunk of ice, but is still only limited to the back of the fridge, and to be honest, it's working fine, so I never really done anything about it.

Then on Tuesday after arriving home from work, I opened the freezer compartment to find it with a lot more ice and frost than usual. I'm pretty confident that the seal on it is fine, as I had checked them after moving in when I was cleaning it. I figured that maybe I had accidentally not closed the door properly. But then I opened the Fridge compartment to find that the light bulb was gone. I was concerned that something wasn't right, so I turned the gauge up to the highest, but never heard the motor kicking in.

A while later, I thought I could hear the motor making some chugging noises ... and so I started looking up the cost of a new fridge A while later again (having turned the gauge back down to 2), I could hear the motor running normally again. I put a cup of water in the freezer and sure enough, it did cool down and eventually start to crystalize. So it does seem to be working fine. Likewise, the fridge also seems to be working fine, and I do hear the motor kicking in every so often (not paid much attention to how often though). So with the exception of the ice on the back of the fridge, and all the ice inside the freezer (which doesn't seem to have gotten any worse), it seems to be fine again.

As for the lightbulb ... when I moved in, the bulb was gone, so I replaced it. So the bulb that went on Tuesday was only put into the fridge in March.

So ... does it sound like my fridge freezer is going kaput ? And if it is, does it sound likely to be the motor, or the thermostat, or something else ? I had been planning to get it serviced anyway, so is it worth servicing/fixing ?

Thanks for any advice/opinions

The Red Ace

From your description the unit has all the hallmarks of a fridge that's down in refrigerant gas because of an internal leak. if it is short of gas it will run on continuously and on the back wall build up a lump of ice, it could cut out on the compressor safety t.o.c. but that would be due to the excessive high temp. of the motor due to the continuous run, with an internal leak it cant be fixed. without seeing the appliance very hard to diagnose correctly, it could be a thermostat but generally when they go faulty they rarely cut in and out as they should

IsThisOneFree

Thanks for the reply. It's not continuously running; while I'm not there all day, I do notice that it's not on when I get home from work, but everything in it is cool, so it must be coming on at some point. More importantly though, is it dangerous that it would be leaking gas, even internally ?

yammagamma

hi, fridge freezer dials often work the opposite as you would think depending on the make.. ie.turning it down to 2 actually cools it down so more ice would build up as your turning down the heat setting and turning it upto the 5 turns up the heat so the compressor would not have to kick in as much so you dont hear it running.. think of those numbers as warm heat settings

The Red Ace

refrigerant gas leaking is not dangerous as the most of them are not flammable, seeing as the unit is integrated and you are getting an ice build up if the ice is snowy the door is not sealing properly generally caused by the unit fractionally moving back into the kitchen unit preventing the magnetic door seal from sealing .if you think this may be the problem undo the retaining screws and move the fridge unit out a little and see if the problem is rectified