Fridge water dispenser frozen.... again.

tony glenn

Is there a quick way of de-freezing the water dispenser in my Samsung side-by-side fridge freezer?
It stopped working last September, and thanks to Boards advice, I switched off the appliance for 24 hours and the problem was solved. Until now.
It's happened again, and this time there's nowhere to store the frozen food for 24 hours.
So, my question is... can I just play some hairdryer heat on any particular area to melt the frozen part...and if so, which part?
Thanks in advance for any advice?

Best thing would be to run down the freezer stocks and defrost it then.

NickNickleby

Had a Samsung side-by-side myself. Bought it about 2000-2004. It had a flaw. THis flaw caused a few problem - or rather -symptoms.



There's a water reservoir in the bottom of the fridge part. Either the water pipe into it or out of it has frozen, or the reservoir itself has frozen. To get at it, I had to remove the veg drawers and some shelves and remove a back panel INSIDE the fridge. It was easy enough but I am very handy with this stuff, and have experience working on electronic equipment. Which was lucky, as removing the back panel exposed some electrical stuff. I warmed the area with a hairdryer and it worked - once. Subsequent incidents required complete defrost.

The problem is caused by a failed heater circuit (IN A FREEZER:eek:) yep. Its what makes the fridge auto defrost. Allegedly. But certain versions had dud circuits. I actually looked it up on youtube and did the fix myself. Not cheap, but cheaper than replacing the whole fridge.

For a while I just did a defrost schedule, because eventually the cooler element got covered in frost and stopped cooling the fridge - but the freezer continued to work ok.

And now for my get out of jail card. I'm pretty handy at this stuff, and also am remarkably lucky. Unless you're experienced with electrical equipment, I wouldn't advice going at this yourself. The italicised bits above are the best procedure, and safest. The rest, which might appear as fluff, is just to give you an idea of what's happening. Its a PITA, but the fridge is brilliant apart from this problem. Eventually mine gave up the ghost, but I bought another one (newer, and hopefully with that problem resolved - a year later its still grand).

Hope this helps

NickNickleby

Do you know what - I probably shouldn't have posted my previous reply.

At the end of the day, dolanbaker said it best, its the only real fix. Bear in mind that the frozen water supply isn't the end of the world, but a frozen cooler element IS - and defrosting is the only way to fix BOTH the water and cooler element.

Defrosting the water reservoir on its own won't remove frost from the cooler element. And THAT's where real problems might happen (food spoiled).

Apologies to both you and dolanbaker for introducing possible confusion.

tony glenn

NickNickleby wrote: »

Do you know what - I probably shouldn't have posted my previous reply.

At the end of the day, dolanbaker said it best, its the only real fix. Bear in mind that the frozen water supply isn't the end of the world, but a frozen cooler element IS - and defrosting is the only way to fix BOTH the water and cooler element.

Defrosting the water reservoir on its own won't remove frost from the cooler element. And THAT's where real problems might happen (food spoiled).

Apologies to both you and dolanbaker for introducing possible confusion.

Many thanks for the detailed and informative replies....and yes, I guess a full defrost is the way to go. Having said that, I have previously enjoyed replacing the ice maker water input assembly, that was easy enough...and fascinating to see the basic mechanics used in filling and emptying the ice tray!