Wondering about safety of fridge freezer

[betamaxbandit]

Hello. I have a Bush fridge freezer that is about 5 years old now. It has an autodefrost feature. About 6 months ago i noticed ice was building up a lot in the bottom of the freezer and a local electrician suspected that the thermostat had gone. He replaced it and it seem to fix the problem for a few months. The ice is starting to build again so i called the electrician and he said it was best to get a new fridge freezer at this point. I can't get one before christmas so this one will be running for a month or two yet. Just wondering if it is a fire hazard if the componants inside are constantly building up with ice. Also, any recommendations for a new fridge freezer would be welcome in terms of the best make. My budget is about £500.

Thank you.

 

[Mikegh]

Maybe Google the brand see is there any results for fire
Can you relocate it to an outbuilding ?

Do you have working smoke alarms ?

 

[James]

just turn it off and leave the door open, after a couple of hours the ice has melted, dry with a T towel and turn back on.
repeat this procedure every 12 to 24 months.

 

[Lucien Nunes]

Is this a frost-free type where the cooling coils (evaporator) are hidden and a fan circulates the cold air, or does it have exposed cooling coils and plates? If the latter, there's no real hazard with ice building up, it just reduces the efficiency and makes it use more electricity to maintain the temperature. If it is frost free and the ice is building up within the hidden evaporator compartment where the fan is, it can eventually stop the fan running and then the contents of the freezer will defrost as the air won't circulate. But, also, if it is this type of unit, the likely cause of the ice buildup is a failed defrost timer or element, which are usually easy to replace and not expensive.

Or, of course, a leaky door seal that is just letting too much ambient air leak into the cabinet all the time and bringing in more moisture than the defrost can get rid of. Have you checked the seals are making good contact all round the door?

 

[betamaxbandit]

Hi everyone. To answer some questions. Yes, we have smoke alarams but I don't have any outdoor space that has an eletrical supply so it has to stay where it's always been in the kitchen. I could definitely turn the fridge off and let it defrost naturally but that would spoil all the contents that need to be kept cold/frozen. I don't have a temporary holing place for them while the fridge freezer did its thing. In regards to it being a conceiled setup, i believe it is. An electrician has replaced the defrost timer in the last few months and it seemed to fix it for a while but now its clearly failing again. The seals on the doors appear totally fine. His advice is to give up on it and buy a new fridge freezer since the cheap part replacement has failed. I spoke to him this morning and he assured me it wasn't an electrial hazard. I'm in the UK so brand wise he suggested i don't purchase another bush and instead choose something like hotpoint or indesit. Wont be able to get one until after christmas now but i'm happy to keep this one going if its not unsafe.

Thanks for everyones suggestions.

 

[pirate]

I wouldn't worry too much about the freezer contents thawing while the fridge/freezer defrosts. I used to put my frozen stuff in cool boxes with icepacks, but actually, I don't bother now. My freezer defrosts in less than half an hour, and the frozen food is still frozen. I just bung it all in a big cardboard box with a towel over it.

 

[telectrix]

I wouldn't worry too much about the freezer contents thawing while the fridge/freezer defrosts. I used to put my frozen stuff in cool boxes with icepacks, but actually, I don't bother now. My freezer defrosts in less than half an hour, and the frozen food is still frozen. I just bung it all in a big cardboard box with a towel over it.

a towel? suerly a canvas sail would be more appropriate

 

[Marvo]

If you pack your food into a cardboard box, stuff it full of scrunched up newspaper and stand the box on a towel or two the food should stay frozen for at least a day. Then switch the freezer off and leave the door open for 5 or 6 hours if it's an upright type freezer. Obviously put an old sheet down to catch the defrost water.

Chances are this will only be a temporary fix, there's probably a fault with the defrost element or timer. It's unlikely a faulty thermostat would cause freezing up with a 'frost free' type unit.

 

[brianmoooore]

Unlikely there's any danger, but without the auto defrost, the fridge may not work , depending on exactly how it's constructed.
Earlier in the year I had problems with an auto defrost fridge freezer. The timer module would regularly fail with the compressor off and the defrost heater on. Because the entire machine is emptied and totally defrosted one a week (and it was needed immediately), I decided that I could live without the auto defrost, so disabled the faulty timer so that it never disconnected the compressor and never connected the defrost heater.
Worked fine for about four days, but then it was reported that the fridge had stopped working, although the freezer was fine.
This type of fridge freezer uses a fan to suck air over the cooling coil in the freezer, through a duct into the fridge, and then through a second duct back into the freezer.
I found that the mouth of the duct that the air flows into was so close to the coil, that, without its every 12 hour defrost session, ice would build up in just a few days, and block the port, stopping the circulating air.

 

[Simon47]

We used to have a freezer with a faulty auto-defrost. It was one of those with an evaporator coil in the top, and air blown around. The electronics were supposed to detect it freezing up and switch on a small heater to melt the ice - but that didn't happen reliably.
One local specialist told us it needed some new (and of course, expensive) parts, but my late dad rang someone else (possibly the manufacturer) who told us to unload it, switch it off, and leave it for a couple of days. Fortunately, about this time, a mate had bought a house, and there was a spare freezer (faulty thermostat but that didn't matter) that we could put all the frozen food in.

It really did take a couple of days. Because it had been so well frozen up, the ice was really cold and solid - so it took a good while just to get to the point of thawing, and then even longer to actually thaw out. After that it was fine for a few years - then "rinse and repeat". Because the coil was rather well hidden, it wasn't really practical to do anything to accelerate the process.

 

[brianmoooore]

We used to have a freezer with a faulty auto-defrost. It was one of those with an evaporator coil in the top, and air blown around. The electronics were supposed to detect it freezing up and switch on a small heater to melt the ice - but that didn't happen reliably.
One local specialist told us it needed some new (and of course, expensive) parts, but my late dad rang someone else (possibly the manufacturer) who told us to unload it, switch it off, and leave it for a couple of days. Fortunately, about this time, a mate had bought a house, and there was a spare freezer (faulty thermostat but that didn't matter) that we could put all the frozen food in.

It really did take a couple of days. Because it had been so well frozen up, the ice was really cold and solid - so it took a good while just to get to the point of thawing, and then even longer to actually thaw out. After that it was fine for a few years - then "rinse and repeat". Because the coil was rather well hidden, it wasn't really practical to do anything to accelerate the process.

Sounds very similar to what happened to mine, but it looks like yours might have a much bigger gap to fill with ice before it stops the airflow. less than 10mm on mine.

 

[Simon47]

Not so much a gap, as a lot of little ones - af far as I could make out, it was a finned heat exchanger (i.e. a bit like a car radiator).
I've seen the problem with air conditioning units as well. What happens is that it just takes a small bit of the finning to drop below freezing and ice forms. If there's not a recovery cycle (such as the A/C being off) then that blocks hte airflow locally so that bit of the HE gets colder and the ice spreads. But the system still works because there's still a load of HE still working. Eventually the ice is restricting the airflow, and the remaining HE becomes less effective, so it gets noticed - but by then, the core of the ice is at whatever the evaporating temperature of the refrigerant is, which is "quite cold".

As an aside, the problem is actually worst if the air is very dry - hence a standard air conditioning system might just freeze up in a server room. In wet air, there's a lot of energy involved in condensing water out of the air, and so that keeps the temperature of the HE up enough to avoid frost. With dry air, the surface fo the HE gets colder, so what water there is in the air freezes onto the HE - and soon block is.
It can take some effort to interpret the performance tables for a system with all the permutations of external and internal air temperatures and humidities - if the manufacturer provides them.