Frigidaire Upright Freezer Always running

[e-spice]

Model Number: LFFU14F5HWA
Brand: Frigidaire
Age: More than 10 years

I have an upright Frigidaire freezer, model LFFU14F5HWA that's about 15 years old. About 10 years ago, I had to replace the control panel on the door (part #297370600) because it would randomly stop cooling. It worked great since then.

A little background: It's in a basement that never gets excessively hot. The door is only opened 2-3 times per week. I inspected the door seal and it didn't have any obvious problems.

About a week ago, I started noticing the fan isn't turning off any more. I'm pretty sure the compressor is also running with the fan. To the best that I can tell the freezer is cooling fine. Everything in it is frozen solid. Temperatures range from 0F to about 15F depending on where I took it with a temperature gun. I took the back interior cover off this weekend and found a very large frozen puddle near the drain. The drain was also completely frozen. I thawed all that out, removed the drain tube and cleaned it. The drain tube did have some debris in it that may have been causing a blockage. The coils above the drain looked fine and weren't frozen over.

I was hopeful that would be all it needed. I gave it 24 hours to cool back down but the fan and compressor are still running continuously.

Any suggestions on what to troubleshoot next? Thanks in advance for any help.

[Doc Ryan]

Can you unplug it, take it apart again, then plug it in and let it run for 15-20 minutes? After that take a picture of the evaporator coil and post it here.

[e-spice]

Can you unplug it, take it apart again, then plug it in and let it run for 15-20 minutes? After that take a picture of the evaporator coil and post it here.

Thanks for the reply Ryan. I unplugged it, disassembled it, took a picture of the coils (see before photo), let it run for about 20 minutes, then took another picture (see after photo). Please let me know what you think. Thanks again!

Before


After

[Doc Ryan]

The "after" photo looks perfect. That is good!

When you put it back together and let it run for 24 hours, what is the temperature inside if you measure it with a thermometer?

What indicates to you that it is not cooling properly?

[e-spice]

Thanks for the help Ryan.

I just measured the temperature of some items inside the freezer. It varied from around -7F to 0F. Seems like it is cooling fine to me but it runs nearly constantly and is using about 115 watts. I don't recall it running continually before, in fact it was kind of rare to hear it running. There are no obvious problems with the door seal or else where heat is getting in the freezer. Any thoughts or suggestions on what I could try to make it run less, like it used to? Maybe a thermostat is malfunctioning?

Thanks again, I really appreciate the help.

[Doc Ryan]

This freezer uses the control board and a temperature sensor (thermistor) to control when the freezer runs to cool down. It should run until it reaches the set temperature and a little below, then cycle off where it will warm up enough until it triggers on again. There will probably be a plus or minus 5 degree Fahrenheit temperature swing is my guess. It will also go through an automatic defrost cycle maybe once a day for probably about 30 minutes where the compressor should shut off, but the defrost heater will kick on.

To start, you probably need a better way to monitor the temperature. You can get a thermometer with a built in logger similar to this that can better help you monitor what is happening.

Control Board - 297370600 (PD00000406)


Thermistor - 297018400 (PD00000796)

[e-spice]

I really appreciate the reply Ryan. I lowered the control board number which makes the unit run just a little less cold. That seems enough to keep it from running all the time, only half the time now (I have a way of pretty accurately measuring it). Not terrible but still seems like a lot to me since it is opened so infrequently. I could order either of those parts you mentioned if you think they would reduce the amount of time it stays on. Or I could just roll with it as is for now. Let me know what you think.

Thanks again for taking the time to reply to me. I appreciate your help and advice.

[Doc Ryan]

It's hard to know what normal run time is in your use case. My guess is that it is working normally. I don't think replacing parts is going to change anything.