My 2011 Whirlpool refrigerator

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maytagbear

Well-known member
Joined
Sep 5, 2004
Messages
6,314
Location
N.E. Ohio
is bugging me.

I swear that it has not cycled off in nearly 24 hours. It has performed flawlessly until now. I called Whirlpool's 1-866 help line, and they were not particularly concerned with it. Vents are clear, no visible frost in the freezer.... No idea at all. I scrolled down the temperature control to the place where it should be "off" over an hour ago, and it is still running. Could it be the control chip? The person on the other end of the phone said "if it is maintaining temperature, nothing to worry about."

When I bought it from a local mom and pop, I bought their extended warranty for five years....

I am more concerned about it than my Ohio Edison statement, but it is distressing.

Model EBS9SHKXVQ3

Serial K04719998

Thank you in advance.

Lawrence/Maytagbear
 
Refrigerator not shutting off

This is nonsense have you actually sat and listened to it for 24 hours?, relax have a drink and stop worrying, even if it did run 24 hours a day it would only add a few dollars to your monthly bill and I would try to get your money back for the 5 year service policy and spend it playing the lottery as you have a better chance of getting a return on your money, LOL.
 
Perhaps not literally 24 hours,

but truly 12 hours. I can attest to that.

Thank you, John, for replying. At least I did not buy Whirlpool's own policy, which was more money.

Lawrence/Maytagbear
 
Not shutting off:

Take a temperature test inside with a wi fi thermometer or IR gun. Provided it isn't feezing food, and is stayin below unsafe temps, all should be well. Bear in mind it will stop to defrost, and recovery on the newer models isn't too flash... Especially with undersized compressors many models have today. may have adaptive defrost; and won't go until there are enough for openings or frost buildup to go
 
It was running

when I went to bed around 1 am, it is running now, at almost 6 am.

Yes, the thermometer in the glass of water reads 40F.

A word about the layout of this apartment: the kitchen is literally about 10 steps from the bedroom.

L/Mb
 
Ehhhh, that doesn't sound right to me. My ref doesn't run more than 30-40 minutes without cycling off even during the hottest summer days when it can get up to 77F inside. 40F is a little on the high side, isn't it? I keep mine at 36-37F.
 
Refrigerator not shutting off

A little more seriously, if it keeps running this much I would schedule a service call to have a technician check the frost pattern on the evaporator, this is the best way to tell if the refrigerators sealed cooling system has enough refrigerant etc. You should first check to see if the condenser fan is running and that nothing is blocking air over the condenser in a major way, dust pieces of paper and plastic bags. Also check inside the freezer and refrigerator sections and be sure that something like a plastic bag or other piece of plastic or paper is not blocking a return vent or other air vents inside.

 

I probably should have taken your problem more seriously, but I cannot tell you how often we get a service call like yours and 90% of the time nothing is ever found to be wrong with the refrigerator. It is just funny the things we notice in life, two years ago my brother and I installed a new [ 1984 KM Hi Efficiency ] upright frost freezer in my pantry and I did lots of upgrades to make it even more efficient. We used a 3 year old compressor from a newer energy star GE SxS a 24 hour defrost timer and two 4 watt electronic fan motors and we mounted the whole compressor and condenser in the basement so the pantry would stay cooler.

 

Well since the compressor was mounted right in the ceiling of the shop where I almost always enter and leave the house from I soon decided that this system was running all the time. It truly seemed like every time I came in or out of the house it was running, so I connected a time recording clock and after a week or so we found that it was only running about 45% of the time, LOL.
 
Yes, please do schedule a service call. Better safe than sorry, IMO.

When we used our Heller cycic fridge (only), I found during hot weather that it would run through the day, cycle in the evenings and nights and the early morning. Thankfully with cyclics, one can tell if its cycles by drawing patterns in the frost on the evaporator plate. Our F&P freezer runs constantly on their factory setting (way too cold. At least -5F), including when indoor temps are 72*. I've clocked it back, and it cycles much more now. Perhaps the stat is going out, IDK.
 
Still running;

Fresh food compartment now 36F, same as outdoors.

Lawrence/Maytagbear.

Update: just called, and the refrigerator tech will be calling and coming in tomorrow. We will see what we will see.[this post was last edited: 3/26/2013-14:12]
 
Good luck Lawrence. A lot of techs today failed burgerflipper 101. They can only diagnose gross failures, like a search engine can. High duty cycle is subtle. Be aware, it can just be your perception. Just because it was running at 1A and again at 6A doesn't tell you what it did in the meantime. I can hear mine run from bed too, but only if I'm wide awake the whole time. Which thanks to cheap wine I'm not.

You're right, if it really is running long cycles it is costing more than it needs to. That's why they charge you by kilowatt HOURS. But perception of 'when you think a fridge should or shouldn't run' is highly subjective. I catch mine running when I think it shouldn't and not running when I think it should. Overall it operates properly.

While anything is possible, it is not a characteristic failure for sealed systems to lose capacity or stretch duty cycles doing the same work. You have confirmed that you are fully closing the doors, right? That has bit me in the butt more than once.
 
Are the condensor heat sinks under your fridge clean?No dust or packing material left in them?The condensor fan draws in lots of dust as the fridge runs-that reminds me--got to vacuum mine!!Since the box is going on three years old-there might be a few dust bunnies under there blocking airflow.Esp if you have pets.Their hair can clog the system.
 
I have the control-

-electronic, unfortunately, set at - -, and it is still running.

I am getting a phone call tomorrow (Thursday) to set up an appointment time for Friday.

Lawrence/Maytagbear
 
Pete,. it is taking

a technician ordered 24 hours off with both doors open and towels spread in front, for the frost accumulation to melt.

I didn't want the several hundred dollars' worth of meat and other things in the freezer anyway. (that's meant all ironic-like. No one nearby had any freezer space.)

Thanks for asking,

Lawrence/Maytagbear
 
Defrost Problems With A 3 Year Old WP Ref

I am glad they found a problem that will cause the ref to run an excessive amount of time or even continuously. When refrigerators do not go through their automatic defrost cycle the temperature raises in the refrigerator section and the back wall of the freezer is coated with frost. You did say that the refrigerator was staying at 40 degrees { which is really too warm but some people like their refs at this temperature ] and I should have questioned this and it likely was even warmer by the time service arrived.

 

BUT in all my 30+ years of repairing refrigerators I have NEVER walked into a customers house that still had a freezer full of frozen food and told them as I left that they had to leave the food out to thaw and left them with no working refrigerator, unless they had another place to put the frozen food AND they wanted to do so. Needless to say they you should give them a bill for any lost food.

 

This goes back to my original post in this thread, NEVER BUY A SERVICE CONTRACT [ especially from an independent third party company ] unless you have money and time to burn and like abuse. It is most unlikely that this ref needed all those parts and it is strictly against Whirlpools service policy to leave a customer with a non working refrigerator when it can be easily defrosted in less than an hour and put back into proper operation.
 
Sounds like a shoddy repair to me too

If the tech was in to replace the evaporator fan, it wouldn't take much time at all to pull out a heat gun and defrost it then and there. Its the ONLY way he/she could know it was working properly anyhow.

The question I have is what part failed to cause the lack of defrost in the first place? Defrost timer quit?? It is possible the evaporator fan may have been damaged if it was frozen over and stalled (maybe), but I can't see a need to shotgun a control board into it. Perhaps its all about the warranty replacement profit on the parts.

Condolences on the loss of the frozen goods Lawrence. Hopefully this will put things straight and you will have a long trouble free appliance after this!
 
Sounds like a shoddy repair to me too

X2. Sounds like he threw parts at it instead of taking time to diagnose the specific problem. Well, hopefully the problem was fixed. Keep us updated.
 
I think we know the control board was bad.  The fridge kept running when set to "OFF."

 

Phil's suggestion that the evaporator fan motor may have burned out after its blades were immobilized by accumulated ice certainly sounds plausible to me. 

 

It seems to me that even if the fridge was running for a few days non-stop, that would not be long enough for a large glacier to form on the evaporator and cause its fan to seize up.  That points me to the defrost timer.  I think if the defrost timer is dependent on the control board, it wouldn't have necessarily needed to be replaced.  If the defrost timer operates autonomously, I would consider it the prime suspect for causing solid ice to accumulate on the evaporator and wreck the evaporator fan.

 

It sounds like both the control board and defrost timer went bad, perhaps either of them failing because the other one did, and the evaporator fan was collateral damage.

 

Regardless, none of this forgives the tech for not de-icing the evaporator so the refrigerator could be used immediately afteward. 
 
I seriously doubt a refrigerator this new has a defrost timer. Most all fucntions are controled by the main control board, that most likely activates a relay on the board to turn on the defrost heater. To quote a link text " GE electronic refrigerators have a main board. This main board controls every function from defrost, fan speed, the compressor and even compressor speed. To control the defrost cycle, the main board monitors things such as how many times and how long the door is open, as well as length of past defrost cycles to adjust to environment and usage and adapts.

This ensures that the refrigerator doesn’t defrost too often while at the same time ensuring that it defrosts enough to maintain the evaporator coils. There are four things that can cause a defrost problem on a GE electronic refrigerator and they are the main board, the defrost thermostat, the evaporator thermistor and the defrost heater. Follow the directions below to diagnose which of the four parts are bad."

Also shaded pole motors are not prone to burn out due to their construction, even in a locked rotor state. It just sounds to me like this guy wanted to pad his bill. A friend at work has a Whirlpool french door model, and his either wasn't defrosting or was stuck in defrost mode, I can't remember. But they had to replace the main board on his. The funny thing was his parents liked that fridge, so they bought one and had the same problem. So far my 2010 GE Profile SXS has been flawless.

http://www.appliance-repair-it.com/defrost-problem.html
 
Couldn't anyone

be glad that it's fixed?

Couldn't anyone have some sympathy for the food loss and the time loss?

As for the methodology the tech used...... It was covered. I could not have afforded any repair this time of the month.

I am thinking about leaving here for good and for all.

Lawrence/Maytagbear
 
Lawrence/Maytagbear

 

Our 2009 Whirlpool did the same in 2010.  I just read through this thread and just like yours it ran and ran and did not keep coolenough,  We had (have warrenty like yu was able to put frozen food in chest freezer.  They same parts had to be replaced as yurs and knock wood it has run like a champion since.    It took 2 weeks for service to come out and say what was wrong and 3 more days to get the parts and come back and fix it.  We had our old Amana in the garage so could shuffle food there. 

 

My thinking is the top freezer and SxS's were made in Ft. Smith and the last few years big time layoffs until the moved everything to Mexico.  The last couble of years they ran production mostly with Temp Help.  That factory went from 6.000 plus employess in 2000 to empty today.  Just had on our local news that now the site is hazordous waste site. 

 

I am so glad you got it fixed and did not loose anything. 

 

Like I said ours has been doing good since.
 
 
Lawrence, of course it's great your refrigerator is fixed!  Many people aren't attuned to the behavior and operation of their appliances.  The average consumer likely wouldn't have noticed the off-kilter run pattern and the problem would have progressed with freezer and fresh food temps continuing to rise due to the insufficient airflow and cooling.

Brings to mind the time I was visiting one of my aunts, sitting in her kitchen for just a few minutes I noticed her refrigerator compressor repeatedly trying to start and clicking-off on overload.  I brought it to her attention.  She hadn't noticed and didn't know that it indicated a problem.  The problem apparently had just started within a couple/few hours as the inside temps hadn't yet noticeably increased.  She called for service and told me later that a part was bad (start relay).
 
Oh Lawrence

Totally missed this thread because of the resurrection of all the closed threads, can't keep up reading at the moment.

Anyway, I'm sorry to hear about your trouble with your almost new fridge. Darn! But glad you got it repaired and that the repair was covered. Indeed a pity about the food that was lossed, but better safe than sorry. I hope you were able to safe some by using it instantly.

Hope you are well! Sometimes it's hard to live with us, but you can't live without us either.

Best wishes,

Louis
 
Sorry for your situation and glad its up and running again. could have been worse. in the early 2000's bought a new amana ss. had it about 2 months and went on vacation. came home 2 weeks later and walked in the door and the smell just about knocked me over. the unit had never defrosted and while we were gone it froze up entirely. everything in the freezer was melted and rotting. frig section was no better. at least amana sent me a check for 300.00 to cover some of the cost of the food. they replace the defrost timer and took the back cover of the freezer off and used a heat gun to melt the glacier. lasted 10 years then the compressor quit. i guess you never have these problems with a manual defrost system.
Jon
 
Whirlpool fridge too warm

Glad to hear Maytagbear's fridge is ok. I am adding my experiences for those who have the same brand of fridge and will probably encounter these issues. I don't work for Whirlpool but another company that makes appliances.
My Kitchenaid (Whirlpool) 2005 side-by-side has developed the "too warm in the fridge compartment" twice.
Both had different causes. I fixed both.
In the first case, the fridge ran warm but the freezer was cold. I DID notice that in the preceding weeks I would hear a strange mechanical noise periodically. It sounded a bit like Pac-Man.
As it turns out, the motorized air-door at that allows freezer air to enter the refrigerator compartment was stuck closed. In my case it is in the top rear of the refrigerator compartment. You can determine this part is faulty by putting the fridge into the service mode and opening/closing the air-door. Or just using a hand mirror from time to time to see if it ever opens.
Anyway, I replaced same part (It was labeled "made in China" yeesh). And that problem went away.

Years later, the fridge went warm again. The evaporator in the freezer iced up. I defrosted it and all was well for six months and it iced up again. I didn't know cause so I defrosted again. This happened about three times.
The last time I put the unit into defrost with the service mode but the defrost Calrod heater was cold. No AC was getting to the Calrod. When I went to check the defrost thermostat I heard " BING" and all of a sudden the AC was flowing again.
I replaced the defrost thermostat and never had the icing trouble again.
 

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