One cause of icing up in a fridge or freezer can be a poorly fitting or damaged door seal. If the door seal becomes distorted the seal will start to allow warm moist air into the freezer or fridge. This will cause snowy ice to deposit around the point of entry which will eventually cause the compartment to completely ice up.
If the door seal is worn, then clearly it needs replacing but sometimes it’s just a matter of re-shaping the door seal with the aid of either a hair dryer or a warm cloth. Carefully heat the seal and try to form it back into the right shape closing the door and letting the seal cool before opening the door again.
Another possible cause of frost in fridge or freezer
If the fridge or freezer is not level, the cabinet may become twisted, this causes the door to not fit properly and the seal to not seal properly. This can allow gaps which again allows warm moist air to be drawn into the appliance. If affected make sure the appliance is properly level by adjusting the feet or if necessary by placing some packaging under the feet. You can always try the paper test, which is to place a piece of paper between the seal and the frame and see if it will hold, if it doesn’t the seal will be letting warm air into the unit.
Note: Some modern fridges and freezers do not have replaceable door seals. Only complete new doors. This is disgraceful but just another symptom of manufacturers making appliances less repairable in the race to make finished goods cheaper to manufacture.
On the subject of door seals it is not advisable to open any fridge or freezer door by curling your finger’s around the frame as this can result in the seal splitting. Always use the handle, and don’t forget if you do reshape a door seal always fully defrost the unit afterwards. Another point to remember is that if the door seal has split on the face that touches the frame it needs to be changed. If it is split on the outer side crease it is only cosmetically unsightly.
When placing food in the fridge or freezer
Introducing warm food, or uncovered food in dishes can introduce moisture, which can then ice up. Also when putting away shopping keep the doors open as little as possible. Read the instruction book section on fast the fast freeze button, which is designed to be used prior to introducing fresh food to see if you need to start using it.
Fridge & freezer spares and accessories
Fridge and freezer spares and accessories can be found on 4Washerhelp – Find fridge & freezer door seals and other spares
Hi,hoping for an answer as this is becoming a pest.My Hotpoint fridge freezer appears to work fine but the drain hole gets blocked quite frequently.The only answer so far is a complete de frost but its not long before the fridge is full of water again.I believe its ice that is blocking the tube but I dont know why or what we are doing to cause the ice to form.its definitely not blocked by anything but ice.
thanks
Hi
My John Lewis JLUCFZW6002 frost-free freezer sounded the high temp alarm the other day and after emptying it I discovered a large lump of ice under the element behind the rear internal panel (which I had to unscrew to obtain access). The general advice seemed to be to leave it 24h to defrost.
However I picked up a tip on how to defrost it quickly – use a desk fan to blow room air into the freezer. It had defrosted enough to allow me to remove the large block within an hour.
It seems to be Ok now, though I suspect (as mention in a comment on the other freezer page on this blog) that the drain hole isn’t big enough as it was blocked with ice. Will have to monitor it over the next few weeks.
Our 9 year old Hoover frost-free fridge/freezer has a recurring fault. The fridge section gets too cold and starts to freeze the contents. Changing the temp dial makes no difference. On 3 occasions we have defrosted the whole FF and the problem has gone, only to return after a time. Most recently, we only had two weeks before it started freezing produce again. Any ideas what the cause might be or is it time to invest in a new one? Thank you
If you have a recurring problem, which clears for a while after a full defrost but returns then either the issues I mention in my article are still present and the problem will reoccur indefinitely until fixed or there is another problem which needs investigating by a proper refrigeration engineer such as a faulty sensor or pcb.
Thank you so much for your speedy reply. If the fault were a sensor or pcb, are these costly things to repair, or in view of the age of the unit, should I be thinking about replacing it? Thank you.
Our Hoover frost free Fridge/Freezer has developed a fault whereby the bottom of the freezer is forming ice – there was also a piece of ice (about 2″ long) formed in the fridge at the side of the unit near where the drain hole is can you please help with what could be wrong or what to do to rectify the fault
janeinbushey: Sensors and pcb’s shouldn’t be too expensive to replace, a mid-price repair I would have thought.
Reena Hepburn: The water from defrosting should run down the back wall and be channeled through a small hole at the bottom out to a small tray on top of the main compressor where it evaporates. If the hole is blocked the water can instead run into the base of the appliance.