If your fridge-freezer has developed a fault where the freezer has defrosted, or is not getting cold enough and it’s in a garage, and the temperature is very cold, it could just be that it isn’t suitable for putting in a garage..
.. A surprising number of fridge-freezers in the UK end up in a garage or in an outbuilding. However, did you know that many are not capable of running properly if the temperature surrounding the appliance drops too low?
When winter comes, many people find that their freezer starts to defrost. However, it’s also possible for unrelated faults to cause the freezer part of a fridge freezer to defrost or not get cold enough, so don’t automatically assume the cause is as described in this article
All refrigeration has what’s called a climate class rating, which states the minimum and maximum temperature the appliance is designed to work within. I believe the overwhelming majority of consumers have never heard of climate class so surely its the responsibility of retailers to advise customers about it when selling refrigeration?
Which fridge freezers can defrost in a garage?
It’s combined fridge-freezers. If a combined fridge freezer has only one thermostat (or sensor), which is sited inside the fridge section, it is likely to be affected by this problem. If the ambient temperature of the room it’s placed in gets to around freezing, then the fridge thermostat is likely to shut off. When this happens on appliances with only one thermostat the freezer also shuts off. If the temperature remains cold for several hours then the fridge thermostat will not come back on.
It doesn’t need to because inside the fridge compartment will be plenty cold enough. In really cold weather it is possible for the fridge thermostat to stay off for a long time. Whilst ever the thermostat for the fridge remains off the compressor will stop running and the freezer will eventually start to warm up, at least to roughly the ambient temperature of the garage, which although cold, is not cold enough for frozen food.
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As a rule of thumb I would say that if you can set separate temperatures for your fridge and the freezer section I would assume there are separate thermostats controlling the freezer and therefore this issue shouldn’t affect your appliance. (Article continues below..)
What about chest freezers?
Chest freezers should not suffer from this specific issue because they have their own thermostatic control and do not try to control the temperature of two separate compartments. However, if the temperature in the garage significantly exceeds that of its climate class it can’t be guaranteed to work without any issues. Also, if there is little ventilation and or condensation it can cause premature rust and even damage to components inside. I have seen many chest freezers in garages over the years that seem to fair reasonably ok although modern ones may not be so well built.
Is this a bad design? – Problems below 10 degrees?
Manufacturers would say they design them to be installed in a kitchen. However, to me it does seem less than ideal to rely on only one sensor or stat to control two different parts of the appliance (just to save money). Many fridge freezers do have separate stats. As saving money is the only possible advantage I can think of it’s therefore presumably more likely to affect the cheaper range of fridge freezers.
Also, there are reports that many refrigeration appliances are not guaranteed to work properly if temperatures drop below 10 degrees centigrade. I would imagine many people have appliances in parts of their homes and even in some kitchens where the temperature can drop below 10 degrees during the night or – what about when on holiday in the winter when the heating may be left off or on low enough only to prevent freezing?
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If an appliance is installed in a kitchen and temperature drops during the night or holiday periods cause it problems I would say that’s a design issue. You cannot be expected to keep the heating on 24/7 to keep an appliance running. However, if installed in an out building or garage I would think you have much less of a claim other than why weren’t you asked at the point of sale where you would be installing the appliance?
What can be done about it?
A fridge freezer with only one thermostat operating inside the fridge compartment is not suitable to run in a particularly cold environments. If affected you need to either exchange it for a fridge freezer with two thermostats controlling the fridge and freezer independently, or swap it for a separate fridge and freezer, or you need to somehow stop the environment from getting below 4 °C (which is likely to be impractical).
Do I have any comeback if my fridge freezer doesn’t work in my garage?
The short answer is probably not, at least not with the manufacturer, you have placed it in an environment it is not designed for. If it was me I might be annoyed though that the person I bought it from did not enquire as to whether I intended to place it in a garage or not. I would argue this problem is in no way common public knowledge, but most retailers are well aware of it because they get called out to them all the time.
All manufacturers and aftersales engineers also know about this issue because they too get called out lots of times under guarantee and have to tell the customer there’s no “fault” on the appliance and it’s not covered under guarantee. Some might say it’s the responsibility of the shop you bought it from to advise at the point of sale that it is not suitable for fitting in a garage or other outbuilding because the companies (not necessarily individual sales staff) know that so many people place them there. I don’t know whether trading standards would agree or not.
At one time, Comet, one of the largest UK retailers of such appliances carried out a survey where they found that around 15% of call outs to fridge freezers were caused by them being placed incorrectly in a garage or another building subject to very cold temperatures. This being the case, I would have thought it common sense for all their sales staff to be instructed to ask any customer buying such a fridge freezer where they intended to site it but they never were.
This is not only in the customer’s interest but in the interest of the retailer as any customer affected by this problem is likely to be pretty upset about it. At the end of the day it’s unlikely that any retailer is legally obliged to check on these matters but personally I believe they should because it’s very common for people to site fridge freezers in their garage and they should know that.
If affected, is my appliance damaged, or will it recover if moved to somewhere warmer?
If the freezer is defrosting due to the room being so cold it switches off the thermostat inside the fridge – and the fridge freezer is only controlled with one thermostat in the fridge (no stat or sensor in the freezer) then no damage should be inflicted. The freezer has only stopped working because the fridge stat has stopped working. Once temperatures increase it should work normally again. However, make sure you don’t wrongly assume this is the cause of a defrosting freezer as of course faults can occur causing freezers to stop working too.
Could a fridge-freezer start to defrost in a kitchen during winter months if the heating isn’t on?
This question has been asked a few times and I am presuming yes, there could be a problem if you have a fridge-freezer with only one thermostat controlling both the fridge and freezer and you go away on holiday when its cold. I’m not sure how most people do it, but normally when we go away we leave the heating off but we’ve never gone away in winter. If you went away and didn’t leave the heating on low (say around 14 – 15 degrees) then potentially during prolonged cold periods if the ambient temperature in the kitchen drops low enough (around 0 – 4 degrees C or colder) the fridge thermostat or sensor is likely to shut off as the temperature in the fridge becomes cool enough.
This won’t be an issue for the contents of the fridge because of course it’s reached the correct temperature. But if the freezer compartment is also controlled by the stat inside the fridge then this will stop the freezer coming on too. Therefore if the temperature remained cold enough to not require further cooling inside the fridge compartment then freezer compartment will not get any further cooling and after sufficient time has passed will start to thaw out.
The chances are if this did occur then unless you have an appliance with a warning light or sound to indicate the temperature of the freezer has warmed up enough to adversely affect the quality of the frozen food you might not realise the food has partially defrosted compromising its quality.
My advice would be that if you think you could be affected then if any food inside the freezers seems a little off when you thaw it out to use then throw it away. If you do have a fridge freezer that sounds or displays a warning if the temperature has been compromised you should assume the food has been partially defrosted even if it is rock solid when you come back.
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Washerhelp says
Mrs Bishop, the problem isn’t anything to do with parts on the appliance getting too cold. It’s the air temperature of the room it is placed in getting too cold and causing the air temperature inside the fridge to drop low enough to turn the thermostat off – which in turn stops the freezer compartment getting colder (if the fridge freezer is operated with only one thermostat inside the fridge compartment).
Nothing can be done other than to move it to a warmer place or make the room warmer. It’s a design issue. You can’t claim it’s a design fault easily though because the appliance is designed to be used in a kitchen inside a house and states in the instruction book or on the back of the appliance the climate class
The only thing you can attempt to claim is that the company that sold it to you should have asked where you were going to site the appliance and advised you either not to do it or to buy a different model that wouldn’t be so affected because they should realise that it’s pretty common for people to place refrigeration appliances in garages. How successful that would be is unknown as it’s a grey area and only really based on common sense – not consumer law.
Dave Hutton says
Thank you for your reply. However, it didn’t address the issue that if I bring the freezer back into the warm, will it then work again or is it permanently damaged? I’ve had to buy another one now to save our Christmas fayre, but it I’d like to know anyway before it take it to the tip.
Washerhelp says
It did Dave, but a little indirectly. I was trying to say I think the problem you are having may not be related to this issue because it just affects some fridge-freezers. The issue of being in a cold place is that if the air temperature of the room drops below the temperature that the thermostat inside the fridge compartment is set to, which is typically between 0 and 5 degrees C then the thermostat will cut power to the compressor and stop getting cold. This isn’t a problem for the fridge compartment because it’s cold (unless the temperature was to drop well below freezing in which case the food and milk could freeze).
It is a problem for a fridge-freezer though if it’s one that doesn’t have a separate thermostat or sensor inside the freezer compartment because when the fridge thermostat stays off for several hours because it’s cold enough to not need further cooling inside the fridge – the freezer section can start to warm up.
If the temperature of a garage went to say -5 degrees for a couple of days and nights the fridge compartment would be cold enough to not require the compressor to run but the freezer compartment is typically set to minus 18 degrees so it might need further cooling but it can’t because the only thermostat is in the fridge and it’s not being triggered to run the compressor. Therefore the freezer compartment might start to get warmer and be raised up to a similar temperature to the ambient room temperature – which although -5 degrees isn’t cold enough to preserve food needing to be at -18.
The point I’m trying to make is that a stand alone freezer will have it’s own thermostat which is set at around -18 degrees so its thermostat should only be affected by the ambient temperature of the room it’s in if it dropped below -18 and even if it did it wouldn’t be a problem because that’s cold enough to maintain the right temperature for the food inside.
As the freezer has worked ok for the last 2 years I’m speculating if it’s now defrosting it shouldn’t be due to the cold temperature of the room – at least not because of the issue described in this article.
If by any chance it was I would expect an affected appliance to work fine if moved to a warmer place as no damage would be done.
Russ_G_UK says
Hi,
Just to add to this – we have just bought a Beko CDA660FS which is designed to work in ambient temperatures down to -15 Deg C but this wasn’t the reason we bought it as it was to go into the kitchen. Our old fridge freezer has been moved from the kitchen to the garage as additional freezer space (and my beer fridge :-) ) and we are now experiencing the same problems as everybody else with the freezer stuff defrosting. Unfortunately the Beko is too tall and too new to be moved into the garage :-(. Luckily we still have a small chest freezer in the garage for now but I’m working on some way of insulating the fridge freezer to keep it’s temp up so it will operate.
Kerry says
ahhhh help if i move my two fridge freezers into my slightly warmer kitchen will they start working again ? or are they completely broken now ?
Kerry says
i have two up right fridge freezers both in utility room at moment (which is so cold the toilet cistern has frozen water in it so can’t flush) I know that i have same problem as everyone else on this page just need to know if i move the fridge freezers into my slightly warmer kitchen whether it will make them work again or whether they are broken beyond repair ?
Dave Hutton says
I tried moving my Chest freezer back into the house to see if it would work again. Although it got cold, it didn’t get to freezing temperature. Regretably, I had to make a hasty purchase of a new one just before Christmas to save the food we have been preparing over the last couple of months. Hence, the old one will be on it’s way to the re-cycling tip this week.
I have come to the conclusion that most electrical items that we purchase these days only have a shelf life of approximately 2-3 years. I suspect that they are designed that way to keep the market alive. In the old days. one would get hold of the relevant part (a condenser in this case) and that would give another few years service. Today, we can’t be bothered or the parts are so expensive, it is almost cheaper to buy new. I bought an expensive Roberts Radio for my wife a couple of years ago. The sort of thing one would treasure for many years to come. Having developed a serious fault yesterday, it will follow the freezer to the graveyard.
On the positive side, though, it does mean that we get new, up-to-date kit, even if we have to pay for it!
Mike says
To all of those people who have commented above on this subject – well done!
This site/topic thread of all those I have seen on the subject has been the most comprehensively written, technically correct and eloquent one made. As a professional Chartered Mechanical Engineer I’m really pleased to see some sensible, articulate conversation and advice given here. Essentially it’s the designers/manufacturers at fault here. In their perpetual pursuit of profit, saving a few pounds by omitting a second thermostat gives rise to all those issues that have been discussed. Bring back those robust designs of yester-year when every white appliance seemed to last for a minimum of ten years without fault!
I too have the same problem with our second fridge/freezer combo located in the garage. However, I’ve always assumed that as our house boiler is located in there that it would have been above the minimum ambient temperature required to operate. Sadly in this recent cold snap this has proven not to be so – all frozen items are now soft.
I will re-locate the whole unit to a warmer environment and see if that works (I have high hopes that it should). I would recommend this course of action to all others who have suffered the same fate.
Thanks for all your contributions folks, keep up the good work!
Mike
Washerhelp says
Russ_G_UK: Thanks for your input. What climate class is the Beko CDA660FS? As far as I know the lowest ambient temperature for refrigeration appliances in the UK is SN, which is only down to 10 Deg C.
Kerry: If the freezer section has stopped working because it’s gone so cold the fridge thermostat has shut off and stayed off (and there isn’t a separate thermostat or sensor controlling the freezer section) then there’s no reason why any damage should have occurred. Things should work fine again when the temperature increases. if the freezer has stopped working because of an unrelated fault though then it will still be there when the temperature increases.
Mike: Many thanks for your kind comments. If your fridge freezer is affected the problem can occur if the temperature in the garage drops below either 18, 16 or 10 degrees, which even with a boiler in there I wouldn’t be surprised at. Check the climate class
Russ_G_UK says
Washerhelp: I’m pretty sure it’s SN but there was a big sticker on the door of it to say “designed to work in temperatures down to -15. As it’s in a nice cosy corner of the kitchen, I’ll never find out (unless this cold spell continues any longer :-))