Refrigerator is not very cold?

Question

About once a week my refrigerator starts to get not very cold. I take every thing out of the freezer (which is still very cold), pull off the backing and the coils are covered with ice. I defrost it with my hairdryer and my fridge gets cold again. Any ideas what's going on? The fridge is about 13 years old, so I hate to call a repairman out (it would probably be cheaper just to replace it).

Answer 1

Take a look here for more ideas and a source for parts if you decide to try to repair it yourself.

http://www.repairclinic.com/0088_4_1.asp...

Answer 2

Two things come to mind. 1) You need a defrost timer which is normally located under the bottom of the fridge. 2) If you don't need a defrost timer you may need to replace the defrost heating elements that heat the coils up. The defrost timer is easy to replace, the coil heater is not as easy. It sounds like it's the timer though because it is running all the time. The defrost timer will shut the compressor down and turn the coil heater on every so often. Hope this helps.

Answer 3

It would either be the defrost timer, or heater. which is fairly easy to replace.  Also you would save a ton of money doing it yourself.  I would check out the repair center at http://www.apwagner.com they also will probably have the part you are looking for.