Troubleshooting a defrost problem on a GE Profile model TCD18PADBWW

[Big Bubba]

Hello to everyone and Happy Memorial Day to everyone,
Anyway, I am trying to help my sister out in fixing her refrigerator not cooling issue. Anyway, she has a GE Profile, model TCD18PADBWW, that has the freezer with ice maker in the bottom compartment and the fridge in the upper compartment. She just started having problems with it as of last week not cooling the fridge or it is warm after a bit. I am thinking she is having a defrost issue so I went over to her house today to look at it. Anyway, I took the panel off to expose the coils but she had already removed the food and had turned the fridge off last week because of the non-cooling fridge issue. Anyway, I removed the Bi-metal Defrost Thermostat and it has a orange and a yellow wire coming off of it and what I was thinking was it might be bad so what I did is unplugged the fridge to keep from getting shocked and jumpered the yellow and orange wires and then turned the fridge back on to see if the defrost heater would come on and it did not and neither did the fridge shuttoff so I am thinking maybe it is the defrost heater that is bad and not the bi-metal defrost thermostat. What do you guys think. I am by no means a refrigerator technician but trying to save my sister some money and fix it myself.

 

[Big Bubba]

Re: Troubleshooting a defrost problem on a GE Profile model TCD18PADBWW

Yeah, before I left her house today I told her to leave it on and have the divertor valve in the fridge compartment set to allow full airflow and the temperature control to be at the 9 setting and she said it was cooling at 40 degrees according to the mercury thermometer we left inside of the fridge compartment upper shelf.

 

[bigdee]

Re: Troubleshooting a defrost problem on a GE Profile model TCD18PADBWW

Let it run for 48 hours then check coil for ice buildup. If there is ice check the defrost timer by manually turning it until you hear it click and the compressor shut off. If ice melts then it is the timer (most common) check to make sure the circulating fan is running when compressor is running and then check the defrost heater.

 

[Big Bubba]

Re: Troubleshooting a defrost problem on a GE Profile model TCD18PADBWW

OK just got back from my sister's house with the refrigerator not cooling issue. Anyway, I did some more troubleshooting and did verify that the defrost heater does glow read(works) when the defrost timer is manually advanced by me and I take the defrost thermostat and place it in a bag of ice. Once the defrost heater came on after waiting for the thermostat to kick in I removed the defrost thermostat out of the bag of ice and waited for the defrost heater to shut off then waited until the refrigerator came back on again and it did come back on the inside cooling coil fan the outside fan and the compressor, which do work fine. So after that I went ahead and replaced the inside panels back on and pushed and let the refrigerator run at setting "5" and see what happens from here. I will see what happens and see if the coils freeze over if they do the only thing to do is replace the defrost thermostat because everywhere I look on the web site says there hard to troubleshoot and can run intermittently. So we will see. If anyone has any other suggestions I am open to them because I am no refrigeration technician by no means and am learning as I go.

 

[bigdee]

Re: Troubleshooting a defrost problem on a GE Profile model TCD18PADBWW

OK just got back from my sister's house with the refrigerator not cooling issue. Anyway, I did some more troubleshooting and did verify that the defrost heater does glow read(works) when the defrost timer is manually advanced by me and I take the defrost thermostat and place it in a bag of ice. Once the defrost heater came on after waiting for the thermostat to kick in I removed the defrost thermostat out of the bag of ice and waited for the defrost heater to shut off then waited until the refrigerator came back on again and it did come back on the inside cooling coil fan the outside fan and the compressor, which do work fine. So after that I went ahead and replaced the inside panels back on and pushed and let the refrigerator run at setting "5" and see what happens from here. I will see what happens and see if the coils freeze over if they do the only thing to do is replace the defrost thermostat because everywhere I look on the web site says there hard to troubleshoot and can run intermittently. So we will see. If anyone has any other suggestions I am open to them because I am no refrigeration technician by no means and am learning as I go.

You sound like a methodical trouble shooter...good work! Yeah, let her run and see what happens. I would still suspect the timer,sometimes they hang and manually moving it will get it going again for awhile.

 

[Tim Frank]

Re: Troubleshooting a defrost problem on a GE Profile model TCD18PADBWW

Yeah, before I left her house today I told her to leave it on and have the divertor valve in the fridge compartment set to allow full airflow and the temperature control to be at the 9 setting and she said it was cooling at 40 degrees according to the mercury thermometer we left inside of the fridge compartment upper shelf.

If that is all the cooling that you are getting, why do you think it is a defrost problem in such a short time?

I'd be looking elsewhere.

 

[MH Hawker]

Re: Troubleshooting a defrost problem on a GE Profile model TCD18PADBWW

Check the defrost water drain tube their known to plug up and cause a freezing issue and stop cooling in the bottom.

 

[Big Bubba]

Re: Troubleshooting a defrost problem on a GE Profile model TCD18PADBWW

BigDee,
Yeap, I will let her run, the refrigerator, and see if the coils ice over. I told my sister on the phone today that I will stop over at her house on this Sunday to see what the coils look like and if they look like they are iced over really severely then I told her we will order a defrost Thermostat and a Defrost Timer and swap them out. They look like there cheap parts anyway so it will not hurt to replace both if I see on Sunday that the coil is severely frost/iced over. Now, I did notice on her defrost thermostat that one side of it, the black plastic piece that sits on the metal piece is lifting up on it on one side and the other side is flush. I did do some research and the internet is saying tom replace the defrost thermostat if there are any signs of it buldging so that might be why my sister is having issues with her refrigerator.

 

[Big Bubba]

Re: Troubleshooting a defrost problem on a GE Profile model TCD18PADBWW

///////UPDATE/////
We'll the icing over condition came back again on my sister's refrigerator so I had her purchase a defrost timer and a defrost thermostat and I went ahead and replaced both of them and turned the refrigerator back on again and she is running. So I went ahead and kept her old parts that I removed form the refrigerator and for my sanity placed the defrost thermostat inside my freezer section, the ice bucket, for about an hour and a half and I did a continuity check on the thermostat and it is showing open, no continuity to safe it's life, and I did this a few times after letting it sit in my freezer for a while and the same thing the defrost thermostat just does not have continuity at all even at freezing conditions it is exposed to. So I am pretty confident that the defrost thermostat is bad.

 

[bigdee]

Re: Troubleshooting a defrost problem on a GE Profile model TCD18PADBWW

///////UPDATE/////
We'll the icing over condition came back again on my sister's refrigerator so I had her purchase a defrost timer and a defrost thermostat and I went ahead and replaced both of them and turned the refrigerator back on again and she is running. So I went ahead and kept her old parts that I removed form the refrigerator and for my sanity placed the defrost thermostat inside my freezer section, the ice bucket, for about an hour and a half and I did a continuity check on the thermostat and it is showing open, no continuity to safe it's life, and I did this a few times after letting it sit in my freezer for a while and the same thing the defrost thermostat just does not have continuity at all even at freezing conditions it is exposed to. So I am pretty confident that the defrost thermostat is bad.

Congratulations! You sound like a person with excellent analytical reasoning and being able to convert logic to method and then test things to prove your theory....welcome to the old school.

 

[Big Bubba]

Re: Troubleshooting a defrost problem on a GE Profile model TCD18PADBWW

Thank you bigdee. Yeap, I left the old thermostat that I removed from my sisters refrigerator in my freezer all night long last night and tested continuity this morning with my meter and nope, Nada, no continuity at all so it is a dead thermostat for sure and that explains why her refrigerator would not defrost when it was supposed to the thermostat was keeping power from reaching the defrost heater to turn it on. She should not have anymore issues with it freezing up on her after I installed a OEM, GE, brand new matching thermostat. Will sit back and see what happens but veruy confident that that was the problem.

 

[BlkY2k]

Re: Troubleshooting a defrost problem on a GE Profile model TCD18PADBWW

Check the defrost water drain tube their known to plug up and cause a freezing issue and stop cooling in the bottom.

I worked maintenance in a large complex here and we used to get this problem all the time. One of the guys I worked with came up with the idea to take a piece of copper wire 6" or so and wrap it around the coil once and then put the other end down the drain tube. When it would go into defrost it would clear the ice from the tube at the same time.