Refrigerator expert help needed for the meat locker

yzzi

CtTOPGUN said:

 Eliminating the defrost heater or timer is fine for short term. But as the frost builds it will begin to impact temps if self defrost is defeated. Figure 4-7 days before it gets bad enough to affect airflow. A better idea is to load up the box with items(even containers of water) to help stabilize the temps. Use these thermal masses in both the freezer and the refrigerator.

 

  Jim

The more I thought about this today, the more I liked it. I'm going to put the defrost timer back in and fill it up with some water jugs today. Thanks for your input.

yzzi

So @CtTOPGUN‌ was on the money. It started frosting up today and had trouble keeping temp down far enough. I pulled the meat out and put it in the chest freezer while I rewired the defrost timer back in and let it run in defrost mode. The fridge is now back in cooling mode and I put 6 gallons of water in the freezer for some thermal mass. I will put a few gallons in the fridge section too. Now I just need to not be paranoid and know that my temp will stabilize after 30 minutes when defrost mode kicks in.

CtTOPGUN

 Happy I could help. The evaporatror coils on modern self defrosting units do not have much airspace. The space between the tubing carrying the freon gets blocked off by frost in short order. The old manual defrost units had lots of space between the coils and could run for months before excessive frost became an issue. The containers of water is a cheap solution to temp fluctuations.

 

 

   Jim

Canugghead

Glad I paid attention and learned a valuable lesson too. @CtTOPGUN sure deserves his forum handle!  Speaking of manual defrost, our almost 30-year old manual defrost upright freezer still runs like a champ, touch wood. In the early years I was using hair dryer to defrost, hated it, duh!  Later I figured out it's much easier to use towel and pans of hot water. 

yzzi

Here's a link to a very helpful article how defrosters work in a fridge in case anyone goes through this in the future.
http://www.appliance411.com/faq/howdefrostworks.shtml