Any fridge guru's on here?

Hoping someone can shed some light on a problem I had with our fridge yesterday

Have a ~4 year old Fisher and Paykel French door fridge (double door) with freezer underneath

got home around 5pm and noticed the fridge was warm - freezer was a nice slurry - everything working (lights, compressor, fan etc) pulled out the fridge and the compressor was really hot (have read that this may be normal)and water in the tray above compressor
Turned it off and emptied the whole fridge/freezer - at the rear of the fridge there is no grill or cooling fins - just a compressor and copper pipes that go into a sealed section of the back of the fridge - (and by sealed I mean spot welded)
It was turned off for about 2 hours - I turned it back on and it straight away started getting cold and left over night it now seems to be working fine (ice maker making ice, freezer freezing)

Can anyone advise what may have caused that and more to the point what may still be wrong with it? (ok for compressor to get that hot? -could not hold my hand on it)
pic below is all that is accessible behind fridge (there is a plastic tray that sits on top that water drips into - there is also a small copper tube that snakes its way around this tray)

Living out of my engel and bar fridge until I am happy its ok!

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Moking's picture

Posts: 1252

Date Joined: 30/05/12

  Our Fridge with same issue,

Tue, 2017-01-31 09:25

  Our Fridge with same issue, ended up had to have the Evaporator Fan/Motor assembly replaced.

You can read about issue's with Fridges on Whirlpool Forum.

Here's a Link- hope it helps:

 

http://forums.whirlpool.net.au/archive/1525483

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pelagicyachts's picture

Posts: 1322

Date Joined: 23/02/11

- sounds like a cheap

Tue, 2017-01-31 09:28

- sounds like a cheap experience!

thanks mate, will go and look through the forum
cheers

Swompa's picture

Posts: 3896

Date Joined: 14/10/12

 This is bloody funny. We

Tue, 2017-01-31 15:59

 This is bloody funny. We have a F&P fridge with freezer on the bottom and on Sunday we moved everything to the back fridge as the freezer was cold but not freezing, inside the fridge was cool but not cold. After emptying, turning on and off again, all seems to be good now...

Getting F&P around tomorrow to troubleshoot though as it is working fine now, I guess explain what happened, and replace the seals...

Ill let you know what he tells me as it sounds like exactly the same problem.

pelagicyachts's picture

Posts: 1322

Date Joined: 23/02/11

ha - yep well 2 days later

Wed, 2017-02-01 08:01

ha - yep well 2 days later the fridge seems colder than ever - its only a few years old so would be disappointed if it had packed up

Posts: 274

Date Joined: 08/10/13

 A lot of these fridges can

Tue, 2017-01-31 18:39

 A lot of these fridges can ice up in behind the freezer where there is a channel and usually a fan or fans  that blows cold air into the fridge from the freezer. Usually worse in humid weather. They are pains in the arse up north. Turn them of and let it defrost and they usually come good. If you stack heaps in the freezer near the fan usually causes the problem.  A bit of ice can stop the fan working and then they ice up quick especially in humid weather.  You cant see the ice it is behind covers which you can remove but some fridges are quite tricky to remove them. 

pelagicyachts's picture

Posts: 1322

Date Joined: 23/02/11

thanks mate - that makes

Wed, 2017-02-01 08:02

thanks mate - that makes sense and yes it was packed to the brim!

scuttlebutt's picture

Posts: 452

Date Joined: 24/03/06

 Yep what cruzy said

Tue, 2017-01-31 19:29

 Yep what cruzy said

Posts: 5806

Date Joined: 18/01/12

 The tray is to evaporate the

Tue, 2017-01-31 23:04

 The tray is to evaporate the water from a defrost cycle, otherwise you'd have to plumb it to a drain.
As above probably iced up the evaporator.

Pretty much all new fridge/freezers dont use coils as such but an FDC setup (forced draft cooler) hidden behind a panel.

A fan which circulates air inside.
But as said humidity or plenty of unfrozen product can frost up the evaporator and ice is a great insulator.
Its normal for the compressor to be pretty warm and itll have a thermal overload.
Condensor is often in the base where you wouldnt see it normally and reduces the air gap needed at the back.

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