hvacker
Bronze Member
Gotta say, not much of a diagnosis can be made from most pictures. Is that all the refer guy had?
Short intro. I have been in the commercial end of the refer industry for many years.
Your compressor is possibly not the problem based on the fact that its' running and because of the ice it's pumping and refrigerating to a point. That doesn't let the compressor off the hook entirely though.
I don't want you to loose confidence in your mechanic and I haven't looked at the machine so I'm at a disadvantage but here goes.
To diagnose a freeze the unit has to be thawed. That's because there are two different events. One is ice and one is frost. Two different causes and sometimes hard to know the difference. Low refrigerant can cause frost along with other problems and if allowed to run can appear like ice under the correct factors.
Ice is associated with not being able to absorb heat. Things like the fan not running when it should. Anything associated with the fan could cause it to stop running. If the fan noise is due to the (ice /frost) buildup then the fan might stop and make things worse.
From here your problem could be as simple (not always) as fixing a leak and topping off the charge or as bad as what your mechanic says.
I had a problematic refrigerator and put it on Craigs List. A new one might be more $$$ but you do get a warranty probably much longer than the mechanic's warranty, and you can pick one with problems the old one didn't have.
My Bro-in-law had a furnace guy give him a price on a repair that was more than I could buy a new furnace for. A lot of high prices have to do with price structures moving from parts & labor to flat rate pricing. A flat rate charge takes in to account all the problems other fixes have contributed to it's total.
If it were mine I would wonder if finding the leak and a squirt of refrigerant might be all that's wrong. Today many service companies take a replacement price on the call with them because there is more $$$ than in fixing and having to warranty the repair. The strategy is to make the repair unattractive compared to replacing.
Short intro. I have been in the commercial end of the refer industry for many years.
Your compressor is possibly not the problem based on the fact that its' running and because of the ice it's pumping and refrigerating to a point. That doesn't let the compressor off the hook entirely though.
I don't want you to loose confidence in your mechanic and I haven't looked at the machine so I'm at a disadvantage but here goes.
To diagnose a freeze the unit has to be thawed. That's because there are two different events. One is ice and one is frost. Two different causes and sometimes hard to know the difference. Low refrigerant can cause frost along with other problems and if allowed to run can appear like ice under the correct factors.
Ice is associated with not being able to absorb heat. Things like the fan not running when it should. Anything associated with the fan could cause it to stop running. If the fan noise is due to the (ice /frost) buildup then the fan might stop and make things worse.
From here your problem could be as simple (not always) as fixing a leak and topping off the charge or as bad as what your mechanic says.
I had a problematic refrigerator and put it on Craigs List. A new one might be more $$$ but you do get a warranty probably much longer than the mechanic's warranty, and you can pick one with problems the old one didn't have.
My Bro-in-law had a furnace guy give him a price on a repair that was more than I could buy a new furnace for. A lot of high prices have to do with price structures moving from parts & labor to flat rate pricing. A flat rate charge takes in to account all the problems other fixes have contributed to it's total.
If it were mine I would wonder if finding the leak and a squirt of refrigerant might be all that's wrong. Today many service companies take a replacement price on the call with them because there is more $$$ than in fixing and having to warranty the repair. The strategy is to make the repair unattractive compared to replacing.
Last edited:
