Samsung Refrigerator Repair

Samsung refrigerators, along with all other modern refrigerators from A to Z, from Amana to SubZero, have built-in automatic defrost systems so that you don’t have to deal with that annoying build up of ice in your freezer. Do you remember those days when eventually you barely had any room left for you food in the freezer because there was just so much darn ice built up on all sides?  How annoying that was!  Even though we’re talking about iced-up freezers as a problem of the past, it can still rear its ugly head from time to time.  If you’re finding your fridge/freezer either packed with ice or your refrigerator compartment isn’t cooling like it should, it could be that you have a problem with your defrost system.

One thing to note before we go too much further though… it’s also possible that the problems we’re about to describe have been caused simply by the freezer door not being properly closed.  If that’s the case, first of all, tell me if this sounds familiar to you: “What are you doing – trying to cool the whole house?!?!”  Ahh… the memories of childhood!

Anyway, the good news is that if the door WAS simply left open inadvertently, you very well may not have any kind of mechanical problem with your refrigerator.  It could simply be that because it was left open, moist air got into the freezer and while it was working overtime to “cool the whole house”, it got packed with ice.  You simply need to defrost the icebox using warm water – NEVER use anything sharp like an ice pick or sharp knife!  And then make sure you figure out who and/or why the door wasn’t shut properly and make sure it doesn’t happen again.

On the other hand, if it is an actual problem with the defrost system on your refrigerator, you may have a repair on your hands.  The good news is that it’s not terribily difficult or expensive, so you don’t need to stress about needing to buy a whole new fridge or anything like that.  Hopefully the information below will be helpful to you.  If it doesn’t quite do it though, don’t hesitate to call us.  We’re not known as the Best Appliance Repair of Austin for no reason!  We’ll be out to sort things out and get your fridge working for you again in no time.

Refrigerator Repair – Replacing the Defrost Thermostat

Today, we are going to show you how to change the Defrost Thermostat on your side by side refrigerator, and it’s a really easy job. All we are going to need is a quarter inch nut driver, a pair of wire strippers and crimpers, and if you can find a heat gun, we could use one of those too. Let me show you how we do it.

Now before we begin this repair, the first thing we are going to do is to disconnect the power to the refrigerator. So pull it out far enough to remove the plug And we are going to open up that freezer door and we will remove any items that are on these lower shelves, and then we will remove the shelves. This lower one should just tilt up in the front and unhook from the two pins on the rear and slide the bin out, and set that aside. Now the middle shelves probably have a locking tab at the back that needs to be popped off, and it just snaps over the metal tines on that shelf. Then we can push it all the way to the left till it disengages and then pull it out.

Now the defrost thermostat is located right in behind this evaporator cover. It is held in place with four quarter inch Hex Head screws. So we will just remove those screws, and then with all four screws out, next we will pull that evaporator cover straight up and tilt it and pull it right out and set them aside. Then at this point we can see where the old defrost thermostat is located at the back here, which just has a clip that passes onto that tubing.

So in working in this area, we will need to be careful because these things are very sharp and may be built up with some ice here at the moment and if so, just take a hair dryer and gently melt some of that in this area, so that you can actually access that part. And we are just going to push it straight off the back of the tubing, pull it out and then we are going to cut the leads fairly close to the thermostat, and then we will place in the new one.

Now, we are going to carefully strip back all but a quarter of an inch of the insulation from those two wires. And of course we want to make sure that we just take the insulation off the wire and not any of the copper. Now next we will take our new thermostat – we will just pull those insulation pieces off of the wire, and then maybe trimmed a little bit short. So we are just going to lengthen that just a little bit, and we will just twist that copper, so that it is nice and tight. Then, we are going to take one of the crimps that are supplied with the kit; We are going to insert that lead completely into that butt splice connector, and we will crimp it on. Make sure it is good and tight. And we will do the same for the opposite one.

And next I want to slide these two pieces of heat shrink tubing over those connectors one over each of those leads, and then we will prepare the wire harness inside the refrigerator to crimp these onto. Now the best method I found for crimping these butt splice connectors in place in a tight situation like this So I will put my crimpers on, butt splice first, have it lined up right where I want to crimp it and just keep a little bit of pressure on it, and I will position it over the wire and then make sure that that water goes all the way into the butt splice. And once we have got it completely inserted, we will crimp that splice in place. Then we will prepare the second one.

Again make sure that it is completely inserted in the connector before we crimp it. And if need be, straighten that proper strand out, I will check both of those connections to make sure they are good and snug. And now we will slide that each shrink tubing completely over that joint and with a heat gun, we will melt those into place.

Now with a heat gun, we want to be very careful around the inner liner of this refrigerator. If there is a few seconds off heat on, that will melt it and disfigure it. So very carefully position our heat gun. Now once that heat shrink is cooled enough to touch, we will next position a thermostat with the spring clip. We are going to go right into the back tubing, and then we are going to pull it forward and hook it on from the backside. So very carefully position that spring clip so that it will line up over the tubing and snap it into position We are going to tuck the excess harness above there, so it is out of the way of the heater, and now we are ready to put the evaporate cover back on.

We will just position it across the face, slide it down behind the shelf rails and we will line up those quarter inch screws. And we won’t tighten the end of these screws until we had them all started. Now once we had them all started, we will tighten them up.

Next we can replace the bins in the shelving. And with the middle shelving, again we will insert the shelf to the left first; push it over as far as it will go. Bring it over into position, and then snap our shelf lock onto the rear. And now we are ready to reconnect the power and our repair is complete.