Have a 12 cu ft refrigerator that’s recently started having trouble holding temps in both frig and freezer sections. Used to stay pretty consistent but now exhibits large temp swings. The average temps are more or less in the correct ranges, but there’s very large variability with time. Freezer varies (min to max) about 17 deg while frig section varies up to 30 deg (so + or - some 15 deg). This occurs all the time, even overnight when it remains closed. Any ideas? Temp controller, fan, something else? If I change the controller setting, it does respond in that average temps increase or decrease as they should, but the large temp variability in individual sections still remains. Thanks. It’s only a couple years old, but out of warranty of course!

Might be helpful to post the brand and model.

Good point. Whirlpool WRT313CZLW00

Could be anything you listed or the compressor going out. On my kitchen unit, it was the latter. Before doing anything else, clean out the dust and crud from the coils.

It sound like your Defrost Cycle is running excessively long. It's probably not the heater (obviously!), but could be a control board/timer or sensor issue. The defrost cycle, by necessity/design, will elevate the temperature somewhat in the freezer for a short period when operating to defrost the evaporator coil, but in your case, it's possible it not shutting off when it should, running longer than necessary, thus the temperature excursions you're seeing.

I learned a bit about the temperature control/defrost components and how they function due to an issue I had with my Kitchen Aid (Whirlpool) fridge. It was not keeping the refrigerator section cold during the summer, but it was having no temperature issue in the freezer section. I determined there was no issue w/ the compressor, and then confirmed that the defrost system components were functioning properly. Ultimately, it turned out the faulty component was what Whirlpool calls the Diffuser, which is essentially a variable vent mechanism that sends cold air from the freezer (where the Evaporator Coil is located) into the refrigerator. It was not operating consistently, made sense and confirmed my issue as things had been freezing in the non-summer months, 6-months earlier.

Anyway, I found that AppliancePartsPros.com has some decent troubleshooting guides and parts replacement videos that helped me diagnose and solve my problem. You might do well to check them out.

Hope this helps...Good luck!

When was the last time you cleaned the coil and other parts? They get gunked up with dirt and dust and that acts as an insulation layer and makes it run excessively.

Exact same problem in my Jennaire side by side. Replaced defrost timer and all was right

quote:

Originally posted by Tn226:
Exact same problem in my Jennaire side by side. Replaced defrost timer and all was right

Coil & other parts are fairly clean as I had to get into the freezer a few months ago due to a buildup of ice blocking the cold air from getting into the frig. Fixed that and everything was working normally again for months until these odd temp excursions began a while ago.

Doesn't seem to be much online info on the internals of this model, so I'll have to see if I can find the defrost timer. Just for info, here's what I'm seeing:

Yellow is room temp, red is frig & blue is freezer. This shows a 6-hour timeframe from 6:40am to 12:40pm today.