i have a hotpoint fridge freezer which is less than 3 years old. The fridge compartment is fine but the freezer compartment has defrosted itself and stay at the same temperature as the fridge compartment making the whole fridge freezer turning into a full size fridge... what do you think could be the problem and is it worth calling out for professional repair? if anyone can help i would very much appreciate it as i can't afford to buy a new one yet. Thanks

Krissy 123, November 2007

I'd say the thermostat may be broken or set too warm, set the thermostat in the freezer (if it has 1 there) to its MAX. setting or if there is only 1 thermostat for the whole fridge, set that to MAX.
Sometimes frost free systems need defrosting just to clean them up a little, someone else on the net had a freezer that just 'stopped' he turned it off for around a day to defrost (it was frost free) and then plugged it in again, and it worked. Try both of my ideas and reply, I'd like to know if this helped!

Aren Harris, March 2010

most likley unit is gone short on gas in which case a leak has to be repaired,the gas is first put through the freezer evaporator and then the cool gas through the fridge compartment

steve, March 2010

Alas it is typical that many sales staff do not understand the physical principles of the devices that they sell. Amazing - considering that all such notions are available from sites such as these.
We have just changed our kelvinator for a hotpoint - the kelvinator stopped freezing after it was powered off and then on again - occasionally bursting into life when the 'superfreeze' button was pressed and then turned off about 10 seconds later - now it seems like the compressor has given up altogether- fridge are generally speaking hard to pull apart and hard to fix - I was hoping to fix my kelvinator - but have no idea how to do so - thus it was replaced.

I would be interested in any answers about fridges.

Lee, September 2009

A friend has just had exactly the same problem. Since the fridge freezer has only one refrigeration unit (compressor etc) and the fridge works OK then it seems that there must a fault in the control system which apportions the cooling fluid to the freezer section of the appliance. I have been around the whiteware shops and without exception the sales staff have no understanding at all of the basics of the appliances they are selling. They just cannot answer questions which any purchaser needs answering before choosing one applicance as against another. This is why I am on the internet now searching for a simple explanation of how the apportioning above is achieved. This would allow me to decided whether it is reasonable to renew the faulty control device rather than renew the whole machine with all the downside of the associated damage to our environment. OK, I cannot answer the original question -yet but I shall strive until I can.

Howard Llewelyn, December 2007