Frigid air chest freezer

Snowmelt

My aunt had a chest freezer, she called me because there was a puddle of water in front of the unit.

The compressor was iced up, I put gauges on the unit, I had like 10 pounds on my high side. So I pulled a vacuum and put the correct charge of 5.1 ounces.



I was reading 120 on high and 7 on low.



It seem to be working because the unit was reading between 15 - 20 degrees. That's for Friday around 3 and Saturday night at 11:00 pm, my only concern is the freezer is warm on the sides and front. In the service manual it did say that's normal, but the temp never went down to room temp, is this normal?

Techman

Chest freezer

most chest freezers have the condenser coil inbedded in the walls of the freezer, thus the front/side being warm. If this is the case, then the walls should never be room temp as long as the comp is running. 15-20* is a little warm, but it may take a day or two if there is product in the freezer.Where did the Freon go ,that was in the system to begin with? I would keep a close eye on the unit if there is any kind of $ invested in food in the freezer.

icesailor

Freezers

In a cost cutting move, some of those home freezers used steel tubing. Which will rust and develop holes in them. They are "Throw Away" freezers.

Ask me how I know.

If you have any valuable/costly food in the freezer, think seriously about replacing it with a new POS junk'er, made in Asia. They stopped making quality ones years ago.

ChrisJ

Steel tubing

Icesailor, my experience with steel condensers has been fairly good.

The 1933 and newer monitor tops all used 2 pieces of sheet steel pressed and then welded together as a condenser.  Even running SO2 I've never heard of one rusting out. 



To the op, we have a guy on the monitor top forum that spends a lot of time restoring chest freezers.  He may be able to help you out.  http://monitortop.freeforums.net/

icesailor

Experiences:

I didn't have the same experience with steel tube freezers. Years ago I bought a Sears large up-right freezer. It worked well for years. The steel tubing was used as the shelves to increase cooling capacity. One day, I found a lake of water under it. I wish I could have just plugged it and froze everything. Its easier to freeze rotten food and throw it away than to have warm and spoiled food. It was a GE unit and of quality. A service person from the company that I bought it from told me that they had a lot of problems with the steel coils rusting out. Like mine, many others had rusted out.



That's what I based my comment on. I guess that every refrigerator I have owned has steel tubing. Including the new one I have now that has someone living inside it. It squeals and groans at all odd hours of the day and night. If it fails and you lose a lot of valuable food, it gets expensive. I lost a lot of fish I had caught, and vegetables from my summer garden. I'd be putting a freeze alarm into that freezer. Cheap insurance.

ChrisJ

Oh

Icesailor,

The monitor tops starting in 1933 have a stainless evaporator and nickel plated copper tubing.  Only the float chamber and condenser are steel.   In the 1930s GE knew better than to put something that could rust inside the cooling space.



I do not know what kind of stainless the evaporators are, other than it's non-magnetic.

icesailor

General Electric:

My freezer was a General Electric. It was probably someone's idea of a good plan. To make the entire shelf area part of the evaporative cooling system. Cheap. But ineffective.