i have a 1970s GE harvest gold fridge because i cant afford anything newer and it still works so
it had developed a big clump of ice on the first couple coils, nearest where the door opens, in the fridge compartment (its one where they have coils in the fridge itself as well as presumably in the freezer walls or ceiling), so i turned it off a bit and attacked those with a hair dryer to melt them away a week ago.
I understand how this happens, it's not the first time I've had persistent ice buildup, it's just the first major one that didn't melt away by itself since i bolstered the 50 year old gasket i can't find a cheap replacement for with 10 dollars of foam weatherstripping tape from Ace Hardware. Florida's humid, bad seal means humidity get in, humidity get on coils, frost, enough frost becomes ice if i forgot to mechanically latch the door shut.
But usually if i did that, the ice clump would recede and it would be back to normal after a few days.
now i dealt with that clump the Drastic way and soo far the problem hasn't recurred, but i've also noticed a change in fridge behavior (good) since then.
Initially when I turned it back on, I had the thermostat set a smidge too low (resulting in tempereatures slightly above 40) but even when i cranked it way down, i wasn't getting more than just a little frost.
While I was spending so much time trying to fix the fridge, i discovered the bottom grate pops off and exposes the condensation pan, and the hot end coils. The hot end wasn't behind the fridge, its below it, thats how they did it back then.
Understandably because i didn't know thats where the hot end was, it hadn't been vacuumed in god knows how long.
I have had several instances since then where i forgot to latch the fridge, and even so I haven't seen any significant frost buildup (but its still maintaining temp)
were the inside coils icing up because it had to work that much harder while the hot end was choked up with dust bunnies and cat hair????
yep, exactly. That's why they don't build them that way anymore, having the hot end on the back means air convection is way more effective even when it's all dusty.
