- Area
- New Tampa
- Unit
- KitchenAid refrigerator, KSSS42QHW00
- Symptom
- Both the refrigerator and freezer at about 78 to 80 degrees
- Found
- The evaporator fan motor would not start. The coil itself was cold, 5.5 degrees at the bottom and 11.5 at the top, so the cold was not being moved
- Outcome
- Replaced the evaporator fan motor
Report by Sam Ralin, owner and senior technician
A returning customer in New Tampa called about a KitchenAid KSSS42QHW00 built-in side by side that had warmed up to 78 to 80 degrees in both sections.
The technician took temperature readings on the evaporator coil before blaming anything: 5.5 degrees at the bottom and 11.5 degrees at the top. The sealed system was working and making cold. The problem was airflow. The evaporator fan motor did not start on its own, and when he spun it by hand it turned briefly and stopped. With no fan, the cold stays on the coil and never reaches the food. He replaced the fan motor.
Why the readings matter
A warm built-in refrigerator can mean a fan, a defrost problem or a sealed system failure, and the repair costs are very different. Measuring the coil first told us this was a fan, not a compressor, before any expensive part was quoted.
