Frequently Asked Questions About Domestic Refrigerator Repair:
Ice in drain trough, how to test the drain trough heater?
We have a 12 year old Amana refrigerator that is currently freezing up in the pan between the freezer and the refrigerator compartments. This started about a month ago. We can manually defrost it and it will be OK for about a week and then occurs again. The tube to the defrost pan is clear but the discharge orifice to the tube has ice and the pan is about 1/3 full of ice. I found this when I took the refrigerator apart to locate the problem.
My wife called a repair service and they recommended a tube and hood replacement. Does this make sense or is there another potential problem such as the defrost heater or timer. If so how would I check these?
If this one has a drain trough heater you should be able to see it, or the wires going to it underneath the trough. If the wiring diagram is on the back you can check there too.
The rest of your automatic defrost circuit should be okay because it's melting the frost and turning it to water( that later turns up to be the ice you see).
To test the heater, if present, first make sure the pan in empty of ice, set your timer to the defrost cycle and feel the surface of the metal with your fingertips after 10 min. It should be warm to the touch.
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