Source
r/appliancerepair•
Engineerentist

GE Fridge Stopped working after kid left door open all night.

Solved

Have an older GE fridge model GTH18EBC2RBB. I am guessing it is 15 years old. We keep it in the garage for beers and drinks. It runs decent enough, but last night my 4 year old went to get a drink and left the door open all night.

I see it in the morning and the fridge portion is all warm, freezer portion was still kinda cold. I close the door and after about 5 hours, it has not cooled back down and is no longer running. The door light still comes on.

Is the fridge shot? Is the culprit most likely the compressor burned out? Or was it just a capacitor or something? Assuming it is something small, what would be the repair costs?

Posted Aug 20, 2021, 3:29 PM UTC

39
Muted-Associate•

Before you replace any parts unplug it open up the doors and let it thaw out for 24 hours then plug it back in and give it another 24 hours to see if it comes back down to temp. With the door left open all night it's very possible that the evaporator is completely iced up.

5
EngineerentistOP•

Yea, good idea. This is a cheaper solution I will look into first.

1
[deleted]•

Check if it iced up. If door was open, compressor had to run super hard and maybe coils are covered in ice.

Once they’re iced up the air doesn’t have enough surface area to cool off, so the fridge warms up. Seems counterintuitive, but that’s why the coils are covered in those spikey metal things… extra surface area.

You can defrost fast with a hair dryer.

1
EngineerentistOP•

SOLVED

Letting the fridge thaw out then turning back on seems to have done the trick.

1
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0
Archedeaus•

Something you can try, replace the start relay and capacitor if it has one. Those will break before the actual compressor.

-1
Archedeaus•

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B07RT4TTW2/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_apa_glt_fabc_T2ZXHYETSSW0FD51DKVP?_encoding=UTF8&psc=1

0
Archedeaus•

If it IS the relay amd cap (which it most likely is) its cheap. Less than 50 bucks, just unplug and follow the youtube tutorial

0
EngineerentistOP•

Thank you, I will look into this!

1