My SRL321MIS (manufactured Oct 2009) fridge section gets no cool air.

Hi,

Don’t know the fridge but if the freezer is icing up and the refrigerator is too warm, then usually there is a problem with the auto defrost.

This could be caused by a:

faulty defrost heater - the defrost heater is turned on during the auto defrost cycle to help melt the ice build up on the evaporator unit.If it is faulty then not enough ice is melted and it continues to build up until it eventually ices over the evap fan and it stops operating and providing the cold air to cool the refrigerator compartment. Disconnect the power to the fridge and then remove the back panel inside the freezer compartment to expose the evaporator unit and fan.

If the evaporator unit is iced up, do not use a hair dryer to defrost it as you may damage the unit. It is only thin aluminium. Turn off the fridge and leave the door open so that it defrosts naturally. You can use a hair dryer on the coolest setting for short periods only to speed things up a bit. Have plenty of towels available as the evap pan under the fridge may overflow due to the excess melt water. Disconnect the heater element and use an Ohmmeter to measure the resistance of the element. According to the parts list (see below) it is a 240V AC 250W element so this means that its’ resistance should be ~230 Ohms. It shouldn’t test open circuit.

blocked drain pipe between the freezer compartment and the evaporator pan - prevents the defrost meltwater from draining away therefore defrost melt water refreezes and builds up eventually stopping the evap fan and refrigerator gets warm but freezer stays cold due to evaporator unit being located there behind a panel. Once the ice has been melted and if there was no water in the evaporator pan, pour a small measured amount of water down the drain hole (under the evaporator unit) and check that it all gets to the evaporator pan.

faulty control board - not providing power to the heater or maybe a problem with implementing the auto defrost cycle.

During the auto defrost cycle, the compressor and the evaporator fan are both turned off and the temp in the freezer is allowed to rise to 0 deg C (32 F) to melt the ice on the evaporator unit. The meltwater drains away to the evaporator pan under the refrigerator cabinet near the compressor. The defrost heater under the evaporator unit is turned on to speed up the process as you don’t want the frozen food to even begin to thaw. When the temp reaches 0 C, a defrost sensor signals the control board to turn off the heater and to restart the compressor and the fan to cool the compartments back down to the set temps i.e. -18 C freezer, 4 C refrigerator. The auto defrost cycle takes about 15-20 minutes to complete and occurs once every 8-11 hours (depends on manufacturer)

Here’s a parts list for the fridge that may help if it turns out that the heater element is open circuit etc.

Apologies for the long answer but I think that it helps if you understand the process to find out what may be wrong when it doesn’t work as it should.