Amana SRD526T side by side F/F not going into defrost mode

[gmpen01]

I have an approx 7yr old Amana SRD526T side by side F/F. The chilled water and icemaker stopped working, I therefore completely defrosted and cleaned out 7 yrs of dust etc from the heat exchanger at the bottom of the unit.

The F/F then worked for approx 5 hours before stopping. The fan above the cooling element was working and cold air was being blown across to the fridge side and up to the icemaker and chilled water unit. After the unit stopped I removed the grill of the cooling element (at the bottom of the freezer) and saw it was blocked with ice. After looking at pictures of what the cooling element should look like, I assumed that the defrost thermostat was broken because the unit did not appear to go into a defrost cycle and became blocked with ice.

I therefore ordered an original replacement defrost thermostat and replaced it. It did not seem to make any difference, the unit worked for 8 hours and then caused my RCD circuit to jump. Therefore now I have a F/F that only works for a few hours and then causes my RCD’s to flick off (obviously not good).

Any advice would be gratefully accepted on what I should do next, such as how do I tell if a defrost thermostat is working correctly.

Thanks

Graham

[sparkey]

Re: Amana SRD526T side by side F/F not going into defrost mo

grill of the cooling element (at the bottom of the freezer) and saw it was blocked with ice.

+

the unit worked for 8 hours and then caused my RCD circuit to jump

These symptoms normally indicate a faulty element not thermostat, the element has probably gone open circuit and leaking down to earth.

The element is clipped to the evaporator pipes and it is very easy to puncture the tubes removing or refitting the clips, suggest you check in the “directories” or “repairs@” over to the left of this page for an engineer in your area.
If you investigate further yourself REMEMBER TO PULL THE PLUG :zap:

Regards
Sparkey

[gmpen01]

Re: Amana SRD526T side by side F/F not going into defrost mo

Thanks sparkey, I eventually found my defrost element and it has 119 ohms across it so I assume it’s is OK.

I then found my timer and when I manually advance it to defrost the RCD’s flip. I was therefore going to check out the timer.

Graham

[gmpen01]

Re: Amana SRD526T side by side F/F not going into defrost mo

I rechecked the heating element and when I disconnected it, my RCD’s were fine when I manually advanced the defrost timer.

so thanks, I followed your advise and called in an engineer to install a new heating element.

Regards

Graham

[sparkey]

Re: Amana SRD526T side by side F/F not going into defrost mo

Thanks for the update 🙂

Regards
Sparkey

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