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Re: Frozen drain on Hotpoint Combination 8562
kwatt wrote:Enough please guys eh?
One of the things our friends at Hotpoint used to do for a laugh was not to seal the evaporators that ran the full length of the back of the fridge freezers, I don’t know if that is one of those but insulation failure was inevitable on them. It wasn’t the drain that was the issue, it was time and seepage into the insulation that killed them. I have to assume that somewhere along the way they sussed it and cured the problem but, at 8-10 years, they usually failed if they lasted that long.
Water goes down Doug, it’s a gravity thing.
Then what happens is that the foam starts to fill with the water causing the breakdown of the insulation. The actual insulation is still there, doesn’t go anywhere, but because there’s no longer air in it to isolate the cabinet you get the ice ball. And, as I’ve said, once it happens there’s no way back from it.
What the guys are trying to tell you is that, from a repairers point of view, it is a scrapper as it cannot be brought back to perform within the parameters which it was designed for. At least, it can’t be sensibly brought back from the dead.
Most likely the water has been seeping into the insulation for months, if not years, before you’ve actually seen the problem and, that’s the kicker with insulation failures, by the time you see it happening it’s beyond hope in 99.99{e5d1b7155a01ef1f3b9c9968eaba33524ee81600d00d4be2b4d93ac2e58cec2d} of cases.
I used to have to re-foam old Zanussi cabinets, as will Alex and others on here as they had a design flaw on an old, old model and I can tell you from first hand experience we couldn’t save some under a year old despite massive efforts to do so. Then we got recalls on many that we thought were okay.
TBH it’s really just not worth the grief.
HTH
K.
Hi kwatt,
You ALL seem to be missing the point – when I dug the insulation out around the funnel, I pressed the “tape” holding the funnel in place against the back of the cabinet, and water oozed out !!! There is water in the insulation in that area)
I DO know that water goes “down” – hence my deduction that the ice-ball around the base of the tube has been caused by THAT water leak supplying the ball down the outside of the tube. Hence my criticism of the design (which no-one seems to support me on ! Hey, this is a DISCUSSION, supposedly ?)For the record, I agree that my chances of recovering the unit to full health is debateable – doesn’t stop me from trying, eh ? !!
I’m sorry, but we’re not getting anywhere with this “discussion” – I’ve got better things to do ! Bye
DougButtimer wrote:This discussion is not doing the reputation of this forum any good – maybe I should stop responding to future posts ?
No Doug, this sort of thing happens.
The problem is really very simple and happens with a few problems on here…
We know it’s goosed and that’ll be that. We wouldn’t even attempt repairs, the best we can do is say a short prayer and lay a wreath on it as we know when to give up through simple experience.
The poster, you in this case, doesn’t know this and thinks that through some clever trick we’ve not thought of or tried before that you can resurrect the machine from the dead.
I can assure you though, if there were a clever trick or some shortcut we’d have found it long, long ago.
I can totally appreciate that you don’t want to give up though even in the face of what, six refrigeration engineers With over 100 years experience between them, telling you there’s no hope. I think it would be pretty safe to assume that they’re not all wrong.
It’s not us being cheeky or trying to be negative at all, we just know when it’s time to give the last rites.
K.
Re: Frozen drain on Hotpoint Combination 8562
DougButtimer wrote:You ALL seem to be missing the point – when I dug the insulation out around the funnel, I pressed the “tape” holding the funnel in place against the back of the cabinet, and water oozed out !!! There is water in the insulation in that area)
I am not trying to say that you don’t know water flows down the way. 😉
What I have been trying to tell you is that once you notice faults like this, it’s too late, the damage is already done and the insulation will be wet, therefore goosed.
K.
Re: Frozen drain on Hotpoint Combination 8562
hotpnt wrote:just as a point, i did see the article you refered to in your first post, so your assumptions were correct there, however, that topic was for a Servis machine, different make, different system/drain/cabinet, so although it was same simptoms, there were different causes,
Good luck in your repair, and i hope if its sucessfull you wil let us knowAgreed, but the principles were the same – water leak, ice-ball, and that’s EXACTLY what I found, as I’ve stated many times !
Despite my previous “Bye”, thank you – I will report back ! (The question is, “WHEN” will I know if I’ve nbeen successful ? …………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………….. !!!)
Re: Frozen drain on Hotpoint Combination 8562
Oh dear !! I’m back here again !!!
I don’t want to leave with any bad feelings about our “discussion” !!! You have your views, I have mine !!! Peace ! I DO respect your experience, and value it, and despite previous comments, I DO take your comments on board !! Thank you one and all !! 😀no hard feelings mate…. i just hope you and others realise that were all just passionate about what we do, we all take it in our stride, and if we were all the same, it would be a pretty boring place!!!
take care, and good luck
You are welcome Doug, sometimes a good discussion is positively entertaining.
Please do let us know how it goes though.
K.
kwatt wrote:You are welcome Doug, sometimes a good discussion is positively entertaining.
Please do let us know how it goes though.
K.
Yea, I’ll agree with that !!!
Did you see the one recently on CM’s forum – can’t link to the original as it was “closed” by the moderators at 20-odd pages when things got VERY heated !!! The follow-on is at http://www.kelsey-forums.co.uk/cgi-bin/ … 1206991332
but I think “rick-a” and his body rot problem have “gone to ground”Re: Frozen drain on Hotpoint Combination 8562
We desperately try to stay away from allowing things to get “heated” even if it means I have to get involved or the mods (bless them) get a bit of flak every now and then. It is hard at times though when we know that we know better and people won’t listen to what we’re trying to tell them. We don’t give people bad news for fun and, to be perfectly honest, we’d far rather not, but such is the way of things from time to time.
Sadly though, sometimes things get a little tepid, even on here. This is the nature of the beast with forums that promote and allow freedom of speech.
It is my opinion however that, on balance, this is generally a good thing and that healthy debate and conversation is constructive, even when it is perhaps looking bleak and negative.
Some have the ability to put this in an eloquent manner, many don’t and this is what almost always leads to either misunderstandings or arguments some posts, email or whatever in my experience. We do however try our level best not to allow that to happen and to explain things, even if they seem perhaps rudimentary at times.
Perhaps I have too much experience of newgroups, mailing lists and online forums.
As for Helo, well… what can I say? 😆
K.
Re: Frozen drain on Hotpoint Combination 8562
Well, I said that I would come back with my experiences, so here we go !! (I must admit that my original diagnosis was NOT correct, and that my findings surprised me) Naturally, I started at the funnel at the top of the drain hose. I trimmed the insulation back working outwards from the funnel. It was no surprise that water-laden foam disappeared rapidly as I worked upwards and sideways. But what did surprise me was that it also disappeared in the downward direction after a few inches (I expected this to have continued right down to the ice-ball at the bottom of the hose) Incidentally, it doesn’t change my original view that not having a waterproof connection at the funnel/drain pipe connection is a poor “design” as, under fault conditions, it allows water to enter the insulation !! (What price adhesive seal ??) I then started trimming away insulation from the ice-ball at the base of the hose. Working upwards, the water-laden foam ran out fairly quickly, but it did spread sideways and backwards, gradually reducing. It had reduced to a fairly low level by the time that the limits were reached (i.e. where I couldn’t realistically remove further foam (backwards & sideways left) due to the cabinet. The extent of moisture towards the centre at first decreased, but then increased again, and I found a secondary ice-ball in the area where the coolant pipe entered the insulation. However, the major “find” occurred when I removed the original drain hose – the bottom panel was rusty on both sides where the the drain hose exits through the panel, even though there is a “seal” on the upper side of this panel. But the major issue is the length of the hose – it ends EXACTLY as it exits the bottom panel seal (this allows [inevitable] water drops hanging on the tube bottom edge to “spread” sideways and then the [inevitable] rust loosens the seal – once that happens, the flow of water into the foam is considerable [by capillary action]. Once a path exists between the source and cooling element, freezing of water-laden foam occurs and hence the final condition) This could have been avoided by a drain hose which continued by about another few mm after exiting the base panel. My suggestion is that if you find such a situation in other machines, then a short length of smaller diameter extension tube inserted into the drain hose will certainly help to avoid this problem ! (water dropplets are then more likely to drop off or evaporate before then can do any damage). My solution was more radical – I replaced the hose (after sealing the funnel to shell joint) and led it down the outside of the [replaced] foam insulation and long enough to dip into the dish on top of the compressor. I must admit that adding moisture to cure the new foam insulation required “courage” (after cutting out masses of water-laden insulation) but it HAS to be done otherwise it won’t cure !! For reference, I replaced the outer covering at the rear with sheet cardboard to which I had glued aluminium foil (necessary to reflect heat from the radiator panel) and this worked quite well. Before I did any work, I did a quick test of the duty-ratio of the on/off time of the freezer compressor (on=15 mins, off=10 mins) which worked out at 60{e5d1b7155a01ef1f3b9c9968eaba33524ee81600d00d4be2b4d93ac2e58cec2d}. I was gratified with the results of doing the same measurement after the above work (on= 7 mins, off=10 mins) 41{e5d1b7155a01ef1f3b9c9968eaba33524ee81600d00d4be2b4d93ac2e58cec2d}. (The freezer was reloaded with exactly the same food as removed originally, and time allowed to stabilize). I have JUST gone out and purchased a freezer thermometer and it currently registers degrees -18 C so the thermostat seems to be O.K. However, what DID surprise me is that the “Low temp” indicator did not illuminate when I started the appliance up again after the work. Deduced that the indicator is driven directly from the thermostat, so can only assume that THAT part of the thermostat is not working, or the indicator itself is duff. My only query at this stage is whether the latest on/off time measured above is typical ? Hope relating my experiences may be of some help to somebody else in the same situation !!!
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