Hotpoint RLAV21 Fridge – continual running

[mdolan]

Hi all,

Can someone give me a little advice on why a Hotpoint RLAV21 fridge would continually run? And more importantly, how do I fix it? 😉

Backstory:
Unit purchased approx 18 months ago. Wife noticed that food sometimes tended to ice up, but never really investigated. Defrosted approx 1 month ago due to large amount of ice at top. Restarted, ice started forming very quickly. Also noticed that my Electrisave house power monitor dropped by approx 70w while we were defrosting.

Soooo…. attached a continual power monitor to the fridge. Fridge was continually pulling 65w and never shutting off. This fridge is “A” rated and supposed to draw 150kwh/per year. With these figures it’s drawing 569.4kwh/year! It’s also possible that this means the fridge has been faulty since purchase 🙁

Before starting troubleshooting, also fitted a temperature thermometer.

Tried turning the thermostat to lowest level. No difference, still 24hrs/day run time. Temp – 3c

Tried replacing thermostat with VT9 universal. Partial result – runtime now 18hrs/day. Temp – 3c
Note the VT9 is also down as far as it can go (setting wise). I cant turn the control any lower without switching the whole fridge off.

But at 18hrs/day this still works out at 427kwh per year – a far cry from the ideal 150kwh.

The fridge is in the kitchen (as is the freezer). Freezer functions perfectly and the room isn’t overlay warm.

Troubleshooting help and suggestions welcomed!

Cheers,
Mike

[Dave_Conway]

Re: Hotpoint RLAV21 Fridge – continual running

It sounds like a system failure (expensive/terminal), call Hotpoint (Indesit) as this has a 5 year part guarantee 😉

Dave.

[mdolan]

Re: Hotpoint RLAV21 Fridge – continual running

Hi Dave,

Thanks for the reply. Hotpoints 5 year guarantee is worthless as you only get the part free with a Hotpoint engineer. Given that the engineer charge is £89 I’m going to cut my losses and scrap the unit. For a little more money I can buy a brand new fridge and get a years guarantee again.

Hotpoint offered to send me an engineer *and* give me another years guarantee – for £149. Obviously they don’t actually have any clue about economics.

Methinks I’ll avoid Hotpoint on future purchases.

Cheers,
Mike

[cessna]

Re: Hotpoint RLAV21 Fridge – continual running

mdolan wrote:Hotpoint offered to send me an engineer *and* give me another years guarantee – for £149. Obviously they don’t actually have any clue about economics.

It isn’t Hotpoint that offers you this it’s Domestic+General.They have access to private chargeable calls on Hotpoints database and call you trying to get you to take out insurance.

[Author]

Posts