Hi Danelda. Short answer: yes, this is usually very fixable, and it’s one of the most common refrigerator problems we see. A Kenmore model starting with 596. was built by Whirlpool, and on this design “freezer icing up + fridge not cooling” points strongly to the automatic defrost system.
Why ice in the freezer makes the fridge warm
All the cold in your refrigerator is made on one coil (the evaporator) hidden behind the back panel of the freezer. A fan blows air across that coil and pushes some of it down into the fridge section. A few times a day a small heater melts the frost off the coil. If that defrost cycle stops working, the coil turns into a block of ice. Air can’t pass through it, so the fridge section warms up first while the freezer may still feel fairly cold.
How to confirm it at home
- Empty the freezer and remove the back panel inside it (a few screws). If the coil is covered in a solid white frost or ice block, the defrost system is the problem.
- If you don’t want to open it, look for frost building up on the back wall of the freezer, or a fan that sounds like it’s scraping ice.
Temporary fix (gets you cooling in a day or two)
Move the food to a cooler, unplug the fridge, and leave both doors open for 24 to 48 hours with towels underneath. You can speed it up with a fan blowing into the freezer. Don’t use a heat gun or anything sharp on the coil, since puncturing it means a sealed-system repair. Once all the ice is gone, plug it back in. It should cool normally again. If the defrost part is bad, the ice will come back in about 1 to 3 weeks.
The parts that cause it
- Defrost heater, a long element along the bottom of the coil. With the power off, check it with a multimeter. A good heater shows a resistance reading, a failed one reads open (no continuity).
- Defrost thermostat (a small sensor clipped to the coil). It should have continuity when it’s frozen, below about 15 °F. If it’s open while still icy, it’s bad.
- Defrost timer or control board. On many Whirlpool-built Kenmores you can turn the timer slowly with a screwdriver until it clicks into defrost. If the heater doesn’t come on, it’s the timer or the board.
These parts are generally inexpensive, and a technician typically fixes this in one visit.
Two other things worth ruling out
- Door seal: if the frost is mostly on the walls, shelves and food near the door rather than behind the back panel, a leaking gasket or a door that doesn’t close fully is letting in humid air. Do the paper test: close the door on a sheet of paper. It should hold firmly all the way around.
- Clogged defrost drain: if there’s an ice puddle on the freezer floor or water leaking under the crisper drawers, the drain tube is frozen. Clear it with warm water (a turkey baster works well) after defrosting.
We’re based in Houston, so we can’t come out to Nanaimo, but any local appliance technician will recognize this from the symptoms. If it comes back after the manual defrost, you know it’s the defrost system and not the compressor, which is good news for the repair bill.