11 replies to this topic

[Big Nake]

I have been tinkering with the idea of picking up a chest freezer, and then run lines through the back wall of my bar and have 4 faucets with draft beer. I haven't pulled the trigger on this yet. But... yesterday I was pulling pints from the tower mounted on my draft fridge all day and everything was fine. Today I pulled one and it seemed a bit foamy so I opened up the fridge and my kegs had condensation dripping down them and there was some water on the floor. I think my draft fridge has checked out. The beer is not as cold as it usually is. But I can hear the fridge running. What do you guys think is going on? Is it hopeless or is it just taking a coffee break or what? There is a bit of ice that has built up on the panel in the back of the fridge with the capillaries running through it. I checked to see if a breaker was tripped and everything else nearby (TV, lights, other fridge...) are working. On the one hand, I hate to see this thing check out after only 4-5 years of service. OTOH, it would give me an excuse to pick up a chest freezer and double my draft beer output. This draft fridge is a Danby half-height fridge that holds 2 cornies. What do you guys think?

[gnef]

well, what I would first do is unplug it, and let it fully defrost. This may only take a few hours if you leave the door open. This will allow your beer to warm up, so you may want to move your kegs to another location for refrigeration if you so desire. Once the kegerator is fully defrosted, plug it back in and monitor the temperature over the next hour. If it does not change appreciably, it will most likely be too expensive to repair (and just to have someone look at it to tell you what is wrong can be expensive, and that isn't even fixing it yet).If you do decide to buy a new chest freezer, I would recommend you to purchase one as large as you can afford and fit inside your space you are trying to put it in.

[chuck_d]

I'd unplug it for 24 hours, let it open and clean out any water from inside. Then I'd plug it in with a thermometer in it, set it for its coldest and check it after 4 hours or so. I had my wine cooler fermentation chamber freak out on me before the wedding I was brewing for and it froze my lager. I just unplugged the thing since I didn't have time to deal with it. The temperature settings only go 45-65 so freezing my beer isn't really supposed to be able to happen. It could be that there is a tiny crack in the capillaries of your cooling element inside the fridge. That's how my last kegerator checked out, but it got damaged in a cross country move. I say do a system reset before you make any kind of decision. Ctrl-Alt-Delete. Even if it works you should build out a 4 tap chest freezer :PEdit: looks like gnef and I are on the same page, but personally I'd pull the beer out even if I didn't have a place to put it. You want to just test the system out with no load in it, rather than having a couple of kegs in there containing a large thermal mass for the fridge to deal with while just doing a test. He's right on not bothering to fix it. The cost for almost any repair will be as much or more than a new unit.

Edited by chuck_d, 06 September 2009 - 02:32 PM.

[Greatfookin]

I'd unplug it for 24 hours, let it open and clean out any water from inside. Then I'd plug it in with a thermometer in it, set it for its coldest and check it after 4 hours or so. I had my wine cooler fermentation chamber freak out on me before the wedding I was brewing for and it froze my lager. I just unplugged the thing since I didn't have time to deal with it. The temperature settings only go 45-65 so freezing my beer isn't really supposed to be able to happen. It could be that there is a tiny crack in the capillaries of your cooling element inside the fridge. That's how my last kegerator checked out, but it got damaged in a cross country move. I say do a system reset before you make any kind of decision. Ctrl-Alt-Delete. Even if it works you should build out a 4 tap chest freezer :PEdit: looks like gnef and I are on the same page, but personally I'd pull the beer out even if I didn't have a place to put it. You want to just test the system out with no load in it, rather than having a couple of kegs in there containing a large thermal mass for the fridge to deal with while just doing a test. He's right on not bothering to fix it. The cost for almost any repair will be as much or more than a new unit.

I concur.

[Big Nake]

Thanks guys. I put a thermo in there and checked it 15 mins later and it was 45°... a good 10° higher than it should be. Then I checked it again and it was 40°... but I think the ice melting and hitting the thermo lowered the temp so I put the thermo on top of the kegs and now it reads 55° and the water is dripping out of there a little quicker (the ice is melting). I unlpugged it and will plus it back in tomorrow. I'm off to our local fest and I'll plug it back in tomorrow morning and report back. Thanks again.Ps. I explained this to my wife. She signed and just looked at me but her look said, "I know you're going to do this anyway so go ahead". How does a wife's look say that?

[chuck_d]

I had a problem with my window A/C. It's a big honker 100 pound beast that I carried up here and stuck in the window. After a huge downpour rainstorm while it was running the fans for "radiating" heat into the air froze this big chunk of ice. It would basically run without actually cooling the room and when it shutoff you'd sometimes hear this big crack sound. Not good. I had to turn it off for a night to let it all melt and then it started working normal again. Enjoy the beer fest. NYC's Beer Week is next week, the first week I'm out of town for school. Those Bastards! Looks like I might be missing Chicago's as well.

[Big Nake]

Chuck_d: Let us know when you roll into town so us locals can show you a good time. I will plug this thing in tomorrow and see what happens. Cheers!

[Big Nake]

All of the ice had melted by the time I got back from the fest so I plugged it back in last night. I heard it kick in with a hum so I was pretty confident that it was okay. This morning... cold beer! It seems that it just needed to defrost a little and it's back to where it should be. Not sure how I feel about this since I was envisioning grander things. But now I can do it on my own time and not worry about hurrying because I have no way of serving. Thanks & cheers!

[Big Nake]

Gang: Does anyone think this issue may have been caused by humidity? I know that ice and frost will build up in the fridge (other fridges too) when it's very humid. This past week was pretty sticky here. Ordinarily when you walk from the main level to the basement, you feel the difference in air... cooler & drier. That feeling was less-obvious this past week and I wonder if the fridge was working harder. Bottom line, it's working and I was tapping beers this afternoon while grilling and enjoying a warm, sunny day. Cheers!

[Patrick C.]

High humidity will make it worse, but it sounds like you may have a problem in the defrost circuit. Basically there is a heater around the cooling coil that turns on once a day or so to melt off all the frozen condensation. There's a timer that turns the defroster on, a heater, and a thermocouple that tells it when to turn off. If any of these is shot, ice builds up on the coil. The unit has to work harder, but you usually don't notice a problem until ice blocks the air duct to the refrigerator. The freezer stays cold, but the fridge doesn't get any cold air.This happened on our main fridge last year. Luckily I had the fermenting fridge to use as a lifeboat. It turned out to be the thermocouple- cost about $10 for the part, and easy to change out once you clean out the freezer. Keep checking the coil for ice- if this is what's wrong, the ice will gradually build up until it blocks the airflow again.

[Patrick C.]

This site has a lot of good info on specific models and haiku to aid in your repairs. You'll also learn that the proper terminology is 'beer compartment' and 'ice cream compartment'.https://fixitnow.com/wp/2008/10/22/eyeball-test-for-a-bad-defrost-thermostat/edit- looks like I can't edit the last post, but it's a thermostat, not just a thermocouple.

[Stout_fan]

Not meaning to state the obvious but (line stolen from Mtn.), when a cooling system runs low on refrigerant the first problem is the evaporator icing up.