Defrost Thermostat

I am a 45 year old woman who is pretty handy but with no prior knowledge about appliance repair. I do have the attitude that if someone else can do it, so can I, which is helpful. I was able to watch a video on this website that showed me exactly how to replace one of the three parts that I replaced. It totally made it easy so that I knew what to do with the wiring. So far, my side by side is working great. I'm the champion! This repair cost me about $75. Who knows how much a repair man would have charged just to look at it.

Must have spent 10+ hours solid looking up info on the internet. Our ice maker had broken years ago, the door flap had broken years ago and I thought this was the end of a fridge after just 6 years 8 months.

GE offered a "broken appliance" warranty for $379 for one year, with no guarantee that when a technician came to look at it, the repairs would be covered by the warranty!!! No thank you, you just want me to buy a new fridge. Okay, challenge on, I'll fix it myself.

I took everything from the back of the freezer out. Spent an hour defrosting (note: use hair dryer next time). Ruled out a motherboard problem (even though it appears I have the old style motherboard), removed dust build up from fan intake. I could not get the heater to come on, so I cut off the thermostat defroster and connected the wires together. The only way to get the heater on was to set the freezer control to 0 / zero.

So, ordered part from partselect.com and it arrived the next day!!!. Installed and unit appears to be defrosting okay after a week.

So now I'm back to order the ice maker part. The door flap will wait for another time.

Note: I've put in the time for novices and recognizing how the freezer is constructed.

Time includes taking everything out of the freezer section, unscrewing everything, diagnosing problem, fixing the problem, putting everything back. I would say allow 3-4 hours and pat yourself on the back if you do it quicker.

Note#2, if you have a large build up there is a hole in the floor of the freezer section. If the water does not evaporate it will run out of the hole and into your wooden floors! Place towels both inside and outside the unit just in case!

Unplugged the refrigerator and removed inside back panel from the freezer compartment and left doors open to allow all ice to thaw. I chose not to use a hair dryer and speed up the process as this could possibly cause more damage if not done with caution. After all ice was melted i took both screws from heat element assembly and followed the simple instructions that came with the new part. Since meters an i dont really work well together and since defrost thermostat and temp sensor were so inexpensive. I opted to purchase those as well in my initial order. They were as simple to replace as a lightbulb. Unscrew the wire nuts from existing sensors and screw wire nuts back on to the new sensors. Buy purchasing all three items at once i felt it just ensured the fiz was complete and the unit has been operating for 7 days like new. One thing i would pass on. If it is the heating element that is burned out, the glass tuve on mine was very black and charred looking. Also when you take it out of the assembly the element was actually in two pieces. Did something cause the element to stay on until it burned out or just old age i dont know. Again, for less than 20 bucks i purchased the additional parts that would seem most obvious to replace and i would recommebd the same. Part select saved us a lot of money not only in parts but in allowing someone with no considerable knowledge in this areato make repairs without hiring an expensive repairman.

My Ge top freezer fefrigerator was going into defrost mode and the heater was staying on for too long causing the food to thaw and eventually refreeze. Originally thought it was the mother board but after researching and do some troubleshooting of my own I realized the defrost terminating thermostat was bad. $8 part from Parts Select. Accessed the evaporator by removing back wall plate. Located thermostat and cut two lead wires to it. Spliced in new thermostat and reattached to eveaporator. Refrigerator seems to be good as new. There is an installation video on the web page that shows you step by step proceedure.

Remove shelve from fridge. Removed four screws from back panel. Remove one screw that was holding the light bulb. Removed the panel (be careful with side stripping. Cut the wires from the old thermostat (leave plenty of wire to splice. Splice in the new one, use connectors, crimp, and then tape with electrical tape. To remove heater and bra, remove the screws on each side and remove the wire connected to it. Use needle nose pliers to remove. Install new one by installing wires first and then the screws.

After diagnosing the problem with the aid of PartSelect.com, I was able to identify the parts that I needed to replace. Repeating the same procedure for the repair, I unplugged the refrigerator.
I transferred all the frozen food items to a cooler.
I removed the shelves from the freezer.
I removed the back panel from the freezer and located the thermostat with the aid of PartSelect.com and the exploded view of the freezer. I defrosted the freezer with a hair dryer and sucked up water using a wet-dry vacuum. I located the thermostat and removed the entire assembly to simplify the repair outside of the freezer enclosure. I removed the thermostat by cutting the two wires that hold it to the wiring harness. I then soldered the wires back in place and covered my work in heat shrink tubing.

REPLACING THE DEFROST HEATER & BRA:
1- Empty freezer.
2- Remove all shelves.
3- Remove white painted metal wall plate opposite
the freezer door. There are 2 phillips head screws
attaching it.
4- There may be ice build-up on the freezer coils,
thaw the ice using a hair dryer.
5- Remove the 2 phillips screws holding the
defrost heater to the freezer coil frame, at the
bottom of the frame.
6- Install the defrost heater to the frame.
7- Replace metal panel.

REPLACING THE DEFROST THERMOSTAT.

1-Perform steps 1-4 above.
2-Locate the thermostat at the top of the freezer
coil in the freezer.
3-Cut the wires connecting the thermostat.
4-Connect the new thermostat to the wires that
were connecting the old thermostat, connecting
the wire color to the same color wire.

Note: Connect the wires by using wire splices
available at radio shack. Use splices
sized for 20 guage wire, and wrap with
electrical tape to protect from moisture.

5- Replace metal panel.

Find online diagram of freezer section for reference. Disconnect power, remove evap cover plate (214) by removing one of the drawer guide rails.

As evidence of your problem, you might see a giant block of ice built up around the coil. Let this defrost this before continuing.

Find THERMOSTAT DEFROST (24) sensor and clip connecting wires. Match replacement sensor wires by color. Twist and solder wires; or wire-nuts and twisting alone might be okay. If not soldering, seal the wire-nuts connections from moister with a good sizeable piece of duct tape. Make sure your wires are out of the way and not left dangling on the evap heater coil, where they could melt.

Suggest concurrent replacement of evap fan motor if this has not already been done in the past.. This become noisy with age and damage from the ice build up seems to have made mine worse.

first removed two srews removed rear panel hair dryer to melt ice (took 30 minutes) cut two wires to thermostat spliced onto new part clipped it onto tube -done replace rear panel and 2 screws. very easy job after reading other letters and their experience -saved myself $500.00

Removed two small phillips head screws at lower back of unit then unplugged old element and plugged in the new one. The thermostat defroster had two wires and clipped on to the coils so I simply cut the two wires and removed the old thermostat and wired in the new one. A local appliance repairman wanted 50 dollars just to look at the unit plust 60 dollars and hour plus parts. I fixed this myself with no experience in about 15 minutes for less than 70 dollars!

First I removed the freezer racks. Used a screwdriver to remove the two screws on the back panel and the two screws on the bottom rack holder. Then used a blow dryer to defrost the ice from the evaporator, removed the two screws for the heater and replaced with the new one. Took out the old Thermostat and spliced in the new one.

I ordered the sensor temp as well but did not install it yet because the location of this was awkward. I thought the instruction on this site was great! This was a very easy repair and so far it seems to have solved my problem.

I has only been a week but so far so good.

I will always use this site in the future. Parts and fellow stories saved a lot of money.

Replaced defrost heater as suggested in your video and the fridge now works as new. Thank you for easy delivery and excellent video.

This was generally an easy fix. The work was in such a confined area of our side by side and my husbands shoulders are broad so that was a little more challenging but overall a quick, easy and cheap repair doing it ourselves without having to call a appliance repairman.

Had this problem on a previously owned GE side by side and paid a repairman $250 to fix it. When it happened to the 2 year old one in our new house, I decided to save some $.

Pull 2 screws on the sheet metal cover in the back of the freezer and remove it. Place a towel in the bottom of the freezer to absorb the water and defrost the coil with a hair drier. Remove the 2 screws holding the defroster to its bracket and unplug the wires. I had to re-route the left wire down the right side since the replacement unit had 2 elements instead of the one on the unit that went bad. Changed out the thermostat since I was in there anyhow; just unclip it from the refrigerant line, cut and splice the orange and pink wires (you'll need 2 butt splice crimps and a crimper tool). Stick it back together and you're done.

Unplugging the fridge.
First, i unloaded the freezer to access the back panel. Remove the shelving and light bulb. Next, i unscrewed 4 screws to remove the back panel. Then, I cut the wires to the defrost thermostat and spliced in the new thermostat. To replace the heater, unscrewed 2 screws but only used 1 screw to attach the new heater because it was shorter than the original.

Hopefully, this works. I'm unsure because the old components seemed to work when testing them with a multimeter outside of the freezer.