nana
5 Cubic Foot
Posts: 70
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Post by nana on Aug 11, 2017 21:42:32 GMT
My house is over 150 years old and half the basement floor is dirt. The other half is poured concrete. I'm afraid a dehumidifier is out of the question. It would just keep sucking moisture out of the ground till it died. Or until I died from emptying the darn thing. The water table is pretty high, too. After a bad winter we sometimes get water in the basement welling up from below, although in 25 years in this house that's only happened about 5 times. But everything, the fridge, the freezer and the heating system is up on blocks just in case. It will be better in fall and winter when the air is drier. I was thinking of rigging a little fan like they have to cool electronics to just keep the air moving on it. It's basically dew, and you don't get much dew on a breezy night. I though that might work. Can't hurt, I suppose.
When I said it was a nice basement I guess I meant charming, like in real-estate-agent-speak. It does have beautiful fieldstone walls and stairs to the outside, and old antique shelves for storing canning jars, and the beams that hold up the floor still have the tree bark on them. That kind of thing.
I'm pretty excited about tomorrow. I think it will be at a perfect temperature. I'll just have to bring interested parties down to the basement if they want to see my vintage refrigerator.
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nana
5 Cubic Foot
Posts: 70
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Post by nana on Aug 12, 2017 12:44:06 GMT
I'm flummoxed. Yesterday, while set at 5, the overnight temp was 32. I turned it one tick warmer, to 4, and this morning the temp was 23!! Here is a picture of the dial: I know it's a little hard to see. But when you click on it to make it bigger, you can see that the little arrow pointing to the left says colder, and the little arrow pointing right says warmer. So when I turn the dial to the right one tick, counterclockwise, shouldn't that make it one tick WARMER? When I first turned it on, we set it at 5, and the overnight temp was 40. So a thermostat calibration was probably necessary. But what the heck is going on here? Could it somehow be getting itself out of calibration? Everything seemed to be going well and now this! Like I said. I'm flummoxed. HELP! I looked back over my other posts and thought it might be helpful to recap: -I had turned the dial from 5 up to 8, one tick below what I believed to be the coldest setting, and could get the temp no lower than 43. -The repair guy took out the thermostat and adjusted it one full clockwise turn, leaving it at 8 where it was, so we were only making the one change. The overnight temp was 9 degrees.. -I turned the dial to 5, and the overnight temp came up to 25. So that was turning the dial to the right, counterclockwise, and it made it warmer, as I believe it should have. -I took the thermostat out myself, and adjusted the screw a quarter turn counterclockwise, and put it back in, the dial still set at 5. I also adjusted the gasket. The overnight temp was 32. So far everything seems to be logical. -I turned the dial one tick to the right, counterclockwise, to 4, and it made it colder again to 23 degrees, instead of warmer. Just what is going on?
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Post by jake on Aug 12, 2017 22:23:11 GMT
With a room temperature of 72°F the cycle times on my GE are 15 minutes on and 40 minutes off with the thermostat set on number 5, empty, with no door openings. I monitored the fridge for 3 hours. On yours, we may be looking at sticking contacts in the thermostat. Especially if the fridge hasn't been used for a number of years. I had this issue when I first got my '50 Frigidaire. The seller told me the truth when I asked if it worked. He said "It works great. Freezes everything to death!" After 24 hours of running it the temperature of the lower, refrigerator, compartment was 0°F with the compressor still running! In fact it only shut off when I tapped the dial. I removed the thermostat and it's cover. Then I sprayed it with a liberal amount of aerosol Electronic Cleaner. With the thermostat still removed I put the dial on the shaft and rotated it stop to stop several times. I then put the thermostat assembly in my modern freezer to test it. The contacts opened (turning off) after a few minutes. Then I left the thermostat our for a few minutes and the contacts closed (turning on). I did this probably 20 times to be sure that it would now cycle. So far it's been (knock on wood) working fine. Thanks to the helpful and knowledgeable people on this forum I was even able to track down a new replacement thermostat, if I need it. Also, be sure that the plastic dial is actually turning the metal thermostat shaft that it fits onto. If the dial is worn it may not be turning the shaft properly or at all. That'll make things go askew.
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Post by coldspaces on Aug 13, 2017 1:08:42 GMT
You need to remember that your control is a constant cut in type. If you haven't turn the adjustment for the cut in it should be turning on when the coil gets to 39 degrees. The off temp is the only one you should adjust or the refrigerator evap will not stay defrosted. You really need to have a thermometer you can watch without opening the door. You need to watch the complete cycles and get you control shutting off at about 32-33 degrees, it should come on at 39. This will give you an average temp in the mid 30s. just opening the door in the morning doesn't tell you where it is at in its cycle.
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Post by blackhorse on Aug 13, 2017 4:25:46 GMT
My house is over 150 years old and half the basement floor is dirt. The other half is poured concrete. I'm afraid a dehumidifier is out of the question. It would just keep sucking moisture out of the ground till it died. Or until I died from emptying the darn thing. The water table is pretty high, too. After a bad winter we sometimes get water in the basement welling up from below, although in 25 years in this house that's only happened about 5 times. But everything, the fridge, the freezer and the heating system is up on blocks just in case. It will be better in fall and winter when the air is drier. I was thinking of rigging a little fan like they have to cool electronics to just keep the air moving on it. It's basically dew, and you don't get much dew on a breezy night. I though that might work. Can't hurt, I suppose. When I said it was a nice basement I guess I meant charming, like in real-estate-agent-speak. It does have beautiful fieldstone walls and stairs to the outside, and old antique shelves for storing canning jars, and the beams that hold up the floor still have the tree bark on them. That kind of thing. I'm pretty excited about tomorrow. I think it will be at a perfect temperature. I'll just have to bring interested parties down to the basement if they want to see my vintage refrigerator. I've seen and worked (installed HVAC equipment) in basements like that many times. It's very helpful to cover as much of the dirt surface (and part way up the walls that are below grade and dirt floor) with plastic sheet. Tape won't hold for long, but overlap the seams by 2 feet or so and spread a line of gravel along the overlaps and bottoms of walls to hold it in place. Use the kind of plastic they sell for vapor barrier in construction supply places.
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nana
5 Cubic Foot
Posts: 70
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Post by nana on Aug 13, 2017 12:27:52 GMT
Wow. There's a lot to think about! Thanks for the on/off cycle times, Jake. That will give me a goal to aim for. To me, all that thermostat work sounds like a job for the guy I paid to refurbish it in the first place. I'm not handy so much myself. Taking the thermostat and turning that screw was at about the uppermost limit of what I am comfortable doing. Is the constant cut in screw that you're talking about, Coldspaces, the one that I turned that is set in a bit on the side of the black thermostat box? The only other screws I saw were the ones that held the bracket to the frame, and the ones that appeared to be holding the black metal of the box together. It all seemed to be coming into adjustment until yesterday. Just for kicks and giggles I turned it up to 6 yesterday, which should have made it colder, and when I checked it this morning it was a pleasantly normal 35. Go figure. It appeared to have just kicked on before I checked it because the coils were only about half frosted.
What kind of thermometer is there that I could see without opening the door? I've seen the probe ones that you use for cooking, to monitor your oven temps, but would they be able to go that low? I've been using my good outdoor thermometer. It's pretty accurate.
If I check it periodically today, during on cycles, off cycles, at the beginning, middle and end, and it is keeping a more or less steady appropriate temperature, can I assume it's OK? I'm a little concerned at the off time being so short, that means it is using a lot more electricity than yours, Jake. I would like to get that fixed if possible. I just am not looking forward to getting the repair guy back here again and maybe having to argue with him about what constitutes a completed job. It's never good to have an adversarial relationship with someone who you are counting on to do something for you.
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nana
5 Cubic Foot
Posts: 70
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Post by nana on Aug 13, 2017 12:40:22 GMT
Oh, I forgot. Blackhorse, I should have said half our USABLE basement is dirt and concrete. The other half is crawlspace of the same vintage. We actually had one of those companies that seals basements and crawlspaces professionally come in to give us an estimate. He took one look and couldn't get out of here fast enough. He actually forgot his tools. He had to come back to get them. If people who do this for a living won't touch it with a ten foot pole, I wouldn't dream of tackling it myself! It is the way it is. We've repointed and sealed up the outside of the foundation as much as possible. That's helped a lot.
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Post by birkie on Aug 13, 2017 13:01:06 GMT
Some professionals just aren't adventurous. Heck, some run away when they see our refrigerators If you do find the right one and get the plastic sheeting done some day, your fridge and house will thank you!
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Post by blackhorse on Aug 13, 2017 15:31:37 GMT
Yeah, I know. One of the houses I installed a heat pump in was like that. It used to have a gravity flow coal furnace in it, a century or so ago. I hated crawling back there for the duct work, and hated more going back to get their stupid cat out of the ducts. (It went in while they had the kitchen register out for some reason). Don't think for a minute that I wouldn't have loved to put a 350 HP motor on the blower and just shoot that sucker out of there, but Crazy Cat Ladies have the same color money as everyone else.....
Stapling a sort of plastic curtain affair back where the basement turns into a crawl space would no doubt help if you don't want to vapor-barrier the whole thing. But your house will fare better if you can do most of it; summer air is so humid that more circulation just isn't the answer unless you are circulating air-conditioned air. But sealing off any outside openings and using a dehumidifier is also a solution. Most will take a hose you run to a floor drain so you don't have to empty them.
And I agree that you need a thermometer that you don't have to open the door to read. The high percentage of run time and erratic temps could all be explained by door opening. Someone said that they had a wireless thermometer that worked; I'm frankly surprised that it works through the metal cabinet, I will have to try that out. The indoor-outdoor wireless one we use barely works through the house wall. But I have several with probes on the end of wires that I use, some record highest and lowest since the last reset. You definitely need to use some kind that you can watch without opening the door.
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Post by birkie on Aug 14, 2017 0:16:16 GMT
www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/B007FTQUX0/I've used these before, used to be something like $15 for a 3-pack. Cheap, but they work OK. Having three is nice in order to get cabinet and evaporator temps at different physical locations. Then just close the door on the wires.
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nana
5 Cubic Foot
Posts: 70
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Post by nana on Aug 14, 2017 21:10:02 GMT
The repair guy is coming back tomorrow. It seems to vary between 23 and 35 degrees, 12 degree swings even though I haven't touched it or changed settings since the start of the weekend. It certainly seems like a problem with the thermostat that simply adjusting it won't fix. I will mention the sticking contacts to him. At least he seems to be willing to stand by his work, or his lack of work. I still feel like this is the kind of problem that could have been prevented if he had done his due diligence. Like changing the spark plugs when you get a tune- up for your car.
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Post by Travis on Aug 14, 2017 23:26:20 GMT
It sounds like a thermostat issue. There's very little you can do to guarantee that a thermostat on a fridge this old isn't going to be a problem. It seems thermostats for GE combinations are notorious to be flaky from reading about troubles elsewhere.
Issues with thermostats is pretty much why I try not to sell people any. It's not worth it to try and verify that they might work, ship them and then deal with them being flaky or not the right one.
Soon, your next step will be a new digital one like ckfan stuck in his Norge.
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Post by blackhorse on Aug 15, 2017 4:08:45 GMT
The ones like the pic I posted seem pretty reliable; they come on window A/C's, refrig, PTAC's, lots of stuff, with little trouble.
But if you have the one that also has an adj screw in the plastic block, they are flaky as hell. I've put 3 on the same box and not gotten consistent operation, finally used a walk-in cooler controller (analog) to regain some kind of control over the thing.
Not sure how you get a constant-cut-in with a cooler controller however.
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Post by ckfan on Aug 15, 2017 11:23:28 GMT
The digital thermostat I used allows you to set the differential and the temp. That way you can allow your frost to melt.
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Post by blackhorse on Aug 15, 2017 20:38:38 GMT
The digital thermostat I used allows you to set the differential and the temp. That way you can allow your frost to melt. Indeed, so does the analog. But no way to anchor the cut-in to 39 degrees that I know of.
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