We have a Whirlpool No Frost freezer which we bought a little over 1 year ago, so just out of warranty of course.  We have been pretty happy with it so far but a few days ago it began to warm up.  Normally it maintains the set temperature of -18°C quite well, but lately the temperature has started to slowly drift upwards, even with the Fast Freeze function on it wouldn’t go below -14°C and then -12°C.

Now this is obviously a pretty serious problem for a freezer, a freezer that doesn’t freeze is not a good thing.  So I rang our local refrigeration engineer. John Mazur in Moreton in Marsh has been very helpful in the past and proved to be very helpful this time too.  He was able to solve the problem over the phone.

It seems that there is a known problem with Whirlpool No Frost Freezers (or at least with some models).  Although they are supposedly frost free and so should not require defrosting, they do clog up over a period (in our case about 14 months).  The solution is simple, empty the freezer, leave the door open and then switch it off for a minimum of 24 hours.  During this period it will defrost a little so leave a towel or drip tray under the spout at the bottom of the door.

Whirlpool No Frost Freezer temperature display

After about 30 hours I switched the freezer back on and it came back down to the required temperature in another couple of hours, result! Thanks John!

I hope that this information enables somebody else to save the call out charge for a refrigeration engineer too.  But it does raise the question, if you have to defrost your Whirlpool No Frost freezer every year is it really a No Frost freezer? There isn’t a lot of ice to get rid of but you still have to go through the defrosting process.  We paid a premium for a frost free freezer but now it seems we have to defrost it anyway,  I think Whirlpool need to do a little work on this product range.