GE Upright Freezer in Trinity: A 23-Year-Old Compressor Start Device Giving Out

A longtime client in Trinity called us again — over the years we’ve been out to her place for an oven, a dryer, and an icemaker in the laundry closet. This time it was a GE upright freezer, 23 years old, with a compressor that wouldn’t reliably start.

An old part finally wearing out

The freezer itself is a simple setup: an electromechanical thermostat, a fan, and a defrost heater on a timer — nothing fancy, and none of it was the problem. Everything ran fine except the compressor, which would sometimes just fail to start.

That kind of intermittent no-start points at the start device — the small relay/overload assembly mounted on the compressor that gives it the extra kick it needs to get spinning. After 23 years, it’s a common enough part to fail on its own even when the compressor itself is still good.

Repairable, but she chose otherwise

The start device is a straightforward, inexpensive fix, and we told her so. But with the freezer packed full of food and the unit already well past what you’d normally expect from a freezer, she decided it made more sense to replace it with a new one rather than keep nursing a 23-year-old compressor along.

Both are reasonable calls, and we’re glad to do either — sometimes the honest answer is that a cheap part will get you a few more years, and sometimes it’s that your money is better spent on a new unit. If your freezer’s compressor is failing to start intermittently, a worn start device is one of the first things worth checking before you decide which way to go. See our refrigerator repair page for what else we typically look at.