Whirlpool French Door Freezer Fan Noise in Palm Harbor: Iced-Over Coil and a Bad Defrost Sensor
- Symptom
- The freezer fan on a Whirlpool French door fridge was making noise.
- Cause
- The fridge wasn't defrosting. Ice built up over the evaporator coil and around the fan, and the defrost sensor had failed.
- Fix
- We replaced the defrost sensor and melted all the ice off the coil.
A client in the Myrtle Point neighborhood of Palm Harbor called about a noisy fan in their Whirlpool French door refrigerator (model WRF736SDAM).
Frost where it shouldn’t be
Inside the bottom freezer, the back panel was coated in frost. That panel hides the evaporator coil and the fan that blows cold air over it. On a fridge that defrosts properly, you don’t see frost like this.
With the panel off, the coil was packed solid with ice, and it had grown up around the fan housing. That’s what the fan was fighting with.
The defrost sensor
A few times a day the fridge switches on a heater under the coil to melt off the frost. The defrost sensor clipped to the coil tells the control when it’s cold enough to need that and when it’s warm enough to stop. When the sensor fails, defrost doesn’t happen, and the ice just keeps piling up.
This one had failed, so we replaced it. Here are the old and new sensors side by side.
We melted all the ice off the coil so the fridge starts clean, then put the new sensor on.
The tech sheet
This fridge still had its tech sheet, with the service diagnostic mode, every test step and the part specs. We typed it all up on its own page: Whirlpool WRF736SDAM service mode and tech sheet.
A freezer fan that starts making noise is often a sign of ice, not a bad fan. Our refrigerator repair page has more on what we fix.
FAQ
Why is the fan in my freezer drawer noisy?
Often it's ice. If the fridge stops defrosting, frost keeps growing on the coil behind the back panel until it reaches the fan. On this Whirlpool the defrost sensor had failed.
Do you have to melt the ice when you fix a defrost problem?
Yes. A new part won't clear a coil that's already packed with ice, so we melt it all off during the repair and the fridge starts fresh.