Common fault
Why does frost keep building up in my freezer?
Short answer
Ice that returns within days of being chipped out means the defrost cycle has stopped finishing, and an Encinitas kitchen reaches that point faster than a dry inland one does.
Why we start there
Three parts account for nearly all of it here: the defrost heater, the thermistor that tells the control when to run the cycle, and the door gasket, which on this coast surrenders its magnet long before it looks worn and lets damp air onto the coil faster than any defrost can clear it. The marine layer that sits over Leucadia and Old Encinitas for weeks in late spring means every door opening brings real moisture onto the evaporator, so a tired gasket here does damage a dry kitchen would take a season to show.
What happens next
Chipping the ice out deals with what you can see and leaves the cause untouched, which is why it is back two weeks later. We measure defrost heater resistance at the harness rather than assuming it from the symptom, compare the thermistor against a calibrated reading at the coil, and then prove the drain path all the way through to the pan. Those three checks separate a heater from a sensor from a drain, and they are three different parts at three different prices.
There is a fourth cause that is specific to how these units got installed in the older Encinitas houses. Where a column was set into an opening built for something else, the drain line frequently got kinked as the cabinetry closed up around it. The defrost cycle then works perfectly, melts the coil exactly as designed, and the water has nowhere to go except back onto the evaporator to refreeze. Every reading points at defrost, and the fix is access and a length of tubing rather than a heater.
If that matches what yours is doing, say so when you call — it decides which parts come on the van.
Reviews
What Encinitas customers say
We are only down at the beach place a few weekends a month, so the whining behind the top grille had been going a while before we caught it. Condenser fan bearing. Replaced on the same visit. Fast, tidy, explained what he was doing.
Two other outfits had been out to our Thermador over in Encinitas Ranch and both of them wanted to sell us a control board. This guy read the stored faults, then went and actually measured at the coil, and it was a thermistor reporting nonsense. Board was fine.
Clean water kept showing up at the toe kick in our Cardiff kitchen and the freezer looked totally normal, so I was picturing the worst. It was a fitting on the ice maker line that had been weeping behind the closed-up cabinetry. Came out the morning I called. Floor was already soft, unfortunately.
Rated 4.9 from 594 customer reviews.
Appliance down in Encinitas?
Tell us the brand and what it is doing — we can usually name the likely repair before we arrive.
Questions
Frequently asked questions
Our column is boxed into an old Leucadia kitchen. Can you service it where it stands?
Yes. Built-in refrigeration is built for service in place: the condenser and compressor compartment are reached through the grille. In the older Old Encinitas and Leucadia kitchens the column sits in an opening cut for it, scribes and filler panels closed up afterward, so dragging it forward would take the trim and sometimes the flooring with it.