Defrost the Fridge

[motion30]

I have a small front opeaning waeco fridge (3.8 cf) less then a year old, works great But I am suprised how little frost on the coil it takes to raise the temp in the fridge section Need to defrost every three weeks or so Is this about normal?

[rebel heart]

Do you have a lot of humidity in there? Not sure if that causes it to be honest.

I defrost every few months with a heat gun a fair distance back. Just enough to keep it warm in there.

[svHyLyte]

Frost/Ice is a very good insulator, which is why igloo's and snow shelters work. Front opening refer's allow all of the cold air to spill out at the base, which is why they aren't so great aboard ship. This also allows warmer relatively humid air into the box where the moisture in all that air ends up on the cold evaporator plates.

You might try adding overlapping vinyl strips just inside the door seals to minimize cold air loss. While we were looking for the boat we have now we were aboard one yacht that had done that--and partially secured the bottoms of the strips with a length of shock cord, and the owner/seller claimed it worked very well.

As for heat guns and defrosting, I raised that very question with our AC tech and his response was that the heat raised the temps/pressure in the plates too much and suggested that we use tepid water only. A couple of pours and the frost sheets off, although that could be a tad messy with a front opener, eh?

FWIW...

[donradcliffe]

Best defrosting technique is to put a sixpack of warm beer in the refrigerator box--quickly melts the ice and chills the beer!

[motion30]

I just open the door at point a fan at the coil within a half hour all is clean. I am in s. florida currently so that probably does not help