My bottom freezer not closing properly

Hello Laura;

My name is Peter. I am a retired field service refrigeration technician.

Refrigerators with freezer drawers are nice up until the time that you need to call a service technician, and find out it cost about 40% more than a top or side by side refrigerator to repair.

If you leave your freezer drawer not completely closed, outside warm air enters your freezer and you get Ice build up on the rail system. It is difficult to see if the freezer drawer is completely closed because the fresh food section doors above block the view.

If you can pull the drawer out part of the way, use a hair dryer directly on the rail system on both sides in a effort to melt the restricting ice. Take your time. This may take several hours at which time you will push and pull on the drawer every 30 minutes until you break the rail system free from ice restriction.

After you have the door free, with a kitchen spatula and a hair dryer heat the gasket around the freezer door gasket pulling the gasket out to repair a possible crushed door gasket and not having a goo seal.

I have gone on service calls where the rail system ice was so built up, all I could do was to advise the customer to unplug the refrigerator for 36-24 hours to clear the ice from the rail system.

This is a common problem with drawer freezers. Next time get either a top mount refrigerator freezer or a side by side. Lower repair cost and more reliable.

would check ur freezer thermistors and cold control thermostat as well as air flow damper vent

Lastly check the cold control thermostat with a meter for both OHMS and volts ( VOLTS is a live test with fridge plugged in so be careful) It must show 110 volts. An open or thermostat that reads infinity will not allow the proper cooling and defrosting cycles to operate and may in fact stop anything from happening as if there is no power to the unit?

ALSO CHECK THE AIR FLOW VENT SYSTEM At times it can get stuck to far closed or open. Some units feature a digital electric adjusting vent system while others are manually set. Check for any ice build up or other obstruction in the vent damper, see if u can manually open or close it. Some times when u have the settings set to the highest it closes off one area while allowing to much cold air flow to the other area!

Cold air sinks. If evaporator temp is not low enough only the items on bottom of freezer will get cold and possibly freeze - stuff on top will not.
Throw a digital thermometer in there towards the top shelves and I bet your temps are high. Low refrigerant will cause this; furthermore, if you leave the refrigerator door open by accident, the refrigerator will never shut off, the freezer evaporator will freeze over with a block of ice, and the freezer temps will be higher. If that is what happened, simply unplug the unit and allow it to self defrost and then turn it back on for proper operation and make sure that the refrigerator door is properly closed!

My kitchen aid bottom drawer freezer kept melting and freezing to block the drain and then water would leak out all over the floor. I did the WHOLE fridge/freezer defrosting process once, when i really just needed to do the bottom.

I have had issues with other Kitchen Aid (NEW BTW) appliances so I've talked to many repair people. One guy who came out to fix something else, told me that the freezer is really a pain to get to close completely. SO, when you don't close it all the way (Extra push) it will melt and then re freeze when it is closed properly. He suggested I take everything out, leave it open and use a hair dryer on the ice until it melts. Then use a wire hanger to unplug the drain to make sure its draining properly.

It works! You really have to make sure the drawer is shut ALL the way. I have a 2 yr old who is constantly opening it up...this is my issue! The seal is not that great and you have to really push it closed to prevent the ice build up issue.

Hope that helps!

in the fridge compartment check behind the control panel where the light bulbs are remove this cover and make sure the damper vent door opens and closes when adjusted with the fridge control sometimes they ice up from condensation and freeze in one position and this may let too much cold air in from the freezer for too long,otherwise it also could be a defective electronic control board in this same area

Make sure the fan in the freezer is running to circulate the air through the fridge. The cold air will settle to the bottom if it's not. Make sure the vents from the freezer to the fridge are open. There's one at the top and bottom.
Make sure the dampers to the vents open and close when you adjust the temp.

check to see if the fridge is tilted back a little so the top door closes with just a little shove,also if there isn't any weight on the freezer door it will pop open,put something on the door,a bottle of water that will freeze or whatever you want,it could be leaking from stuff melting from the door being open, is the water dripping from the door?the door does freeze up and will melt out if door is left open, hopefully your air ducts didin't freeze up,make sure you can feel cold air blowing into the fridge section,if not heat up the back wall where the evap fan motor is with a hair dryer the air ducts are near there and check the freezer ceiling for frozen water droplets,hopefully everything will freeze back up with the door closed.

Make sure the vents from the freezer to the fridge are not blocked by ice etc. One is at the bottom and one at the top. The on at the top is adjusted open or closed when you adjust the fridge temp. Make sure it's working. Also make sure the fan in the freezer is circulating the air from the freezer through the vent at the top.

Okay, I fixed it for now. The design for this bottom freezer drawer is not good. What happened was most likely that my son slammed the door, and it bounced and was slightly open. Overnight, ice started to form all over the compartment, including inside the drawer guides. Some ice was probably obstructing the drawer glide from sliding shut.

What I did, not thinking this was the solution, was to prop chairs against the drawer to close it while I searched for answers on the Internet. In the meantime, some of this ice must have refrozen in the closed position (due to the weight of the chairs). When I went to check it later, I had a little trouble opening the drawer. I gave it a hard yank and some small frost flew off, as I opened the drawer.

It was not easy sliding it due to the frost. I then moved it out and in until it felt smooth, and finally closed the drawer and it stayed in the shut position.

Kids are instructed to close the drawer gently and visually check that it is sealed. There is also an air passage between the refrigerator unit and the freezer so that when you close the double french doors, some air pushed to the freezer section and momentarily pops the drawer open. You should make sure that the drawer closes before leaving the kitchen. If you are on vacation, prop chairs to make sure both the freezer drawer and the french doors stay closed. This is important if you're in an earthquake area as a small tremor could open the doors and you'll get a fire when the lights stay on and burn through the wiring (as others have noted).

There's warm moist air entering the unit from the back somewhere. Pull the unit away from the wall and check behind there. Look closely at where the Ice Maker fill tube enters through the back. If you find the air leak, use "perma-gum" (google it) to seal it.... not silicone.