Kenmore Bottom Freezer won't keep refrigerator cold, freezer stays frozen 596.69282011

[VictorK]

I have a Kenmore 596.69282011 bottom mount freezer where the freezer stays frozen, but the upper fridge section (about every week or so for a couple of days) warms up to about 15C (60F) for a day or two at a time. When this happens I can hear the fan running inside (and it is blowing nice cold air into the bottom freezer section) but I don't feel any cool air coming into the top centre rear of the fridge section. When it starts working again a few days later - I can once again feel cool air coming into the top fridge section.

- could this be a damper issue not letting cool air from below into the fridge section? - or could this be a sign of the control board starting to fail as it doesn't happen all the time and is not consistent for how often and how long it fails for?

[VictorK]

Update to the fault scenario:

- the upper fridge section is getting warm again now (while the freezer remains properly cold), and when I took the damper guard cover off - I can see that the damper flap is staying OPEN continuously in this state and NO cool air is coming up from the freezer section into the fridge section. It is likely staying OPEN as the fridge section temperature is NOT cooling down to the Fridge setting setpoint and allowing the damper to close until needed again for the next cooling cycle.

- so now I am thinking the issue may be a blockage in the cool air flow up from the freezer section to the fridge section (regardless of whether the damper is OPEN or not).

- would there be a Service or troubleshooting manual available for this Kenmore 596.69282011 bottom mount freezer that someone could point me to?

[Budget Appliance Repair]

It may not be the air inlet duct blocked causing no air flow - it could be the air return ducts iced up causing no air to flow into refrigerator.

The air return ducts should be at the right and left rear bottom corners of the refrigerator compartment behind the crisper drawers.

With the unit running and damper cover off so you know the damper is open - have someone open the freezer drawer and push the door switch so that the freezer evaporator fan can turn on and see if you then are able to feel air coming out the damper.   If the air return ducts are frozen up - opening the freezer drawer allows air to be drawn from the room instead of the sealed freezer so that if the air returns are frozen you should now be getting air flow out the refrigerator damper control.

[VictorK]

Thanks Willie. I will try those steps to check for blocked air return ducts in the fridge section bottom corners the next time this issue happens.

Quick update...

After almost 3 days of a warmer than normal (55-60F) fridge section temperatures and no air flow coming out the Open damper - I was able to obtain some troubleshooting steps for a comparable Amana bottom mount freezer and the control board built-in commands worked for me. I was able to control ALL components one at a time with their factory codes. No components seemed to be defective.

I then forced the freezer into a "short" defrost cycle with the proper command and when it was done - the cool air was once again flowing out the upper fridge damper and after several hours the fridge compartment moved back into the normal range.

Based on that - it now seems like the "auto-defrost" function does not seem to be happening regularly from the control board. The next time the fridge acts up - I will again force the "short" defrost cycle. If that continues to solve the issue - then I will likely get a replacement control board and swap it out - as all other parts seem to be working properly (including defrost heater and thermostat) when told to operate. The control board just might not be reliably telling them to operate as designed.

[Budget Appliance Repair]

@VictorK That sounds like a solid plan - This being the model it is and it uses what is known as the JAZZ Board for the main control, that is a common failure of these control units.  Sometimes they will also keep the compressor running when it should be defrosting causing similar type problems.

[dfphoto]

did you check the drain tube for blockage? i would test the thermistor on the evaporator.. your issue happened to me and it was the thermistor i had to test it at 3 different temperatures to see it was off