Freezer Repair in SouthPark & Cotswold, NC

Many SouthPark-area houses have a carport storage room or a garage that now holds a second refrigerator or a chest freezer. In a Charlotte summer that space can run far hotter than the kitchen, and in a hard freeze far colder, so the spare unit either runs without stopping or, in winter, stops calling for cooling while its freezer section thaws. Kitchen refrigerators in remodeled Cotswold and Sherwood Forest homes are often French-door models with ice and water in the door, which adds a valve, a filter and a supply line to the list of suspects. In the mid-rises, a counter-depth unit with clogged coils is the familiar picture.

In older SouthPark & Cotswold houses, a chest or upright freezer often lives on a back porch, in a detached garage or in a basement, where outlets may be older and damp, so the power supply gets checked as well as the freezer.

Chest freezers have no automatic defrost; their cooling coils are built into the walls. Thick frost on those walls insulates the food from the cold and makes the compressor run longer. Defrosting by hand once ice builds past a thin layer, with the freezer unplugged and the food packed into coolers, is ordinary upkeep. A chest freezer that stays warm with clean walls has a different problem.

A lid or door gasket that doesn't seal lets humid air in, and that moisture turns into frost around the opening and on the food. Gaskets harden with age, tear at the corners, or get pushed out of their channel. Check for light leaking around the closed lid in a dark room, and make sure the freezer stands level so the door swings shut on its own.

On a freezer, the checks follow a set order: door gasket and defrost parts ahead of the compressor, because heavy frost can come from several places and only the compressor is costly.

Pull the kick plate or look behind the unit for dust caked on the coil or a cord pressed against the wall, but leave any cleaning until the power is off. If the ice bin or drip tray holds water it shouldn't, empty it and note how fast it refills.

To get a technician out to SouthPark & Cotswold, use the online form or call. Describe what the freezer is doing, add the model number, and note any building or HOA rules. You'll get the diagnosis and a quote at the visit, with no work done until you agree.