I'm not aware of the defrost method mentioned above. Our Whirlpool doesn't have those buttons. However I've found that a once in a while unplugged overnight defrost is like a reboot of a refrigerator.

Just this past week I thought that maybe our eight year old Whirlpool had bitten the dust. I took something out of the frig side that wasn't cold enough. A check with the laser thermometer showed low 50s. Frozen food was still frozen. When I noticed a ton of dust on the coils I blamed myself for letting it burn up. I just knew we were buying a new one the next morning.

We moved all the freezer food to the deep freezer. I ran to town to get ice to ice down the refrigerated foods. Then I blew all the dust out and unplugged it for the night. Then cleaned house after my dust bomb. I plugged it back in the next morning and within a couple hours or so the freezer was zero degrees. The frig side was low to mid thirties. We didn't need a new one.

My opinion is that about all appliances have some kind of planned obsolescence. This Whirlpool is one of the lowest cost side by sides. I kind of hoped for at least ten years, but was prepared to chunk it and get a new one. It has had I think three ice makers under warranty. They are junk. The warranty is out now, so if the ice maker konked out today I figure a new one would be about a third of the cost of a new frig, so new frig it would be. And it sure wouldn't be a Samsung.

Love it! I’ve always believed laughter is good medicine.

With that in mind when our Samsung fridge frosted up again at the most inopportune time, it provided the inspiration to write a lighthearted story about something completely mundane. I realize it was too long for many but that was intentional as I wrote it for the ones that needed a distraction - starting with me. I figured the longer anyone spent reading it was time not spent focused on the virus… I created the t-shirt graphic to serve as cliff notes for anyone that didn’t want to read the story.

Many thanks for those that took the time to share their own stories and suggestions. There are a couple of class action lawsuits that cover a multitude of Samsung models so might be worth looking into.

Regarding all the suggestions, over the last couple of years I’ve tried most that have been mentioned so far both here and the same thread I posted on TFF. I’m of the opinion that other than having a responsibility for keeping the vents and coils clean, your refrigerator shouldn’t be high maintenance. It should just work...

With all the practice I’ve now had in the last couple of years, I find that I can usually defrost it in about 30 minutes from start to finish using my heat gun and a tremendous amount of caution as it would be easy to melt the parts if you’re not careful.. It’s much easier to keep food at a safe temp in a cold cooler while I’ve got the Samsung apart for the heat gun treatment. You do need to support the interior rear panel and be very careful with the wires. On my model the wires are on the top left side of the interior panel so I open gently from the right side. One of the wires is very short, as in just a couple of inches of slack. If you yank on it you could easily damage the wires. I try to keep the left side of the panel within an inch or so of the back of the fridge. As soon as it clears, I gently swing it from the right just enough so the heat gun has access. I use some tupperware to support the panel to keep it from dropping and pulling on the wires.

For those that don’t want to take a chance on melting your fridge with a heat gun, a hair dryer also works but takes longer. Plus you can easily do as others have suggested and try running it on energy saver mode, set the temps on the upper range of recommended, and even turn off the compressor by putting it in demo/service or defrost mode if your model has it. Just keep a close watch to make sure the interior temp doesn’t rise above 40 into the danger zone because you don’t want to be patient zero in the next pandemic.

Regarding the ice maker, for those that have one that still isn’t making ice after you’ve defrosted, I’ve found on our model that I have to both reset the ice maker and call for ice after the reset or it won’t start making ice. It’s a two step process.

First you have to reset the ice maker by either using the reset button if your model has one, or you can usually power it off for more than a minute to reset it. After you reset or power it back up, at least on our model, you have to activate the ice drop switch by using a glass to pretend you’re trying to get ice. Hold it until you hear the motor running for 10 seconds or so. You should do this a couple of times in the first 8 hours after the ice maker reset to make sure your Samsung knows you want ice. Ours will usually make a bucket of ice after it gets cold enough. If we don’t use the ice maker every day, it freezes over rather quickly...

Godspeed~

Blue Moon

My Kichen Aid hasn't yet in 5 years. It was not cheap though.