5 Reasons why your refrigerator is freezing food & other eatables

The refrigerator is one of the basic appliances required for our homes and has become the part of our life, because before refrigerators the people used to struggle for keeping their foods & eatables cool and protect from the outside temperature. If we describe its structure in brief, It is designed to circulate cool air from the freezer compartment to the food section. But sometime it happens that the food section becomes extremely cold and starts freezing food. Such situation becomes too frustrating when you find that the eatables & the food you placed inside the refrigerator to consume later are frozen.

We have gone through with several possible reasons behind refrigerator freezing food and summarized them in the below mentioned points:

1. Incorrect temperature setting inside the refrigerator:

It is very important to maintain the right temperature inside the food section, and this is controlled by setting the thermostat of the refrigerator. Bacterial growth and food poisoning can be prevented by maintaining the food compartment’s temperature between 36 to 39 degree Fahrenheit.
Temperature management is very important because a temperature above 36-39 degree Fahrenheit can spoil and root the food, while the temperature below 36-39 degree Fahrenheit can freeze the food.

So, check your thermostat settings first, if you find out that your refrigerator is freezing food. Moreover, it is much possible that the thermostat setting get changed accidentally while placing or ejecting the food from the refrigerator.

2. Damaged Thermostat:

Basically, the thermostat controls and powers the compressor, evaporator fan and condenser fan during the cooling cycle. So, it becomes impossible for the refrigerator to understand when to start or stop the cooling, when the thermostat is damaged. On the other hand, it might be possible that the refrigerator is stopped cooling or cooling continuously.

So, in order to rectify this problem and to ensure yourself that whether the thermostat is functioning or not, Try to rotate (turn on-off) the thermostat and listen for a click. By switching ON-OFF, these controls will give the compressor an indication to start or stop the cooling cycle. When the cooling cycle starts you may listen a power hum which gives you a general idea of whether the thermostat is functioning or not.
If the click and power hum are heard, the thermostat is probable working fine. If not, then your temperature control thermostat might be at fault. So, get it replaced as soon as possible.

3. Damaged Thermistor:

The air temperature inside the refrigerator is monitored by a sensor referred as “Thermistor”. It is connected to the temperature control thermostat board. When the temperature inside the refrigerator drop below a certain range, thermistor triggers the thermostat to power up the compressor and start the cooling cycle and vice versa.

If the thermistor is defective then it becomes impossible for the thermostat to understand when to power up the compressor to start or stop the cooling cycle. Under such condition, it might be possible that the refrigerator may cool continuously or may not cool at all.

4. Fan working excessively:

Cold air is moved from the freezer into the refrigerator or the food-section with the help of Evaporator fans. While a broken or damaged fan most often leads to a warm food section, an over-packed food section can interfere with cold sensors, causing the fan to overwork.
Additionally, a fan running continuously produces excessive cold air into the refrigerator section and which eventually results in frozen food in the refrigerator.

5. Jammed or Broken Damper:

A damper is a door (either manual or automatic) that opens and closes to let the more or less cold air come inside towards the food or refrigerator compartment. By doing so, it controls the flow of chilled air from freezer to the food section.
Moreover, due to a jammed or broken damper, too much cold air can be flowed in the food section and which may result into freezing the food.

So, due to the freezing quality, the damper is usually placed at the top compartment of the refrigerator, so as a result it might be seen that the freezing compartment of the refrigerator is primarily set at the top of the refrigerator shelf.