chest freezer always running

[kbd]

Hello at RE:

I have a White Westinghouse chest (model: FC105L), it could be twenty years old.

To date it has worked perfect, even after being moved twice.
Here is the short history of the issue. We had a little storm pass through
CT a couple of days ago. In anticipation of the storm I turned up the freezer
and I bought 20lbs of dry ice. We lost everything in our refrig's and freezer two years
ago, in another storm. I put the dry ice in a small cardboard box, closed but not sealed,
on top of the food in the freezer and put a light blanket on top of the freezer.

Well we were lucky only lost power for six hours. This was actually guaranteed by the
fact that I ran around to find dry ice.

Now the freezer is always running, I can hear the compressor. The freezer inside is good and cold. I turned the freezer off last night and turned it on this morning. As of now, three hours later it is still running. I expect it will keep running.

So kind and wise RE guys and maybe gals. What did I break?
Is there a thermostat on this freezer that can be easily replaced?
I looked on-line and could only find a Temperature Control Part Number: PS425273,
for this freezer.

And now for the Lovely Mrs's question: Did the dry ice break the freezer?
Or did the fact that I moved the temp control which had not been moved in 10 years
break the freezer?

Many thanks for your attention to this matter.

KBD

[paulg88]

3 hours isn't very long considering its a 20 year old fridge cooling from room temp to freezing. Have you returned the thermostat to where it was set before you adjusted it? It might just be struggling with those extra few degrees...

[kbd]

3 hours isn't very long considering its a 20 year old fridge cooling from room temp to freezing. Have you returned the thermostat to where it was set before you adjusted it? It might just be struggling with those extra few degrees...

Oh my mistake.

It never got warm, the dry ice took care of that.
It ran for a full day before I tuned it off over night.
And then again today it has run for the full day. I just turned it off.

Afraid of it starting a fire.

KD

[mikeref]

Stick a tub of ice-cream in there, at basket level overnight. If you need a jackhammer to get the ice-cream out tomorrow, then your thermostat is the problem.
Chest freezers, especially yours at that age, need 12 to 16 hours run time per 24 hours to maintain -18 C or 0 F.

[spimps]

Cabinet insulati0m can deteriorate,signs are damp patches underneath or condensation patches on the outer.
If your ambient temp is 65f plus and you turn up the thermostat then it will run for several/many hours to acheive the set temp.
Buy a decent quality thermometer so you can monitor the temp.stick it in the centre,try and get you temp to be around -18c no need for it to be colder,wastes energy and makes it run more.
You could have an element of wear in the compressor/motor which means it isnt quite as efficient as it once was.
Just scrapped,sadly my own 39 year old Electrolux freezer which still looked good but was past its best.

[R600A]

Hi

This unit was originally made by fridigaire and dependent on the spec that whitewestinghouse stated then it could have a super freeze/fast freeze switch ( orange ) on the front next to the thermostat. This should not be lite as this switch by pass's the thermostat and will run forever until it dies.

Bryan