Why does my freezer get a little warmer every 14 hours?

Question

I equipped my fridge-freezer (Bosch KGN 33X48/13, bought around 2013) with a self-made temperature monitoring system to warn me whenever the internal temperature of the freezer rises above a certain level.

Looking at the resulting curve I'd expect the temperature to more or less steadily swing around a target value.

What I rather see is this:

So the built-in thermostat switches on the cooling unit whenever the internal temperature rises above around 18 °F. However, quite consistently about every 14 hours the cooling unit appears to hold off a bit, allowing the temperature to rise up to 23 °F for a short time. After that the cycle continues normally again.

These short temperature spikes look so equably and intentional that I assume a purpose. Why would the freezer designers arrange for this small temperature increase every 14 hours?

some kind of anti-frost measure is my first guess, my second is that something needs to be recalibrated every so often. — ratchet freak, Nov 08 '17 at 10:06
Incidentally, your freezer is set far to the warm side of recommendations from the USDA. "Check the temperature of your refrigerator and freezer with an appliance thermometer. The refrigerator should be at 40 °F or below and the freezer at 0 °F or below." And yes, it's normal automatic defrost cycling. — Ecnerwal, Nov 08 '17 at 14:51
Your temperature monitor might happen to be placed in an area close to where the cold air comes out or where the heat tape is, causing it not to accurately reflect the air temperature in the freezer. Also, as Ecnerwal said, your freezer is set way too warm. — David Schwartz, Nov 08 '17 at 19:38
Thats exactly it. Loved that tool back when I used it. Good stuff — JonH, Nov 09 '17 at 01:33

score 110 · Answer 1 · answered Nov 08 '17 at 10:13

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It is defrosting.

Frost free refrigeration equipment goes through a defrost cycle every few hours. This normally involves turning off the cooling compressor and activating a heat tape that is attached to the evaporator coil for about 20 minutes. This melts any frost and ice that has accumulated on the evaporator coil and keeps it from accumulating.

It is completely normal to the operation of modern frost free equipment.

answered Nov 08 '17 at 10:13

ArchonOSX

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FWIW, it is normal, but does contribute to food spoilage, dehydration, development of smells, etc. Keeping items that won't be consumed quickly well-sealed and well-insulated (e.g. inside cardboard boxes they're sold in) rather than in the open and exposed directly to the air in the freezer will help mitigate these things. – R.. GitHub STOP HELPING ICE Nov 08 '17 at 18:33
@R.. -- it also saves you from having to replace the thing because you holed a refrigerant line while trying to chisel the built-up ice out – ThreePhaseEel Nov 08 '17 at 23:21
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I believe also keeping the freezer relatively full (just throw water bottles in there if needed) tends to keep the food cooler, due to increased thermal mass. i.e. the heat spreads itself thinner. – Scott Nov 09 '17 at 03:47
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This is why you vacuum-seal anything you want to keep for long periods of time, and why some frozen foods (especially frozen meat) comes vacuum sealed from the factory. – Nov 09 '17 at 04:49
@R.. The temperature never went above freezing. Can this still spoil food? – Nelson Nov 09 '17 at 05:02
@Nelson food is not made of pure water, fats oils and salt will dramatically change the freezing point of foods, and you also have to worry about how fast food will thaw if the power goes out. I have my freezer set to -10F for this reason alone – Richie Frame Nov 09 '17 at 05:34
@R..Well, the effect is limited because of the short period of time. Frozen items have a fairly high temperature inertia (how many hours does it take to thaw your turkey?) and, being often solid with water(fruit, meat), also conduct heat well enough to keep the surface cold even if the surrounding air gets a bit warmer. So the effect on the food is much less than this air temperature graph would suggest. Also, as noted, the freezer is fairly warm to begin with. – Peter - Reinstate Monica Nov 09 '17 at 06:36
@ThreePhaseEel Using anything other than room temperature air to remove the ice is explicitly forbidden in the manual. Those who don't obey the manual are too stupid to operate anything, including a chisel. – Agent_L Nov 09 '17 at 08:43
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@ThreePhaseEel - that's why God invented hair dryers. :-) (Seriously - works like a charm, and no chiseling). – Bob Jarvis - Слава Україні Nov 09 '17 at 10:14
Why do work to hurry up deicing a freezer? Just turn it off leave the door open have something to catch the runoff and come back later. – ratchet freak Nov 09 '17 at 15:43
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@ratchetfreak in case you've got still frozen food you want to place back inside without defrosting – AncientSwordRage Nov 09 '17 at 17:39
@Nelson: My use of the word spoil was probably imprecise; I'm not necessarily claiming it can cause spoilage that would be a health hazard, but also not going to claim that it can't. I was more thinking of changes in the quality of the food's taste/texture/smell/etc. that make it unsuitable for eating. – R.. GitHub STOP HELPING ICE Nov 09 '17 at 18:08
@BobJarvis I prefer a fan heater on a stool. – Chris H Nov 10 '17 at 11:15
@ratchetfreak makes a good point if ice builds up behind the back panel (as it does on some supposedly frost-free models) -- you can't blow warm air in there well enough to get it dry quickly, so the only thing to do is to go slow. – Chris H Nov 10 '17 at 11:16
Deep freezes don't have a defrost cycle, so they are better for longer term storage – Neil McGuigan Feb 17 '18 at 00:13

score 35 · Accepted Answer · answered Nov 08 '17 at 16:15

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Every Freezer including yours has to have a defrost cycle designed in or the cooling coils become so encrusted with frost the recirculation air can no longer pass over them. Then everything goes downhill.

So the engineers design for and install an element between the coils, Control it with a timer and turn it on periodically to eliminate the frost build-up. They operate this element for the shortest possible time span to melt the frost build-up and at the same time affecting to overall box temp the least.

What you are seeing on the graph is that system working.

answered Nov 08 '17 at 16:15

Paul Logan

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And here I always thought that the defrost function was to remove frost from the part of the freezer where the food is, not (only) in the cooling coils. Is it just coincidental that this also prevents frost in the box portion, without actually warming up the contents? – Michael Nov 08 '17 at 17:40
@Michael: The change in temperature comes with a change in relative humidity that likely causes tiny amounts of evaporation to take place from the surface of any frost/ice that has developed. – R.. GitHub STOP HELPING ICE Nov 08 '17 at 18:35
@Michael, the coils are the coldest part of the freezer, so frost build-up starts there. – Mark Nov 08 '17 at 22:26
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"Every" is incorrect; some freezers (particularly chest freezers) do not have this cycle, and have to be periodically defrosted by hand (perhaps months or years depending on ambient humidity and the care you take with them). – Joe Nov 08 '17 at 22:26
Do any use a reverse cycle instead of a heating element? – StayOnTarget Feb 08 '18 at 09:57

score 10 · Answer 3 · answered Nov 09 '17 at 04:18

The other answers are correct that you are seeing the normal defrost cycle of your freezer. I'd just like to add two additional observations:

1) There are commonly two kinds of defrost timers: mechanical and adaptive. Your fridge seems to have a mechanical defrost timer due to its regular 14hr cycle regardless of usage. That means it's often wasting energy defrosting when it doesn't have to.

Adaptive defrosters OTOH try to be more efficient and not run so frequently. They have a computer monitor things like how often the doors have been open since last defrost, how long the compressor has been on since last defrost, how long the heater was on during the last defrost, etc.

(Unfortunately, that's not how it necessarily works out in practice. For my GE fridge, at least, the circuit board has been through many revisions and still fails quite often...and it's darn expensive to replace, too, compared to a simple timer! It's a neat idea, but there's clearly more work to be done in this area. It doesn't take too many CPU - and food - replacements to outweight the minor savings of the defrost cycling running a little more often IMHO.)

2) It looks like you're directly measuring the air temperature in the freezer, so you're catching every little fluctuation. The actual food in your fridge isn't changing so rapidly, so more accurate temperature monitoring for things like food, vaccines, etc. usually involve a probe with a temperature buffer of some kind to better reflect the slower temperature changes that the items in the freezer are actually experiencing (e.g. a probe bottle filled with glycol). And while the claim that a fuller freezer is more energy efficient than an emptier one is still a bit controversial, from a temperature stability standpoint, a fuller freezer should have a more stable temperature, too.

I'd just add that if the freezer is sitting unopened for an extended period of time, I'd expect an adaptive defroster's resulting schedule to be just as regular as a mechanical defroster. — JakeRobb, Nov 09 '17 at 16:47
Very good answers here. I'd like to add that around 80% of refrigerators in the garbage just have a broken defrost component. I would often take them out of the garbage and repair them for an average of 30 bucks and sell them. Sometime for over a thousand dollars. I work in rich neighbourhoods and those people just throw away everything as soon as it shows any sign of failure. — Joe Fala, Feb 19 '19 at 12:25

Why does my freezer get a little warmer every 14 hours?

3 Answers3