Why Is My Refrigerator Freezing Food? How To Solve It?

Food should not freeze in a refrigerator because it is intended to keep food cool for safe storage. When you open your refrigerator in the morning, you might be surprised to see that the bottle of milk you put in there yesterday has solidified.

But why is my refrigerator freezing food? Several factors, such as a broken temperature sensor, blocked air vents, a leaky door seal, and more, can result in food freezing in the refrigerator.

You’ll learn how to fix a refrigerator that freezes everything if you keep reading.

Table of Contents

Why Is My Refrigerator Freezing Food?

You’ve Set The Thermostat Too High

When you’re putting groceries in or taking things out of the refrigerator, it’s simple to accidentally raise the thermostat. If you thought the refrigerator wasn’t quite cool enough, you might have purposefully raised the thermostat. The thermostat adjustment knob on most refrigerators usually has a mark, but over time, this mark fades. As a result, it is no longer possible to measure the indicating temperature precisely. Therefore, you might have accidentally set the thermostat much higher than you intended, resulting in everything becoming frozen as well as higher energy use and higher bills.

You Have A Bad Gasket

In order to seal the compartment and stop heat transfer between the room and the refrigerator’s interior, the gasket serves as a lining for the door of the appliance. Your refrigerator will run continuously to compensate if a gasket has worn out and started to leak, which will cause everything inside to start to freeze. Placing a piece of paper in the door and attempting to remove it without opening the door is a simple test to see if you have a bad gasket. There is a problem with the gasket and it needs to be replaced if the paper slides out or won’t stay in place.

Your Coils Are Dirty

Along with the evaporator coils inside the appliance, your refrigerator also has a heat exchanger and condenser coils mounted on the outside. To enable the refrigerant fluid to carry out its function of heat exchange, these coils are required. It makes the refrigerator work harder to maintain the ideal temperature when these coils become covered in dust or other types of dirt. The effects of winter inside your refrigerator and overcooling can, unfortunately, sometimes result from this. You can find cleaning instructions for the coils in your owner’s manual. It is a good idea to clean the coils frequently to prevent problems in the future.

You Have A Faulty Thermostat

Thermostats are made to activate cooling when it’s required. When the desired temperature is reached in a refrigerator, it should turn off automatically. Keeping the temperature fixed and as desired, is crucial. If there is a problem with your thermostat, it might not shut off properly, leaving it running all the time.

Blocked Air Vents

Your refrigerator must maintain its coolness! Even with modern technology, it can be challenging to keep these devices at the right temperature. Air vents keep the air flowing and help keep the refrigerator uniformly cold. They not only make sure the fridge stays cool, but they also alert you when the thermostat is set too high or low.

The air vents in your refrigerator may be blocked by an excessive amount of food. If so, some food may have frozen after being exposed to colder air for a longer period of time. By taking out some of the food from your refrigerator, you can fix this. You might need to remove some of the food from the bottom shelf, for instance, if there is a lot of it there.

You might also need to replenish your refrigerator’s stock of food. Also, make sure your refrigerator is fully stocked because it helps it absorb the cold air better.

Damper Problems

You might be familiar with a damper if you own a refrigerator or freezer. Basically, this assembly is required to control the amount of cooled air that enters the refrigerator from the freezer. If the damper is broken, extra air may flow into the refrigerator compartment and gradually lower the temperature. You’ll require the assistance of a qualified appliance repair professional if you think you might have damper issues.

Main Control Board

Too frequently, control boards are held accountable for issues that originate from more usual and less unusual sources. Test the more frequently faulty components first before ordering a new control board. Replace the original board if none of these components are broken.

Temperature Control Board

The temperature control board functions as the refrigerator’s brain. It will continuously send voltage to the fan or compressor motors if it is malfunctioning. The refrigerator will become excessively cold as a result. Never replace the control board before examining all other potential problem areas, such as the thermostat and condenser.

What Makes Food Freezing In The Back Of Refrigerator?

The air from the freezer compartment is often used in refrigerators to cool the refrigerator section. As a result, items at the back of shelves may continue to be frozen and a buildup of hot air may occur near the front of the shelves.

A bad situation for all parties involved is when shelves are overcrowded because this reduces airflow and increases the risk of food spoiling. You should refrain from overfilling the shelves in order to prevent this scenario.

How To Fix A Refrigerator That Freezes Everything?

The refrigerator door’s gasket is a crucial component, and if it is damaged or broken, your refrigerator won’t be able to maintain food’s frozen state as well. Any cold air that has been kept in the compartment can escape once the seal is broken and enter the warmer environment, leaving a cold storage box with a propensity to freeze its contents.

1. Check The Fridge Settings

Check your refrigerator’s temperature settings before you take any action. Even if the temperature appears to be high enough, there may be other factors working to freeze your food because the dial isn’t always the most accurate way to control temperature.

Increasing the temperature is obviously a good idea if it is set too low. Just be careful you don’t set it too high. (The interior of your refrigerator should be kept between 38 and 42 degrees Fahrenheit.) The last thing you want is for bacteria and other opportunistic microbes to find a safe haven in your food as a result of it getting too warm.

Using a different thermometer could provide you with a more accurate reading if your fridge is getting old or wasn’t that good, to begin with. You can check the temperature without even opening the door by using inexpensive analog thermometers or fancier digital wireless versions.

2. Identify Problem Areas

Try to pinpoint the area of the fridge where the problem is occurring if your food is still freezing despite raising the temperature settings. The top shelf, the bottom of the refrigerator (the crisper drawers and meat pans), and the door shelves are where GE claims the most issues occur.

It should be fairly easy to fix as long as the problem is localized to one location. All you need to do is keep your foods that are most sensitive to temperature there. If the entire fridge cavity is still too cold, there might be a more serious problem at hand.

The temperature inside refrigerators isn’t constant. The location of the meat, cheese, dairy, etc. should be according to the user manual.

3. Check The Freezer Settings

Your food is still freezing despite being moved away from the vents. The freezer could still be the issue. The orientation of your machine’s freezer, one of the many factors at play—a bottom-freezer fridge, in particular—might be problematic—is one of those factors. Since heat rises, you might recall from science class that the coldest part of the refrigerator will be at the bottom.

One option is to increase the freezer’s temperature settings, but you should be cautious not to do so excessively. Yes, even in a freezer, anything above 0°F will promote bacterial growth and hasten food spoilage.

Making sure your ice maker is not running continuously is another option. This might also make your freezer too cold, which would lead to frozen foods in your refrigerator.

4. Keep Food Away From Vents

As soon as you’ve located the issue, see if it’s close to a vent. The top shelf of the majority of refrigerators has a cooling vent above or to the side. Keeping food away from this area may prevent freezing because this is where the majority of the cold air is coming from. (The necessary radius is 5 inches.)

You might want to move the position of a door shelf if that’s the trouble spot. Older models of some side-by-side refrigerators have a vent that directs cold air from the freezer into the refrigerator. This outlet, which is typically found on the wall that divides the refrigerator from the freezer, will probably blow ice-cold air all around it. To avoid this chilly air, move the shelves.

It is almost certainly caused by air venting from the freezer if you have a bottom-freezer model, which is a model that is becoming more and more common in modern homes. It could also be because there isn’t enough food in the fridge, though!

5. Store More Food!

Although it may appear to be a silly solution, it is actually a viable one. According to GE, the reason why the food at the bottom of your refrigerator keeps freezing may just be that it isn’t completely stocked.

For the purpose of absorbing all the chilly air vented into the cavity, refrigerators must be fully stocked. Your food will freeze if the cavity is relatively empty because all of the cold air will sink to the bottom. So simply keep it stocked! Another benefit is that a fully stocked refrigerator will use less energy to maintain temperatures, particularly in the freezer. This will reduce your utility costs.

6. Contact The Manufacturer

When all of the aforementioned steps have been taken and your food is still frozen, a mechanical problem is probably to blame. Many components, including the thermostat, damper, and control panel, could be broken.

Check to see if your refrigerator is still covered by warranty, and then get in touch with the seller—either the manufacturer or the retailer. To find out what’s wrong with the fridge, they can dispatch a service agent. You’ll need to get in touch with your neighborhood appliance repairman if it’s no longer covered by warranty.

The Bottom Line

Your food may be freezing in the refrigerator for a variety of reasons. It’s possible that your freezer is too cold or that your refrigerator isn’t stocked with enough food.

You should now be aware of what to do in the event that a refrigerator freezes everything. Please feel free to share any advice you may have that was left out of this article.