Dehumidifier

This indicates a lack of cooling.

Freezing up usually indicates a lack of refrigerant.

Take it in and see whether it's worth the cost for a repair that may only last 2 years (probably no better than the original).

John

The unit should have been hermetically sealed. If it went bad in 2 years, there probably has been a leak since it was built. So, if they do refill it without finding the leak, will fail again in 2 years. A competent refrigeration service place should be able to find the leak.

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I'll find out about getting this repaired. If I need a new one, is there a better band that hopefully isn't made by LG?

BTW, do you think the orange colored substance I'm finding at bottom of the water bucket is from the oil that was mixed in with the freon, or do you think that is something else? Other than that I'm not seeing any oil anywhere.

Thanks,

J.

LG warranty = 5 years.

Good luck. We bought a Sears - cough, cough, looks identical to LG units

- dehumidifier two summer seasons ago. The highest capacity (translates: most expensive) model Sears carried. It broke within six months - fan went dead. That got replaced under warranty. 15 months after purchase it died again. This time the fan still works! But there is zero output. And it now makes so much noise you can hear it two floors up from the basement.

Oh, and one of the "press in place" casters fell off. Can they possibly make them any cheaper?

Sears could give a rat's arse about the problem. After numerous calls to various customer service departments they all came up with the same solution: Pay this time to get it fixed for the second time in 15 months, or please go buy another Sears unit to replace it. Otherwise, go stuff yourself.

Died twice in fifteen months. Ya think we're gonnna throw repair money at it? The bench charge alone is 45 bucks, even if we decide to not get it repaired.

I don't know what to buy because no matter what brand name plate is on the units they all look the same as if they are coming from the same factory. GE, LG, Sears, Samsung - they all look like clones of each other. We wanted to upgrade our still functioning 20 year old unit to something with higher capacity. Bad idea, I guess.

Hey at least you get "orange stuff." We got nuttin at all.

Better read that again:

1 year - entire unit. 5 years - compressor only.

Rick

In most cases they do. Brand names are irrelevant these days, it's no indication of who actually made the stuff. It's very common for one overseas company to own half a dozen or more once well known US brand names and slap them all on the same junky unit for sale in different stores.

Hi!

Wow...that's pretty bad reliability. Even with things getting cheaper and somewhat less well made, the reliability of a sealed refrigeration system should not be that bad.

I've got a ~30 year old Sears Coldspot dehumidifier (looks to have been built by Whirlpool) that's still going strong. It's even been under water a few times in basement floods. The only repair it has needed to date is a new fan motor about ten years ago, which Sears could still get. The switch that shuts it off when full has failed, and so did the neon light that comes on when it is full, but I can easily remember to empty it every few days.

William

In it's present state, the thing seems to have had a nervous breakdown. We have seen no idication of compressor leakage, like the OP's concern. But this is one of those "fully electronic" disasters with touch pad controls. And, in theory, an electronic hygrometer of some sort that is supposed to control the whole process. The fan switches on, the fan switches off, the compressor starts banging away, the fan turns on, the compressor shuts off, the fan keeps running... And for all that "effort" it's condensing zero moisture. What it does at this point, and when it decides to do it, seems to have no sense of reason at all. And I'm certain if they determined that the electronic control touch pad is at fault that it will cost more to replace that single part than the $175.00 we paid for it.

Exasperating.

Rick

Similar model here, purchased at garage sale for $5, about 20 years ago. Only difference is that after repairing the bearings on the fan motor several times, I simply strapped an external fan to the back of the unit. :) A properly designed and manufactured hermetic refrigerstion system *should* last almost forever. Some do, many don't.

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Me too; Sears top model, fan died; replaced fan, now it freezes up alla time (despite manual saying this model is good down to like 50 degrees or such). And I discover it's the same as the LG series, which is the same as the Comfor Aire series. So, I find that there are rebuilt LGs going for $99 here and there both locally and over the internet, so at that price they're more attractive.

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BTW, they're easy to replace the fan motor, which is like $30 from Sears. I'm idly thinking of what might replace that motor and be more reliable. Since it's a two speed motor and both speeds go out at the same time, I'm guessing it's the thermal protection in the motor getting overexcited.

I brought it to a local repair place. They will let me know in a few days if it's the refrigerant system which is still under warranty, and, if it's not, that, then what it would cost to fix.

If I need a new one, maybe I'll wind up paying an extra $60 to extend the warranty of the whole unit to 5 years.

J.

Hi!

Ever thought of bypassing this to see what happens? It shouldn't be too hard to disconnect fan and compressor, after which you can power them externally. You might even be able to hot-wire the unit and get an external humidistat that's capable of turning it on and off at the prescribed humidity level. Make notes, drawings or take pictures of how it all went together. It is most likely a bunch of spade lug connectors that plug into the control panel.

You might even be able to get a good humidistat from an older unit that has had another failure and wire that up.

A compressor that's "banging away" is either in very poor health (!!!) or is being abusively cycled on and off. If the fault is really in the compressor, you probably cannot do very much about it. If the fault is in the controller, I'd be *very* tempted to wire around it and use the unit that way.

William

Hi!

In the case of this unit, the fan motor simply wouldn't reach operating speed and overheated very quickly. The bearings were still pretty good--it seems like the motor developed some shorted windings.

I think this one might be built somewhat differently--it is actually built so that the intake and exhaust are both in front. I've never seen another like it. The design is really quite a good idea. It's much easier to put it up against a wall, and the water pan slides out of the front.

Absolutely agreed. :-)

William

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Yeah, but...

If the LG - aka Sears aka Comfort Aire - units are failing in a matter of months... And you are finding them available as rebuilt units all over the place... Do you think they "un-built" the problems that caused them to turn into refurbished units to begin with?

Personally, I wouldn't drop another hundred bucks on the purchase of a same model unit I already paid $175.00 for after that model type failed twice. A refurbished unit generally has a far shorter warranty period than a new unit.

Rick

Assuming it's the bearings that fail, you could probably pick up a pair of sealed ball bearings from Mcmaster Carr and use them in place of the original sleeve bearings. Would probably take some fabrication but it might be fun too.

I have two 50 pint Comfort Aire D50A2 units. They are full of FSP part numbers which makes me think Whirlpool. And the 800-253-1301 on the label rings through to the Whirlpool No-Help line. Despite that, they deny any relationship.

Another label has "Heat Controller, Inc" of Jackson MI. I suppose I should call them.

Both failed the same way; the crimped-togther 0.01HP Emerson Electric motor seized, the coils iced over, and the compressor Klixon overload eventualy roached itself.

In one case, the 5 cent plastic fan hub cracked off the shaft as well.

I freed up the one motor & drilled a hole into the back bearing cap. I lubed up both bearings and it now blows up a storm.

I found the part #'s on some appliance repair site.

Their [aprox] prices: $46 for the motor $36 for the PoS fan blade $36 for the Klixon.

I need the overloads at the least. I can find another fan. Electronicsurplus.com has some Klixons, but I can't decode the trip curve of them. I may just buy 'em. [Hell of a statement for an overload, right?]

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