Do refrigerator’s just die? The fan is on I can hear that. The light is on. But the fridge and freezer are not cold…they have the remaining cool from whenever it stopped … cooling.
IANA-Maytag man so I have no clue how a refrigerator works…can these be repaired? Or is this something I need to go have replaced at Sears? Is there something I should look for? The fridge is about 8 years old.
It has happened to mine twice and both times it was the defrost heater. The repariman had to defrost the back of the freezer and replace the unit. No idea if it is easy to do yourself. It cost about £200 each time.
It sounds like in your case, the fridge compartment was warm because the ice was disrupting circulation of cold air from the freezer compartment. In the case of the OP, the freezer has thawed, so it sounds like a different problem.
Yes, the freezer has thawed…I’m waiting another 30 minutes to call the repair guys over.
Actually, once enough ice builds up on the fan and radiator fins, the freezer compartment gets warm too. Symptom would be lots of frost on the back wall of the freezer compartment.
I’ve got no frost. And when I pulled the fridge out of it’s slot there was no frost or anything on the back. The coils are under the fridge not on the back. They are completely covered in 8 years of dust. I don’t think it has ever been cleaned under there. I can vacuum it out though…
In my experience when the defroster fails the thawing is a more gradual process. If the defroster has gone out there should be significant ice build up, but it’s probably hidden behind the plastic sheeting.
You can take the sheeting off if you are so inclined, or you might try just removing all your food and placing it in coolers or a bathtub full of ice, and leave the freezer unplugged and the door opened for a day or two. That will essentially defrost it manually the way our moms used to do it.
Oh, and lay some towels down to catch the excess water.
A mechanical timer runs a cycle of timed defrost, before returning the freezer cabinet to normal operation. When the motor of the timer dies, if it was in defrost mode, that’s where you’re stuck, until replacing said timer.
Difficulty of replacement depends on your skill set and how easy or hard the timer is to locate and access, which depends on the mood of the engineers who designed the unit. 
This is really bad BTW. You should vacuum it out on a regular basis - I do mine twice a year on daylight savings day. And buy one of these brushes to get the coils really clean. Filthy coils can kill your compressor, which would lead to a warm fridge and freezer…
Yes.