We’ve got a fridge where the freezer is a big drawer on the bottom, underneath the fridge section.
The freezer drawer is sub-divided, with a top inner drawer above the lower section.
Yesterday, I opened the freezer and there’s a lot of frost on things in the top, but normal on the bottom section.
How come, O Dopers?
I have a similar fridge and a few months back had a similar problem. There’s a fan behind the top drawers (embedded inside the plastic) which was intermittently failing. This started causing the normal refrigeration part (the non-freezing top parts) to not cool properly. Eventually, I had to replace the fan and all went back to normal.
You may have a different problem, though.
Perhaps your bottoks are warmer?
But my guess is that the drawer has been blocked from closing all the way.
Frost comes from humidity in the air getting into the freezer and condensing on the cold objects. In the case of a freezer, it’s cold and dry enough that most of the humidity is going to condense almost instantly (it’s why you see all the fog pouring out when you open it).
You likely have more frost on the top than the bottom because the humidity gets there first and freezes on those objects before it makes it to the bottom. It’s also possible the gasket isn’t making a good seal near the top top of the freezer.
This is very common. In big walk in freezers there’s always a lot more frost near the door than towards the back. In fact, it’s enough of an issue that many freezers have door heaters specifically to make sure that frost can’t build up where the door gasket meets the face of the freezer. Both because it can freeze the door shut or actually prop it open just enough to let warm air (and humidity in).
If you go put your hand on either the door gasket or the place where the gasket hits the frridge when it’s closed, you may find that it’s warm.
I use to see this often in a building in San Francisco. If the tenants were not careful the top dawer could get blocked where it was not completely closing and air would enter into the freezer section. We would get the complaint that the freezer was not working properly. When I would check it out, I would find frost on the packages on the top drawer. All I had to do was find which package in the lower drawer that was blocking the upper drawer from completely closing.
I’ll [del]third[/del] fourth this. I’ve had this happen more than once. Either the drawer isn’t sliding all the way shut, or something is preventing the gasket from sealing. It may be your fan, but I’d start by checking that a plastic bag or something isn’t occasionally getting caught in the drawer.