I received a Kenmore upright freezer from a family member. As far as I know, it was working fine for several years. That family member moved and no longer has the space for it, so now we have it!
It has been plugged in for a month. The first three weeks seemed fine, but about a day ago, I opened it up to find quite a bit of frost:
Imgur Album of Frost in Freezer
It is one of those freezers that vacuum seals itself when you close it. Yesterday I noticed ice build up around the latch that you engage when you want to lock it. This to me was interrupting the seal so I cleaned that out. I checked it this morning and it seemed to be the same amount of frost…if not more! Do I need to clean the frost out and see if it re-appears? Might there be other problems? I haven't done the dollar bill test yet.
Best Answer
Once frost builds up on the coils it will need to be defrosted. If the door did not seal well just 1 time for a few days frost will build up and has no way to dissipate in an open coil system like you have. I have seen this happen quite a few times on a freezer that was fine but the door was not fully closed or something was stuck across the seal causing a leak.