Need help with refrideration unit

WEll long story short, we bought a flower cooler, that's gets cold for a while, then won't cool down. The compressor will run but nothing happens. So today we turned it on after being turned off for 4 weeks, after 3 hours this is what we found,

I know it shouldn't be frozen over like that but what is it? And does anyone know of an easy way to keep it from freezing over (I.e. putting a small fan in there to circulate air)

As all thanks for all the knowledge and help

Needs recharged with freon.

It may be low on refrigerant charge. what kind does it take? If it is 134a, you can do it easily yourself.

It was checked for freon, and the repair man said it was good

A couple more pics and a make & model number might help. Does the evaporator already have a fan that isn't working perhaps? Did the repair guy go through the entire unit and check everything?

Make and model are unknown, we looked the over the whole unit and found no marking of a manufacturer. These are pics of it today. There is what looks like (closest comparison I know of) a car radiator with a fan that does run, it is behind and to the left of the frozen part in the pictures it you can't see it. The box on the right of the piece that is freezing over has a lot of condensation on it.

If you have correct air flow and clean coils low refrigerant is the issue. How did the repair man diagnose correct refrigant level?

He was more confused by the whole thing, but he tested to make sure there were no air bubbles. How do you test to see what kind of coolant it is, the problem is since it is a commercial unit in a residential home that has no manufacture markings it's hard to find repairmen to come out and work on it

That may be a TXV valve under the ice, this valve malfunction could cause your problem even with a correct charge. How did he check the charge if he didn't even know what type of refrigerant is in the system there are several choices and each one has different temperature/pressure. I think your repair man may not have experience with refrigerated equipment he may only work on A/C units. I would call a service that works on this type of equipment.....IMHO

That is the TXV that's frosted over. The car radiator looking thing is the condenser and its fan should run when the compressor does. Inside the box where the frosted line enters is the evaporator and I would expect there to be a fan inside there somewhere. That should be checked to see that it's running. There may be a label on the compressor that tells which refrigerant it uses or at least it could be looked up by the compressor number. If the tech was checking pressures, this is something he should have known to see if his observations were valid.

Floral cases are designed to maintain higher humidity levels than normal beverage coolers and may use oversized, low-speed evaporator fans which are baffled so the cooled air velocity is much lower.

Another thing to check is to see if the control is shutting off the compressor when the desired setpoint is reached. There are many things the refrigeration tech should have checked if he spent much time with this unit which may be beyond the scope of discussion here......

like i said the repairman was more confused by anything, the unit had a service history when we got it, but since they were a commerical repair company they wouldnt look at it since it was in a residence. so far you guys are giving me a 101 intro course to cooling, which i knew very little on. thanks for all the info hopefully it gets us closer to a working unit.

On the inside of the left side hole of the cooler are two fans, they are on top of the evaporator and both are running, there doesnt appear to be any way to get inside of the evaporator as it is all riveted together. The whole cooling system appears to be bolted to a board with is then bolted to the base of the cabinet. Are those fans that you were talking about?

Yes, those are the fans I was talking about. They move the air from the cabinet through the evaporator coil to give up heat. Once the coil starts to freeze and slows the airflow, the problem gets worse. Like Gartywood said, you need CLEAN coils so the air flowing through them can transfer heat, so the condenser coil also needs to be clean and it's probably easier to get to on this unit. Vacuum off any dirt blanket and wet-clean the coil. Pros use an acid-based coil cleaner, but you may get by at home with detergent / water sprayed through the coil & rinsed well - a garden type sprayer will work. Some coils may look clean, but you can still flush an amazing amount of crud out sometimes. I worked on a walk-in cooler the other day that had the same problem and cleaning the condenser resolved it. You can shine a bright light through from one side of the coil while looking at the other and see the air passages.....


It's hard to tell from the pics, but the evaporator box looks a little rough. Beverage coolers have a drain in the bottom of the evap pan so water condensed out of the air can drain out - usually via a vinyl tube to a pan in the compressor area. Since floral coolers provide a high humidity environment, I'm not sure how they deal with this. Maybe they have a deep pan and some water is retained? Did you see any kind of a drain tube leaving the evaporator housing? Also, check for holes in the housing which may have corroded through and are allowing air from outside of the cabinet in / out.

If all of that checks out, then it could be a TXV that is malfunctioning or had been mal-adjusted or it could be a low charge issue. When the unit is running, the tube entering the top of the CONDENSER coil from the compressor should be hot - probably too hot to leave your finger on for more the several seconds. The ends tubes should gradually get cooler as you feel the from the top to the bottom indicating the the condenser and its fan are removing heat. A low charge will be cooler at the top of the condenser. I see there is a liquid receiver on this unit also, so it probably holds more than a few ounces of refrigerant.

Another look from a different refrigeration tech may be in order & I don't see why it would matter whether it's a residence or biz if you can pay for a service call. A make & model number would help a lot - there may be a tag somewhere on the compressor deck which may ID the type of refrigerant, amp draw, etc. if you can't find anything on the cabinet itself.

Good luck!!

I washable to get a model off the compressor, and cross referenced it with this http://www.americanhermetics.net/assets/pdf/copeland nomenclature chart.pdf and according to it,it says "standard refrigerant". I've enjoyed a few to many tonight, will try to understand what you said under a clear mind (tomorrow)

Again thanks for all the free tech support, I know we have a separate independent appliance guy on hold. If its something I can tackle myself and save a Few bucks then we won't have to involve him, plus I get an education in flower cabinet repair . I mean that in itself is priceless, I have always dreamed about this