Has the ice around your freezer grown too thick? Are you looking for defrosting tips but don’t know where to start?
Look no further! Our guide can help you understand your Samsung refrigerator’s defrosting process, so you’ll have an idea of what to expect before and after you thaw out all the ice from your fridge.
How to Defrost Your Samsung Refrigerator
To defrost your Samsung refrigerator, press and hold the Power Freeze and Fridge buttons simultaneously for at least 10 seconds.
Afterward, press any other button until ‘Fd’ appears on the screen. A chime will sound to signal that the defrosting will begin.
On dispenser models, the buttons you’ll have to press are Freezer and Lighting. Hold them for the same amount of time as above or until the display screen fades to black.
If your fridge model doesn’t have these buttons or if these buttons didn’t commence a defrosting cycle, refer to your manual for instructions.
Some older Samsung models also have dedicated a defrost button that you can press instead.
Doing these steps will activate Force Defrost mode.
Important Note: Before running Force Defrost, check if your freezer has been actively cooling for at least 6 to 12 hours. This is to ensure that the compressor is working properly.
And we know — you’re wondering, “What’s force defrost?”
Well, we’ve prepared this guide to familiarize you with this amazing function in your Samsung fridge, so sit back and keep reading to find out more.
Force Defrost
Force Defrost doesn’t differ much from your regular manual defrosting process.
In essence, they’re the same. They melt the ice buildup inside your fridge when it becomes too cold.
Force Defrost just does this process at a faster rate than if you defrost your fridge and wait until all the ice melts off that way. On average, Force Defrost lasts for about 20 to 30 minutes.
But why is it called “Force Defrost”, you might wonder. That’s because your Samsung fridge constantly runs auto-defrost operations throughout the day.
That means it has an elaborate humidity-sensing system to read the temperature inside your fridge, particularly the freezer, and commence a defrosting cycle when it detects temperature drops that aren’t manually set.
Your fridge will defrost itself several times a day — it would even give you signals via a beeping sound!
If you hear consecutive beeping from your Samsung fridge even though you didn’t schedule any cycles, that’s most likely the auto-defrost in process.
Activating Force Defrost stops the fridge’s auto-defrost cycles and, well, forces your fridge to defrost based on your schedule.
Putting your fridge on Force Defrost is also a good opportunity to clean it.
We’ve prepared a couple of tips for you to follow to make the Force Defrost process more effective. Check them out below!
What causes frost buildup in your Samsung fridge?
Your Samsung fridge uses cold temperatures to maintain the ideal humidity for your food items.
Part of its job is to make ice, so it’s only natural for ice to form around other parts of the fridge — or so you might think. While this is true to some extent, some factors can contribute to the rapid formation of ice.
More importantly, ice in areas that aren’t in the freezer should be a concern!
Thick ice formations can cause several mechanical or electrical issues for your fridge, like preventing the door from closing all the way or making the fridge too cold.
Here are the common reasons your Samsung fridge is building up ice often:
- Hot or Warm Air
- Improper Food-Storing
- Refrigerant Levels
- Faulty Components or Damaged Parts
Hot or Warm Air
The primary cause of frost formation in your Samsung fridge — especially in the freezer — is because hot or warm air is getting in.
When this mixes with the cool air in your fridge, condensation forms, which later turns to ice due to the low-temperature environment.
But how does warm air exist in your fridge in the first place?
The most common reason for this is that you open your fridge frequently or for longer than necessary.
Hence, as a general rule, you shouldn’t leave the refrigerator open for more than 5 minutes. Sometimes your refrigerator will send out an error code to warn you that the door has been opened for longer than recommended.
Moreover, opening and closing the door — especially the freezer door — several times throughout the day can speed up interior ice formation. This is because, no matter how short you had the fridge door open, warm air is invited in.
When small gusts of warm air accumulate from opening and closing the fridge many times throughout a certain time, it can lay the groundwork for heavy frost buildup.
Improper Food-Storing
Do you tend to store hot food in your freezer? Or have a habit of not transferring the food into an insulated container before placing it in the fridge?
Both of these habits can contribute to moisture mixing with the cold air in your fridge, leading to frost buildup in the fridge.
As mentioned above, warm air that comes into contact with your fridge can produce condensation that later builds up ice. This is true for hot or warm foods as well.
Moreover, they can disrupt the temperature reading in your fridge. Remember — your Samsung fridge uses a humidity-sensing system to determine when to defrost.
When it picks up a temperature that’s warmer than usual mixed in among the refrigerated items, it might read this as the compartment being raising in humidity.
As a result, it’ll lower the temperature even more to balance the scales.
Meanwhile, foodstuff — especially fresh foods — that need to be rinsed before being stored must be kept in a container where moisture can’t escape.
Storing freshly rinsed food inside the fridge or the freezer will have the same effect as storing an ice tray of water. It’ll frost over eventually and ruin your food.
Refrigerant Levels
Frost formation can also be determined by the amount of refrigerant inside your fridge.
A high refrigerant level may leak water droplets into the cooling coils at the back of the fridge. Water that makes contact with these coils turns to ice that clings onto the coils, disrupting their process of releasing cold air into the compartments.
Likewise, a low refrigerant level can cause the fridge’s compressor to improperly compress the refrigerant in the compartment and push it out as warm gas. When this happens, your fridge may seem like it’s not cooling.
The only way to address an issue with refrigerant levels is to replace the compressor.
Faulty Components or Damaged Parts
Your refrigerator’s compressor is only one part of the cooling or defrosting system that make the auto-defrost process possible.
This is a system with the compressor and the thermostat at the very heart of it. The cooling and defrosting process begins with these two components.
The thermostat monitors the humidity inside the fridge. When it detects the temperature getting lower, it will signal the other components in the system to begin defrosting.
Meanwhile, the compressor pumps air into the fridge and circulates the refrigerant to keep the environment cold.
When either of these gets damaged, your refrigerator can still keep on cooling. It just won’t be able to tell when to stop cooling and start defrosting.
Aside from these two, there are a couple of other parts as well. When the frost buildup in your fridge starts to get uncontrollable — or if your fridge feels like it’s not heating up enough — these are parts you have to consider troubleshooting:
- Thermistor: The thermistor is primarily responsible for reading the changes in temperature in your fridge.
It typically functions hand in hand with the thermostat, so when you troubleshoot either of them, you’ll have to troubleshoot the other one too.
Where the thermostat is designed to react to temperature, the thermistor’s reading is what prompts that reaction.
- Defrost Heater: As simple as its name, the defrost heater is what melts off the ice buildup — but only around a particular area. The defrost heater’s main concern is to keep the evaporator coils free of obstructing frost.
- Cooling Coils: The cooling coils, also known as the evaporator coils, hold the chilled refrigerant from the compressor and allows the refrigerant to absorb heat found inside the food compartments.
Tips for Defrosting Your Samsung Refrigerator
Once you’ve activated Force Defrost mode, you might think it’s safe to leave your fridge alone to do its thing now.
But while this setting is handy and saves time, we suggest that you don’t walk away just yet! There are still a handful of things you can do to make the defrosting process more efficient.
We’ve listed some tips below on what to do while your fridge defrosts.
1. Remove the ice bin and other shelves.
The Force Defrost setting is designed to melt the ice off every corner of your fridge without having to pull any shelves out. This saves you the trouble of cleaning up after the melted ice.
Clean these parts as well as the refrigerator door while the defrosting process is ongoing. It’s a good way to ensure that the shelves, drawers, and door aren’t getting any lint or debris buildup.
2. Don’t leave any items inside the fridge.
When we say empty your fridge, we also mean to include the food, of course!
During the defrosting process, the fridge cuts off the cold air in the fridge and utilizes the warm air near it to melt the ice off of the fridge body.
As we’ve mentioned earlier, warm air can be a factor in spoiling your food faster. So will moisture from melting ice when it comes in contact with any of your food.
3. Leave the door open.
Unlike when your Samsung fridge is in cooling mode, for defrosting, letting warm air in is more than welcome!
This can speed up the process of melting the ice, as your fridge can only hold cold air in defrosting mode, and cold air doesn’t circulate inside the compartments.
Trapping the cold air in the fridge while it defrosts also puts your fridge at risk of getting damaged.
Conversely, don’t use a hairdryer in an attempt to help the fridge melt ice or dry the water inside your fridge faster. Any electrical device near the fridge as it defrosts is an electrical hazard.
Defrosting your fridge is part of maintaining it and making sure it endures for a long time.
A Samsung fridge has approximately 14 years of life to it, but unattended frost buildup might wear it down faster.
