Whirlpool 12001937 Refrigerator Defrost Thermostat OEM Part

After we moved into our new home, we realized that the freezer was very cold and the fins were frosting over, and the refrigerator wasn't cold. We had to take it apart and manually defrost it about once every 8 to 10 days. After research online, we found Appliance Parts Pros videos, which clearly explained how to fix it ourselves, a savings of at least $1,000 or more, since a new one of this size would have been in the arena of $1,200 to $2000. We ordered the three most likely parts to be bad, which were the defrost thermostat, the heater, and the control board. We first replaced the thermostat and the heater, since those parts are located behind the freezer. It took both my husband and I working together to get the heater in, but we replaced these two parts first because they cost quite a bit less, so we were hoping it wasn't the $200 control board. After about a week, we noticed that the visible fins were still frosting over. In retrospect, I would just replace the thermostat and the control board first, because they are much easier to get at than the heater/evaporator, which rarely goes bad, but now all three parts are in and the refrigerator is working great. We really appreciate the videos and the live chat help which I used once as well. (And the delivery was incredibly fast. I choose priority for delivery, but the first two parts still arrived in less than 24 hours from when I ordered it online. The heater was backordered, so took a few days longer, but still was fast on delivery.)

Checked behind the back panel of the freezer. The coils were covered with ice, Then went to the top of the refrigerator, under the light fixture. Found the timer and checked to see if it was advancing. It was stuck. Manually advanced the timer to the defrost cycle. Waited for a few minutes, but the heating element in the the freezer did not warm up. Looked at the defrost thermostat; it's top was pushed up. Decided to replace the timer and the defrost thermostat. This solved the problem of no defrost. When everything was put back together, the refrigerator got too cold. Could not adjust the refrigerator compartment temperature. Found that we had not correctly connected the belt that controls the damper door. Readjusted the belt, everything is fine now, the freezer is at zero degrees, the refrigerator is at 40 degrees. The most challenging part of this repair was testing the defrost thermostat. I tried testing the thermostat in ice water, but as I understand it, the thermostat comes on below 30 degrees, so testing it in ice water isn't accurate. It measured continuity in this test. I also tried testing the thermostat while it was connected, by closing the freezer and waiting for it to cool down, then testing for continuity between the thermostat and the heating element. The problem with this is that, in order to make the test, I had to open the freezer door, which allowed the freezer to start warming up. For some reason this test also measured continuity, even tho the thermostat was defective. It could be that it had a short that made the continuity. The top being pushed up was the only sure indicator of a bad thermostat that I went by.. Afterward, I thought that one way to test the defrost thermostat may be to use dry ice.

My 13 year old Amana bottom freezer refrigerator stopped defrosting, and the refrigerator warmed up as the frost accumulated. A repair technician told me it was most likely a faulty defrost thermostat that was causing the problem. His estimate for a repair was about $300. He suggested that I might want to try replacing the thermostat myself as it was not very difficult. I located the part at appliancepartspros.com, and placed the order in the afternoon. Late the next morning the part arrived via FedEx. It took me about 30 minutes to replace the thermostat, and the refrigerator is working good as new! Price for the part? $36, including that amazingly fast shipping!

Replaced the thermostat sensor and now it works great. Took about one hour including removing the built up ice on the coil. The changing of the sensor took all of 5 minutes. Thanks for the quick delivery of the part and I will use your site again.

Replaced defrost thermostat and timer.