ETS22XBPBRWW General Electric Refrigerator - Instructions

The freezer in my side-by-side kept warming up -- often 20 degrees or more, which of course caused the fresh food side to warm up also. I do a lot of jump-in-with-both-feet home repairs, but never on a large appliance. Not having an ohmmeter, which cost about $100 for a reliable one, I took the symptoms to the internet. Countless self-help sites and U-Tube videos later, I was positive it was one of two possible problems, either the defrost thermostat was broken and the defroster wasn't coming out of its cycle or the temperature sensor wasn't reading the correct temp and thus kicking in the fan motor when needed. Fortunately I found both parts easily on PartSelect.com and the total cost for both, including shipping, was $30, less than 1/3 of the cost of an ohmmeter. Not knowing for sure which part it was that was bad, I ordered both, figuring, since I had to pull out the panel anyway, I might just as well replace them both ... the price was right. (In retrospect I should have order 4 Temperature Sensors as my fridge has two in both the freezer side and the Fresh Food side. Any one of them being bad could have caused the same problem. Fortunately, I was lucky because it was either ONLY the Defrost Thermostat or I just happened to pick the right Sensor, but the repair worked.)

The repair was easy: Unplug the power. A Nut Driver removed the four screws holding on the panel in the back of the freezer. A screw driver removes the one screw holding the lamp cover in place. Remove the light bulbs, pull off the panel and right above the freezer coils you'll see both parts -- plain as day. (If your coils are clogged with ice, you will probably need de-ice first.) Cut the wires to both parts as close to the parts as you can to leave as much wire exposed as possible. Strip the ends of all four wires about 1/2 inch and also on the new parts. Match up the wires in the fridge to the wires on the parts and twist the ends together (Note: both wires on the Sensor are white so they match up either way, but the two wire on the thermostat will need to match up orange to orange and pink to pink.) I used silicone filled wire nuts, which you can buy at any hardware store or use your own wing nuts and fill them with silicone or shoe goo which works just as well ... anything to keep the moisture out and prevent the wires ends from corroding. Tuck the wires up and replace the panel, light bulbs and light cover That's it. Very easy. By far the hardest part was wedging my wide body into the narrow freezer compartment. Some one-handed work added a little extra time to the project.

In my case the freezer fan didn't kick in for about twenty minutes after I plugged it back in, but I assume that it either begins in the defrost mode or it takes that long for it to reset itself ... either way the repair worked great.

I went to a GE repair center to explain my problem, the service center reccomended that I have a techinician come out o look at it. $75.00 for the visit and what ever labor and materials wuld cost.

I went on line to see if there were others having this same problem and found that there were many with the same problem.

After reading some of the ways that people found out what was wrong ...it became a matter of three components, the timer, heater or thermostat.

I tried the most common component and the less expensive one first , the thermostat switch I installed it very easily snipping two wires and attaching the news using wire nuts I used the diagram on this website to pinpoint the component and there has not been a problem since.

My refrigerator began to overheat and the everything was thawing!! The condenser fan motor had seized and I thought this is something even I can replace.

I did a Google search on the refrigerator model number. The link to your site looked promising and I clicked on it. I was taken to your web page for my refrigerator and I clicked on the schematic for the condenser assembly.

The schematic had the parts I needed labeled clearly so this layman could be sure to get the right ones.

I ordered the parts at 12:45PM Monday and selected overnight shipping. The parts arrived at 8:35AM Tuesday (Thank you FedEx). I installed the parts and my refrigerator is up and running again.

To get to the condenser fan motor I took off the back panel on the fridge that covers the condenser, fan and coil. The fan/motor assembly is attached to a bracket I removed with two screws. Pulled the bracket assembly out of the back of the fridge, removed the fan blade and then the motor, and put the new motor on the bracket and stuck the new fan blade on the motor spindle. The trickiest part was getting the complete assembly back in. Just went slowly and took my time. Reconnected the wires, no problems. I took pictures of everything that I disassembled BEFORE I disassembled it in case I wasn't sure how something went back in but this job was so simple I didn't need the pictures.

I’m not sure how I could improve on this except maybe you could ship a refrigerator technician, too, to do the install.

Thank you PartSelect everything worked out better than I could have hoped and I saved $220.00 compared to what a repair service was quoting.

I removed the old temperature sensor by cutting the wires. I attached the wires of the new sensor with wire nuts and mounted it in the same bracket.

I applied some tips learned by reading other reviews. So before I started I grabbed my trusty vise grip pliers and a small screw driver. I locked onto the switch actuator, the part that the refrigerator door pushes in, with the vise grips and pulled on it just hard enough to get the screw driver inserted in the right side to push in the catch clip so the switch could be pulled out further each time the catch clip was depressed to the next detent. Then I used the screw driver on the left site to encourage the switch past the detents on the left and very quickly the switch was out of the mount. The wires from the refrigerator pulled out with the old switch. I unplugged the old switch from the wires and plugged in the new switch and shoved the new switch back into the mount, wiggled it a couple of times to make sure it was secure and the job was done. Once I applied the vise gripes at first, the whole job took less than a minute.

one repair man said I needed freon. sears repair man said my evaporators leaked. and should buy a new fridge. I installed the parts for less than $30.
dried the freezer compartment removed back panel and asst parts. removed screws from evaporator assy and replaced def therm. soldered leads/wing nuts. removed cover from sensor temp and again connected leads. working fine.

After determining that it was the defrost system, I ordered the thermostat. Make sure you look closely. Mine had two thermostats, and so I had to wait a couple of days for the extra part.
1. Remove ice maker if installed.
2. Remove center casing on ceiling and back wall. There may be two screws that need removed.
3. Locate and remove two screws on upper back wall.
4. Remove back wall carefully, revealing coil system.
5. If this was the problem, the coils will be iced over and need thawed. Either time or a hair dryer...
6. The thermostats clip onto the copper tubing, simply pull them off, keeping close attention to the color of the wires.
7. Be very careful touching the bottom of the coils as the defrost conductor coils are along the bottom and encased in easily breakable glass. If you need to replace this as well, remove the center brace (wire)by pulling towards you and then down. remove wire attachments at both ends and rotate coil out of end braces.
8. Replacing thermostats...you must CUT the wires, and attach new thermostats with wire couplers or wire nuts and then wrap with electrical tape that is rated for the cold.
9. Re-attach all parts and replace back wall and coverings.
10. Enjoy!

My problem began with having to replace the auger due to damage (broken blade). Unknown at that time the unit was having a defrost cycle issue. Once auger was repaired, then the motor to auger failed. Once repaired the GE unit then began shutting down without warning. Mother board replaced. All was fine for two weeks then noticed odd performance by ice-maker (chunks of Ice again)and frozen package containers showing signs of dampness and then refreezing. Read through the Parts Select web site to see what other users may have had gone wrong with their GE's and what the parts overview section may reveal for me. Found that the defrost thermo and temp-sensor controlled defrost functions. The parts were cheap, $20.00 for the pair so I replaced them both since they are both located next to one another in the freezer compartment. The repair video furnished on the P/S web was great and very accurate. The entire job only took about an hour. The repair video indicated using wire-nuts and electircal tape Instead, I chose to solder the wires and use shrink-tubing to provide the moisture barrier. PartSelect folks are great not only for their parts pricing but also for the informative videos. The GE works better than ever

went to your website and viewed exploded view to find the sensor( there are two I just picked one to replace for now), pried the cover off carfully and pulled out the sensor. I snipped the wire in the middle leaving plenty to work with. I shortened the wire on the new piece, spliced the wires together and with some 3M rubberized, tape wrapped them up, replaced the sensor back into the cover and snapped in place.

put fridge into test mode, failed One sensor. Took it out, Tested it, Ordered part also picked up splice kit from electric store spliced it truned on and good to go

First I removed the two plastic fan compartment covers mounted on the top of the freezer. Next I removed the ice maker by loosening the two bracket screws and unpluging the electrical connector. Be careful, I burned my hand on the heating element located on the bottom of the unit under the cube tray. I then removed the screws holding the back panel in place and pushed out the ice maker plug to remove the panel. I then removed the fan bracket screws and the electrical connector. Two screws hold the fan in place. I also replaced the two blue grommets, at the top and bottom of the fan module just to be safe. Installation was in the reverse. Note: this model apparently is hard on evaporator fans as this is the third one in four years!

Removed back panel. Opened cover to relay attached to the compressor and pulled off replacing with new relay. No problem.

Better than paying $250 for someone else to do it.

Tried manually defrosting several times and the unit would work for a couple of weeks and then get frosted over again.
Using this web site I easily found and identified the parts I needed. I ordered both the heating element and the heater thermostat (If I am going to take apart the unit I only want to do it once). Both parts arrived very quickly and were exact replacements for the parts in the unit.
I removed the ice maker by loosening two screws and unplugging the cable. The top part with the light came down by removing two screws. The vent at the back slid up and was removed. The back panel was removed by removing two screws. I could now access the evaporator coil.
The evaporator coil was removed by removing two screws. The old heater element was on the bottom of the evaporator coil and the heater thermostat was on the upper right of the coil.
I disconnected the wire at each end of the heater element. I removed the retaining clip at the bottom center of the coil. The heater element was removed by bending a tab at each end of the element and then sliding it down.
I unclipped the thermostat from the coil and snaked the wires around the coil to the front so I could work on them easier. I cut the thermostat wires, stripped the ends, connected the new thermostat matching the wire colors, soldered both connections and sealed with some liquid electrical tape. I then snaked the wires behind the coil and snapped the thermostat onto the coil.
The heating element slid up into the bottom of the coil and I bent the tabs back into place and reinstalled the retaining clip. I reconnected the wires to the element.
Putting everything back together was a few more minutes.
Total repair time was about 4 hours from starting to empty the freezer to when I turned the unit back on. By far the longest activity was defrosting. The actual repair itself was about half an hour. Emptying, defrosting and cleaning up were the other 3 and a half hours.

Took panel off back of inside of freezer section, took off old sensor from the evaporator, spliced new sensor into the existing wires, waterproofed spliced connections, snapped sensor back onto evaporator, then put panel back on the inside of the freezer. Really, it took only 10 minutes to fix. Now refrigerator defrosts like it used to, and temps have settled in at specified temps.

Noticed the problem in November 2009. Replaced Hi Limit Sesor for Defrost thinking it was the freezor temperature sensor. Did not fix the problem. Replaced Motherboard. Did not fix the problem. Called Sears Repair. They mis-diagnosed the problem and told me it was the sealed system. I doubted them and sent them home. Replaced the correct freezer temperature sensor that connects to the motherboard. FIXED.
Removed a panel, cut two wires, soldered and insulated two wries, reinstalled panel.