I am guessing that you are measuring ari temperatures rather than food temperatures. Food has mass and will retain coldness even when there are swings in the interior air temp of the fridge. I just ran a check on my 2 year-old Kitchenaid using a probe thermometerr. I found that the air temp was around 43F but the probe registered 37F to 40F when placed in liquids, jams, jellies, etc. depending on which shelf or bin it was in and whether it was in the front or back or in a deli drawer.) You might get a better idea of how well or poorly your Amana is working by putting that thermometer in a glass of water and see: (a) how long does it take to cool the water to 38F and, once cooled, then see how much variation you are getting in the water temps.

A 2007 Amana was likely made under the bad old Maytag regime before Whirlpool really took over. That factor suggests a possibility that that your Amana might be failing. However, or it might be fine after the repairs. If you find that food temps are consistently too hgih, and setting the control (which I believe were mostly sliders) does not set things right, it might well be time to get a new one. Note that I said "might.." Some of those older mid-2000s Amanas and Maytags are just fine. The one I bought in 1998 is still going strong (I only replaced it because I wanted/needed greater capacity.)

Let us know how it goes.

Thank you for this precision about air temperature vs. food temperature and for testing your fridge for me. Yes, you are correct; I am reading the air temperature. Unfortunately, I don't have a liquid probe to add to this thermometer, but I will surely go ahead and put a standard one in water just to check (I have one with a probe I can put the reader out of the fridge; so no door opening to read). Thank you for this suggestion. I am concerned because I conducted the same examination (air temp) on my old Inglis (1998) exactly at the same place on the same shelf. It was a beauty to see with an air temperature variation between 36 and 39 degrees. This is exactly what I was expecting from my newer Amana (even more so after a 350$ repair...).

My Amana controls are electronic (which I guess are not "sliders", but not sure what sliders are in fridge terms...). I have one more question, if I may. You said that if I find the food temperature is not right, I should use the control to set things right. I have to admit that I thought that these controls were for "extreme" situations (when the weather is hot and humid and there is no A/C in the house, for example) or when a fridge is not working correctly. I was under the impression that a fridge (with a new control board and a new sensor) should work perfectly (read in a "normal" range) when set to 4 as recommended in the user manual. In my head, playing with these controls necessarily means that there is something wrong with the fridge functioning.

Thank you. I'm on my way to put another thermometer in the fridge...

You need to monitor the temp in the freezer and see if it is stable. Also look up the temperature specifications for your fridge, on my JA, (about the same age as yours), the spec is +/ 1F, and the JA holds that~~~~~how do I know, because it has digital readouts for both the fridge & the freezer section. I also checked the temp with one of those fancy laser temp guns and it agrees with the display.

For almost 8 years it always read 0F for the freezer and 37F for the fridge. In the last couple of months, the freezer temps have been swinging wildly, from 0F to as high as 20F, and in fact It can rise quite fast, much faster than if you just unplugged the fridge, (again I checked it with my temp gun).

The fridge does stay at 37 or occasionally a 38, but, The JA fridge has a meatkeeper again with a digital readout and when all is well it reads 31F, while the veggie bin above the meat keeper reads 34, but when the freezer heats up the meat keeper goes to 37 and the compartment above it to 35, (IE the fridge is actually warmer on the bottom than above)~~~How strange is that.

So of course I checked for leaks around the doors, NONE.

First I thought that maybe the auto defrost is stuck on, there is a "Safety switch" that will eventually turn off the defrost if it runs too long~~~~~so I thought for sure this was the case~~~~~~but now I'm not so sure.

I called for service with a company that has an excellent reputation, He looked at it and ordered a "Dryer" for it, He thinks it is a partial clog in the sealed system.

We will know for sure once he comes back. I have the service manual and all the schematics for it, and looking at the Freon flow, it does indeed go to the bottom of the fridge compartment~~~~~they use the hot Freon to keep that area of the fridge defrosted.

Anyway, it is NOT normal for a fridge to vary that much, At least the Whirlpool made fridges with the variable speed compressors.

Once we know if the freezer part of the your fridge is constant or not, then we will have a better idea of what is the matter with yours,~~~~It could be the damper between the fridge and freezer, or the fan there.

As soon as they find the problem with mine, I will post the fix. Fortunately it is not an emergency as the freezer still stays well below freezing, but something is wrong, and if it's either the defrost system or a blockage in the sealed system, the compressor is working harder than it should!

Jenn-air was bought by Maytag, who was subsequently bought by Whirlpool. My fridge was made in 2005-2006 and the Jenn-air was the most reliable Built in and SXS fridge back then, in fact it's reliability ratings, (as reported by consumer report readers in a survey)~~~~not CR's take was #1 in 2006 and has been since that time, alto right now I think they are tied for #1 place.

If your Amana uses the same parts as the JA, then it certainly is not a "Maytag-Whirlpool Disaster" (Paraphrasing), as hinted to, in this thread.

AS this post is too long already, I will say more about service in another post.

Gary

I put a cup of water in my fridge yesterday night. For the moment, it is in the front on the top shelf. The thermometer reading is constant at 40 degrees. I plan to move it around to see how the temperature varies.

I've checked the freezer when the problem started, but only for a short period (about 24 hours). The air temperature between two frozen packages varied between -4.4F and +4.6F. Since the freezer is supposed to be at 0F, the service guy told me this range was acceptable. There was one outlier (12.4F) and the guy told me the fridge was probably in defrost mode during this period. I converted these readings into celsius; my freezer temperature therefore varies between -15C and -20C (even at 12.4F, it is still -11C degrees). Since it is frozen below 0C, I am sure my food is solidly frozen and I stopped being concerned about the freezer temp. Is this variation in the freezer temp "normal"? Does it explain the abnormal fridge temp variation?

OK, I will take a look again at my user manual tonight to see if there is more about the temperature. All I can remember from the time I checked it last week, there wasn't much precision about any temperature.

As for the possible causes, the guy told me he checked the damper and the fan and everything was in working order. If I remove the cover in the back of my fridge, I can see the door open and close and feel cold air coming from the freezer. [Gosh, I know more about fridge now than I ever wanted... ;-)]

As for my Amana being a Maytag-Whirlpool disaster, well, my mother, my sister and I all bought the same fridge during the same summer. My sister's has been going great without a hiccup. My mother and I had problems starting in about the 4-5th year... always the same problem; the fridge gets too warm... So a good grade for 1 out of 3... I would get fired if I had such a performance level...

Thank you,

Lynn

If you put up the model # of your fridge, I can download the service manual for it, and see if it is "indeed", like mine as far as the works go, (Recall I said "if it uses").

Your freezer temp swings seem perfectly normal, alto more than my fridge, when it is working properly.

When I called Jenn-air they really know nothing about my fridge at all, they don't have a service manual, schematics~~~etc for it~~~~all they do is ask you if you want the name of "Jenn-air authorized service", in my area.
So I said yes, who are they?

They gave me three names along with addresses and phone numbers.

I decided to check out the three companies Jenn-air recommended before choosing one.
YIPES!!!!!!!!!!

2 of the 3 companies had horrific reviews, (yelp) and it was hard to find a positive review of those 2 companies.
Had I called one of those companies, I'm sure they would have changed the main board and the temp sensor, charged me and been on their way, & me left with the same problem, I called them for.

I did fill out a survey for Jenn-air and in the comments section I did say they should check out appliance companies BEFORE recommending them.

When you and your Mom had fridge problems before, did changing the sensor and mother board fix the problem, (at least for a while)?

At least this company I found, the guy was in no hurry to a "Quick fix", (thermistor & circuit board), and I already temporairily installed a new temp sensor and that made no difference in the freezer temp.

Anway, list your model number, also google that number with reviews or problems, You may see similar problems to what you have on Fixya, or just answer or just complaints exactly like yours!

Click the helpful link below to see the reviews of one of these companies, I might have called, had I not checked them out FIRST!!!!

Gary

Here is a link that might be useful: Appliance Service Company

Thanks for the follow up.
I don't have the model number with me at work. I will post it tonight.
When it was time to find a service company, I asked around, but nobody seems to be very keen on sharing a name; they all seemed to have bad experiences and feelings of having been cheated with appliance repairs. Many told me that they did not trust anyone enough to give me a recommendation. I even call a couple at random; one told me that he would not touch a Amana even if he was forced... He didn't want to explain why... So I did not know what to do and I finally chose one recommended by CAA (Canadian Auto Club). I googled them and did not find any bad reviews (but we do not have the review volume you seem to have in your area). Overall, I think they are nice but incompetent and unwilling to spend more time investigating the real cause of the problem. But yes, I agree with you that finding the right person is a challenge by itself.

My mother was the first one to have a problem with her fridge. She called the service co where she bought the fridge and they told her to empty everything, let it warm for 24 hours and to start it again. It worked for a year. Then it did the same thing again. The tech came and change the damper (the door would not open anymore). Since then, she empties and restarts her fridge about every 9-12 months (she's retired; she has the time to do this...). She says that, next time though, it's going to get kicked to the curb... She has had enough of this nonsense. I did this empty-warm up-start over 3 times myself... the first time it was all right for a year, but then the other times, only about 4 months... I so not trust this fridge that this is why I bought the thermometer with alert for my computer and completely empty it before I leave even only for a couple of days... I would have already kicked the whole thing to the curb, but I plan on gutting my kitchen next year and I was hoping that my actual fridge would get me there... The boss from the service co told me that even if I buy a new fridge I will get as a large temperature variation since this is normal for fridge to do so. This is why I initially posted this message. I wanted to know if this was normal.

Well, that boss is "Fulla it"!!!!

First, like I said my JA has, for almost 8 years now, stayed within +/- 1 degree F of 37F, even with the wild freezer temp fluctuations now. 2nd, (as you mentioned) your 1998 model which most likely has the old style on/off compressor keeps better temp stability.
3rd, the new Jenn-airs are specked at +/- 0.5F.

Right now, I see 2 possibilities.

Possibility One:

The defrost system is not working correctly and allows ice to form and impede the flow of cold air from the freezer to the fridge, ice could be impeding the damper movement or slowing down the fan that blows the air from the freezer to the fridge, this is why when you let the "freakin thing" thaw" it worked for a while, (You provided the defrost), (LOL)!

Possibility 2
The damper is not functioning properly, and I did see posts where this is/was a "Known Amana Fridge Problem".

Anyway, without knowing your model, I did goggle Amana bottom freezer refrigerator 2007, and I sure found a lot of complaints~~~~soooo~~~~~it appears that JWVideo maybe correct, (as usual), that your Amana Fridge may really be PITA~~~but you already know that!

What I would do is as soon as you see the temp rising, check the airflow from the freezer to the fridge, is the fan blowing a lotta cold air into the fridge, from the freezer?
These things are NOT "Rocket Science", it the fridge is too warm then it should be blowing a lotta cold air (which there is plenty of on yours), from the freezer into the fridge.

Gary

>>> I was under the impression that a fridge (with a new control board and a new sensor) should work perfectly (read in a "normal" range) when set to 4 as recommended in the user manual. In my head, playing with these controls necessarily means that there is something wrong with the fridge functioning. Not at all. I didn't know that the 2007 Amanas had the electronic controls, which is why I talked about sliders. Anyway, the default settings are just a best average guess by the factory. The temp probe in water will help you get a setting that gets you closer to 37F to 40F. Because of the time it takes for water temps to adjust, this will take a couple of days to get the range.

That's how long it took with my 2 y.o, KA fridge. Like Gary's JA (also made by WP) my KA has digital temp read-outs which give finer steps in the settings, and also has separate settings for the freezer and fridge compartments. Finer steps do not mean the on-board thermometers are accurate. That is why I periodically run a water glass test.

The above mentions of the defrost cycles also brought to mind that my fridge had just finished a defrost cycle when I ran yesterday's test and, of course, I'd had the fridge door open to place the probe.

I've now left the probe hanging in the back of the fridge for several hours, and the probe's read-out has been showing a pretty steady 38F. I then open the door for about 20 seconds. The remote readout climbed to 42F. Just checked after ten minutes. The air temp is down to 40F. The fridge's own digital readouts never moved off 37F.

Lots of things affect air temps in a fridge including opening the doors and the defrost cycles. I remember reading an engineering study somewhere of fridge temps measured in a dozen or more home fridges over New Year's weekend. If I can figure out how to find it again, I'll post a link. The gist of what I recall is that older fridges might be showing the same high temps as yours (8C as I recall, which, I think translates to about 47F) and some with better door seals had swings into the range of 43-45F.

A suggestion for keeping that Amana going for another year: try dropping the fridge temp setting to the next lower one (I'm guessing that it will be "3"). Try to keep jars etc. on the top shelf at least four inches out from the cold-air inlet vent in the fridge. (I'm guessing that inlet will be in the back at the top of the fridge compartment, just above the top shelf/shelves.) That bit of distance is likely enough to diminish the risk of freezing the contents if the air is a bit too cold for a bit too long. With your logging thermometer, you may see air temps sometimes dropping into the 34F- 35F range but the average should be around 38F to 40F.

Well, I could not find the study quickly, but I did find the summary from the study done by the New South Wales Food Authority, a state government agency in Australia in 2009. The link is below. You'll have to translate the C temps to F temps

Here is a link that might be useful: NSW study: Home Fridge Temperatures

The reason for placing a thermometer in a glass of water when monitoring refrigerator temperature is to eliminate the reading swing that may occur when the door is opened and warmer room air comes in to replace the cold air that falls out.

The unit's thermostat or temp sensor reads the interior temperature at its given location within the space, although some electronic designs can involve more than one sensor. There can be variances at different spots within the space. Control of the temperature is accurate to whatever is the engineered tolerance of the mechanical thermostat or electronic sensor (thermistor).

As usual, dadoes is correct. The one thing I would add is that , for those of us whose refrigerators have digital temperature readouts, they seem to be programmed to show some kind of average reading rather than instanteous temperature readings as well as potentially losing accuracy over time.

In response to klem's question, we actually do not know how accurate refrigerator thermostats are. Well, maybe dadoes knows, but I sure don't. That's another reason for the water glass test.

Again, l_mtl, try a lower setting on the control. See if "3" doesn't bring things back closer to where you need to be than "4" was doing. Hopefully, the water glass tests will give you enough solace to put off a new fridge purchase until you tackle the kitchen remodel.

This post was edited by JWVideo on Wed, Jun 25, 14 at 16:53

Nice study, JWV, alto it would have been nice to know what the fridge makes were.

5C = 41F and l_mtl"s is getting to 45F, (too warm).
Also recall that no doors were opened during that test.
The study says anything over 5C (41F) is not safe.

" But 9% had an average above 6C. Food in these fridges might become warm enough for long enough to allow harmful bacteria to grow."
(6C = 42.8F).

The thermistor in the JA main fridge compartment is about 19 inches long and it is inside the rail that mounts the shelves, so yes, it will not show "Instant changes" in the fridge air temp, but it will and does show any changes that last long enough for the rails, shelves and inside walls of the fridge to change temp.

The JA freezer thermistor is the same type used in the fridge and it is also mounted inside the rail that holds the shelves in the freezer, and yes it sees differences in temp real fast like~~~~~that's how I know I have a problem.

So, first, I don't think the repair company found the problem in the first place, yet they charged her for it, and secondly, (at least according to that study you supplied JWV, She still does not have a "Safe Fridge"!!!!

I can get a radioshack digital thermometer with a remote probe to lay on the shelf, if you need proof, JWV, but I would bet money that my JA inside air temp stays within 37F, +/- 1F, unless a door is opened.

Gary

I set my GE Arctica SxS at -3°F freezer and 35°F fresh food. I have found that milk stays fresh noticeably longer at 35°F. The deli drawer (about 2/3 down in the fresh food section, the produce drawer and Custom Cool drawer are below it) has a separate mechanical damper temp control with Cold at one end and Coldest at the other. I keep it on Cold and items in there toward back of the drawer where the airflow emerges develop some icing, could be it'd freeze at Coldest.

The "current" freezer temp on the display ranges from -3°F to 0°F. Fresh food 35°F to 37°F.

I've never checked it with a separate thermometer.

Geez, did somebody think I was defending the service company? To be clear, I'm assuming that they don't care and won't help.

I'm just trying to assist l_mtl with "what do I do now?"

The NSW report does indeed point to concerns and things to look for in evaluating how well (or badly) one's fridge is functioning. As they (and many other sources) point out, the concern is not that parts of the fridge might have air temps occasionally in the upper 40s but that the air temps might stay up there longer than a couple of hours at a time which raises concerns about the possibility of bad bacterial growth.

That's why I am suggesting that l_mtl try reducing the fridge setting from 4 to 3 and then checking to see if things are better at that point.

As an aside, Gary, it might be interesting to get a digital remote and see what is "really" happening inside our fridges "behind closed doors." I've run the water glass tests but never tried to measure air temps. I'll try continue my experiment tonight to see what happens over time with the air temps. Does this officially certify us as true appliance geeks? :>)

And in line with what Dadoes reported, I get two gallons of whole milk on my monthly Costco runs. It keeps until gone about the time for the next Costco run. This is true of my current KA as well as the prior old Maytag (which now has a new home.) BTW, I do not keep the milk in door bins, which seem to run a couple or three degrees warmer than the shelves where I store the milk. Greens last almost as long and I've found that the crisper's humidity controls seem to make a big difference, too.

The point of this being that fiddling with the factory settings can make a difference to how well and how long food keeps.

This post was edited by JWVideo on Wed, Jun 25, 14 at 19:54

Wow! Thank you for your generosity and interesting discussion.

(1) My fridge is a ABB2227. The manual does not say anything about the "normal" variation. "If the fridge is too warm, set the control down; if it is too cold, set it up"... Dah...

(2) I typed my model number on the Web. I did not know there was a Amana community that has as a hobby the periodic thawing of our fridge... how fun...

(3) A precision: I remove from my readings all the meal time since my vegetables and nuts are in there (the service guy told me that a fridge cannot hold a normal temperature if it is empty). No kids in the house to screw up my readings. My readings' variations cannot be explained by the door opening. This I am sure.

(4) The board and sensor were changed when the fridge once again went up over 50 degrees last week. I got fed up and instead of doing the thawing routine all over again, I called the service guy. This is where our opinions go into different directions; he says that my fridge is now normal, but I think that something is still wrong because of the large temperature variation (but one good thing though, the temperature never went back to 50 degrees with the new board; the problem is that I don't have anymore the readings before the last problematic episode... this is where I kick myself; I should have kept them). Since the new board, the highest reading I got is around 45 degrees.

(5) Tonight I opened the door and put an instant 3-sec thermometer in everything liquid that had spent a couple of days in the fridge and was not in the door (yes I also have one of those... I know; I may sound like a crazy thermometer woman by now...). The cup of water I put in yesterday night, the water the radishes were in, the 1-liter of milk, the water the celery was in... were all showing 40 degree readings.

(6) I went through the study that was linked to. Very informative. They seem to think that 5 degrees is an acceptable upper limit and 5 C is 41 F. So maybe my stuff showing 40 degrees is all right despite the very large air temp variation. (I will go on and calculate my average and median over several days... I think that the median is more telling than the average... my stat husband reminded me that on average everybody is normal...).

Where do I go from here:
- Tonight before going to bed, I will put the control to 5 to see the impact it will impact. (I am just a bit afraid it will freeze my tender vegetables; I have periodic readings between 31 and 32 F, so I hope that it will get the upper limit down, but not the lower limit).
- Since there is nothing in the manual, tomorrow I will call Amana and ask them what they consider a normal variation (but I have to admit that my hopes for a meaningful answer are not high).
- In the next weeks (we do not live in the same city), I will go to my sister's home and test her "perfectly functioning" fridge, just to see if she has the same variation as I now have. It may just show that this fridge has never been able to keep a stable temperature.

Thanks again,

Lynn

This post was edited by l_mtl on Wed, Jun 25, 14 at 22:05

(removed; updated previous msg instead; forgot about editing possibility)

This post was edited by l_mtl on Wed, Jun 25, 14 at 22:04

Point of clarification: so "5" is colder than "4" on the arbitrary scale? Please disregard my suggestion of dialing down to "3." I stand corrected.

It may vary, but on my fridge arbitrary scale, 7 is the coldest...so from the "normal" 4, I've put it to 5 at 10 o'clock... anxiously waiting for the results tomorrow morning...

Chill out :-). It's certainly true that you can and should adjust the settings. The "recommended" settings on my fridge were 3 for both freezer and fridge but from day 1, I need to set the freezer to 4 to keep ice cream properly frozen. Except for fridges with dual compressors, if the freezer is working, the fridge will work unless the air ducts are blocked or not opening. I've never used a thermometer - if the ice cream is frozen and the beer is cold, I'm happy.

I had the same worry: I too put a thermometer in my refrigerator and found the swing range was almost 10 degrees, none of which could be written off as either just an open door or just a defrost cycle. (The outside of my particular refrigerator says "Frigidaire"; the inside says "Electrolux FRT15B3AW2".)

I found out in quick succession that the temperature swing range is not adjustable, that controllers don't handle it at all well (I could do a whole lot better myself using a small utility computer such as an Arduino:-), and that in fact controllers don't even have the _concept_ of temperature swing range. In other words neither fiddling with adjustments, nor getting a new controller, nor even getting a different refrigerator altogether, is likely to have any effect at all on the temperature swing range.

So I went looking for other factors instead. I found many warnings that refrigerators won't do a decent job of maintaining temperature if they're nearly empty. I noticed that a couple containers sitting directly under the cold air vent in my refrigerator collected a whole lot of condensation which later froze, but nothing else seemed to get anywhere close to freezing. And I noticed my thermometer was also potentially in the line of fire of that cold draft.

So I found a couple old gallon pitchers with flat closed tops, filled them with water, and put them on the top shelf in the back, right under the cold air vents (but taking care not to actually block the vents). All the water provides "thermal mass" so the refrigerator acts fuller now. And the closed flat tops break up the cold air streams without allowing them to evaporate the water. I also protected the bottom and the back of my thermometer with bits of corrugated cardboard, so it wouldn't be affected by the temperature of the shelving, and so it wouldn't be affected by any possible cold draft.

Suddenly my temperature swing range went way down to just over 2 degrees. (But the new "average" temperature wasn't either in the middle or at the low end of the old swing range. In fact I had to start all over from scratch adjusting the average temperatures in both the freezer compartment and the refrigerator compartment. Interestingly, both settings are now _significantly_ different from the "normal" marks:-) Note that since the temperature swing range seems to be related not to the controller but rather to how the refrigerator contents are arranged, an identical refrigerator in a different house is likely to behave completely differently ...even though the controller boards are doing the same thing.

Have a GE fridge 2015 model with Fridge set to 35 and freezer to 0, and fridge temps vary from 35 degrees at the bottom to 50 degrees at the top with the freezer 0 at the top and 15 at the bottom. After a $245 GE service call, tech states this is normal, OK and is working as designed. Milk at 48 degrees does not last. Not sure how this is acceptable in any realm.

Check for the specs from Tech Support at GE. I doubt this is normal.