Cooling Unit Overheating

I’ve got a 10 year old Wine Enthusiast 200 Bottle Build-Your-Own wine cabinet with a KW-800b cooling unit. The thing is in my Connecticut cellar and shouldn’t have to work that hard. It’s been running constantly and no longer cooling below mid to upper 60s.

1. Any repair suggestions?
2. Can you service these things?
3. Suggestions re: replacement? It’s 11’h x 16.5w x 15.25 deep, R134A Coolant. I can modify the cabinet if I have to, but would rather not.

Thanks for any help.

Hi Rob,

I’m assuming you can still hear the compressor running and not dead, and if you haven’t ever needed to add more coolant it might just be low on coolant. Had to do the same thing on my unit in year 12 of it’s life, although my cooler is slightly different. If you have the spec sheet for your unit that lists your high/low pressure setpoints, a can of R134a with pressure gauge from Walmart is the way to go. They are meant to be used on a cars AC system, but as long as you know the low pressure target then they work for fridges and coolers just the same. There’s some good YouTube videos that helped walk me through it.

Hope that helps.

Likely out of refrigerant (R600a)

It sounds really silly but I had a wine credenza do the same thing and a friend said check the ventilation, and sure enough I discovered the exhaust vent was clogged with dust. A good vacuum fixed it.

not silly at all – if you’ve never checked the air intake, take a look to see if it needs cleaning.

Have been successful on my food fridge when things go wrong with a really solid dusting. Take the cover for the compressor and anything else easily removable and hit the insides with a vacuum, swiffer pads and compressed air. I’ve been really aggressive at dusting and it’s solved problems with my fridge maintaining temp.

Replaced the coolant on my eurocave a few months ago, which was pretty straightforward as well, and is worth doing.

Dusting and charging the coolant are really the only things that non-refrigerant techs can do IMO (at least all I’m comfortable doing) but are often successful.

This. Make sure any area that exchanges air is free of debris. My unit was on the ground level and was totally clogged.

HOLY CR4P!
This worked.

Did Sound silly, but I now feel stupid for not trying it before I posted…

Thanks to all who took the time to respond.

Glad you got it solved

Ha! Glad it’s working again.

Nice solve Paul!! And glad the unit back working well. I found with mine, Vacuuming that exhaust and keeping the coils cleaned once a year or so will keep the unit running properly.