Vanilla Ice Ice Baby...

Yesterday I noticed that our freezer was reading 0 degrees and the fridge was reading in the 50's! I'm not sure what caused it but i took a look at the freezer and saw that some ice had accumulated around the ice maker and fan area so i brushed most of it off and turned off the ice maker. Later that night the freezer temperature had dropped to -3 so naturally I thought that everything was getting better. Even this morning when I made my lunch the freezer temp was still less than 0 so I figured that everything had returned to normal and I had avoided a monumental task of defrosting....

But tonight when I checked the freezer...

 NO BUENO MIS AMIGOS, NO BUENO...

So... I've seen this one other time in my life and this is kind of a Slumdog Millionaire moment for me so... pay attention! When I was working at Camp Cedar Falls the cafeteria freezer had stopped cooling because the grid/ motor froze over.  If I remember correctly it had something to do with the increase in amount of foot traffic in the walk in fridge/freezer that was allowing the warm air to mix with the cold air, humidity, air condensation, etc... that lead to the machine freezing over.  So going with that I took a picture and sent it to my dad and he said that the fan and motor were probably shot... So I took off that back cover to the right of the light and sure enough, ICE everywhere.  Using a rubber spatula I started to chisel away at the ice and eventually took a hairdryer and sorta warmed things up. The cooling grate was frozen over so I spent about 10-15 minute melting it.  Leaving the fridge unplugged and the freezer open, I finished washing dishes, spoke to my wife, and watched a little about HP and the Chamber of Secrets.  I just plugged the fridge back in about 20 minutes ago and it sounds good. The fan and motor weren't frozen over because when the back cover was removed the fan was still spinning - a good sign! 

Well, that's all. I'm no plumber or GE fridge technician but at least I gave it a shot. I'll check in the morning and hopefully, hopefully, everything will be in working order.