On the refrigerator side, EE with SERVICE flashing says the compartment sensor is disconnected, shorted or misread. The same two letters appear again in diagnostic mode when the coil sensor is the one at fault.
- What the control is watching
- The fresh-food compartment sensor out on the panel and, out of sight in diagnostic mode, the refrigerator evaporator sensor as well.
- What makes it register
- Either of those two reading as disconnected or shorted. The panel only ever speaks for the compartment one; the coil is found by stepping through the readings.
- Can you keep using it
- Chilled food has less margin than frozen, so this is worth dealing with sooner than the freezer version of the same letters. Keep a thermometer inside meanwhile.
The refrigerator version of this reading carries one wrinkle the freezer version does not. There are two sensors on this side of the cabinet, and only one of them has been given a slot on the display.
So letters out on the panel always mean the compartment sensor. The coil sensor fails just as readily and says nothing at all in the kitchen; it shows itself only when somebody steps the control through its stored readings, where the same two letters appear next to the coil’s own label.
For an owner that distinction changes nothing about what to do and a good deal about what to expect. The same handful of symptoms can come from either part, and which one cannot be settled from the kitchen — it is settled at the board, with the readings on screen.
What we usually find
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EE where the fresh-food temperature should be, on a cabinet that still feels properly cold inside
The compartment sensor out of circuit. Its lead runs up through the liner to the board, and on an older machine the fault is generally somewhere along that journey.
Quoted after the diagnosis
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Nothing unusual on the panel, but the letters turning up against the coil reading in diagnostics
The refrigerator evaporator sensor, which has no place on the display and can surface no other way. It is a different part from the one the panel would have named.
Defrost heater, thermostat or sensor $280–$640
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EE on the refrigerator side and a compressor that barely stops running
The sensor first and the run time second. With nothing credible to measure, the control has no reason to consider the compartment satisfied and simply carries on.
Defrost heater, thermostat or sensor $280–$640
Which of these it is gets settled at the visit, before a part is ordered — Sub-Zero Repair Pro Los Angeles, (310) 844-1973.
- Written by
- Yuki Tanabe
- Role
- Refrigeration technician — controls and sensors
- In the trade
- 18 years in the trade
