What this usually is on these models
On the Alpicool BD refrigerator a complaint that reads as "it runs but nothing is cold" is far more often heat that cannot leave the condenser than a failed compressor. The six codes in this family share the BD prefix and differ only in what follows it, running from BD45 to BD135.
What the owner actually sees
- It never stops running — A healthy cabinet cycles. One that runs from morning to night is one that is never reaching the number it was set to.
- Frost has banked up on the cold plate — A sheet rather than a light dusting, often heavier at one end than the other.
- The panel is confident and the contents are not — A display that reads cold while a thermometer inside reads warm is a reporting fault, not a cooling one.
- NEAR MISS — it is cold but there is water underneath it — A cabinet that holds temperature and leaks is the water-leak page, not this one.
What it usually turns out to be, in order
- Heat that cannot leave the condenser — First. A compressor refrigerator does not make cold, it moves heat, and only into air free to carry it away. Boxed into a cupboard, pushed against a wall or packed round with luggage, it breathes back the air it has just warmed, runs without stopping and never reaches setpoint. The same check covers everything from BD45 to BD135; the record gives no reason to treat those codes differently here.
- The supply the cabinet is running from — Second. A compressor draws several times its running current for the moment it starts. A thin extension lead, a tired socket or a long run sags at exactly that moment, the control sees the dip and shuts down to protect itself, and tries again a minute later. The panel stays lit throughout, which is why this gets mistaken for a dead cooling system.
- A loss in the sealed system — Last, always. It is the rarest of these causes and the only one that cannot be touched without recovery equipment and a licence. What it looks like is a machine trying hard and achieving nothing: long runs, a condenser that stays lukewarm, and a cabinet that drifts back up as fast as it comes down.
- Body: Six codes, one BD prefix, BD45 at one end and BD135 at the other. The record does not say what the numbers track, but a family carried across this many codes is sold in more than one variant, and more variants means more different places these end up standing in — recesses and cupboards among them. That is what moves airflow above the supply path here.
Check in this order, and why
- Pull it clear and give the condenser open air — Leave it running in the open for an hour and watch whether the compressor starts cycling instead of running continuously. A cabinet that recovers in open air has an installation fault, not a refrigeration fault. Identical on every code from BD45 to BD135.
- Plug it into a different socket, directly — No adaptor, no extension, nothing else on the same outlet. A machine that cools properly on the new socket has told you the fault was never inside it.
- Body: Nothing in the record separates these codes by arrangement, so the same two checks apply to all of them, ordered by what each one rules out. Do them in this order: each step is only meaningful once the one above it is clean.
Safety first
Safety
Unplug the cabinet or switch off its breaker before removing any panel, and remember that a capacitor can hold a charge after the power is off. Nothing in this order requires getting inside. Never put a heat source near the coil to hurry a thaw, and never puncture frost with a knife or a screwdriver: the plate under it is thin, and what runs behind it is under pressure.
Models this page covers — The six model codes recorded for this family; the record carries no column separating them.
Reference| Model number | Family key |
|---|---|
| BD110 | alpicool:refrigerator:bd |
| BD135 | alpicool:refrigerator:bd |
| BD45 | alpicool:refrigerator:bd |
| BD60 | alpicool:refrigerator:bd |
| BD75 | alpicool:refrigerator:bd |
| BD85 | alpicool:refrigerator:bd |
When to call a technician
Call once the checks above are clean: a cabinet on a sound supply, in open air, with a seal that grips and a setpoint you have set yourself, has a fault worth paying to diagnose. Call straight away, without working the list, if you can smell burning, if the compressor is tripping the protection in the room, or if there is oil anywhere on the tubing — oil outside the pipework means the system is open, and every hour it runs after that costs more to put right.
The rest of this family
Lead Appliance Repair Technician · 12 years experience
Experienced technician with 12 years specializing in washing machine and dryer repairs across all major brands.
