The short answer
A Black+Decker BUC freezer that has started buzzing or clicking is usually telling you about a fan, a mount or a contact point rather than about the sealed system. What matters is the pattern: steady, rhythmic or intermittent. Each pattern points somewhere different, and this page ranks them that way. What separates BUC units here is visible without a tool: a drain plug low on one wall, or nothing of the sort on the other build.
What the owner actually sees
- A low hum that was not there before — Compressor and mounts: it does not change when the lid or door opens.
- A rattle that moves with the cabinet — Contact — a panel, a basket rail or the wall beside it.
- Noise that cuts the moment the door is opened — Nothing else on the cabinet behaves that way.
- Repeated clicks with pauses in the running — A start relay trying and resting, which is worth attention before the cabinet starts warming.
- Sharp ticks as the cabinet settles — Plastic and metal changing temperature — normal, and loudest after a defrost.
- NEAR MISS — a gurgle a few minutes after closing — If that is the whole complaint, nothing here needs doing.
Most likely first on this family
- The cabinet is out of level or touching something — It leads on freezers more than on any other appliance, because they are heavy, often moved once and never levelled, and frequently parked against a wall or a shelf. Baskets and rails inside make the same noise as panels outside.
- The condenser fan has debris in it or is out of balance — Second, and higher in a garage or outbuilding where dust, leaves and packaging reach the back of the cabinet freely.
- The evaporator fan is fouled by ice or wearing out — This is only on the list for frost-free uprights — a chest cabinet has no such fan — so the build decides whether it ranks at all.
- Compressor mounts, or the start relay beside them — Mid-list by likelihood, but the clicking version of it outranks everything else by urgency, because it precedes a cabinet that will not cool.
- Baskets, dividers or the load itself shifting — Ranked last because it is trivial, but it is checked first in practice since it takes seconds and is common on chest builds.
The order that finds it fastest
- Use the door switch as the first test — On a chest build this test mostly rules things out, which is still progress.
- Change the contact and listen — A noise that changes under your hand is contact or level, and neither needs a part.
- Listen at the back, low down — Steady buzz is the mount; a rhythmic beat is the fan; bursts of clicks are the relay.
- Unload the baskets and run it empty for a few minutes — Quick, free, and it removes the commonest false alarm on a chest cabinet.
Power off first
Safety
Unplug the unit or switch off its breaker before any panel comes away — a capacitor can hold a charge after the power is off. A loaded freezer is a heavy appliance: empty it before moving it, and get a second pair of hands rather than walking it across a floor on its own.
When to call a technician
Call for a scrape or whine from behind the back wall, for bursts of clicking from the relay, or for any noise that arrives with a cabinet that has started warming. Those are parts failing rather than parts touching. Levelling, unloading and clearing the back are owner work and should be done first, because they resolve most of these complaints outright.
Other faults covered for the BUC models
Lead Appliance Repair Technician · 12 years experience
Experienced technician with 12 years specializing in washing machine and dryer repairs across all major brands.
