The short answer
On the CCUN family a cabinet that will not hold temperature is far more often an airflow problem than a dead compressor. These are compact cabinets with a small condenser and very little clearance around it, so anything that blocks heat leaving the back shows up as warm food long before the sealed system is at fault.
What you observe
- One compartment is cold and the other is not — On models with a separate freezer section, cold in one and warm in the other points at airflow between them rather than at the compressor.
- The cabinet is warm while the unit is clearly running — You can hear or feel the compressor working, but the air inside never gets cold.
- Sweating or condensation around the door opening — Warm room air is reaching the cold surface, which means the seal is not closing along its whole length.
- A sheet of frost on the inside rear wall — A light dusting is normal. A solid sheet means the air path is closed and cold is no longer moving into the cabinet.
Causes, most likely first
- A condenser coil or grille blanketed in dust — Ranked first on this family. The condenser is small, it is close to the floor or the wall, and the clearance around it is measured in fingers.
- A door seal that no longer grips along its whole length — Second, and the cause owners most often miss. A compact cabinet loses its whole reserve to a small leak, and the seal on a light door takes a set if the unit has been transported or stored shut.
- The cabinet loaded past what it can cool — Packing a small cabinet full, or filling it with room-temperature stock all at once, asks for more than the platform has. It is worth ruling out before any panel comes off.
- A sealed-system or compressor fault — Last, and the reason the order above matters. It is the least common of these causes on this family and the only one that is not owner work at all - refrigerant is licensed work.
Check in this order
- Measure the gap behind and above the unit against the room it stands in — This comes early because it is free to fix and because a cabinet with no clearance will defeat every repair that follows.
- Look at the condenser grille and the space behind the cabinet — Dust here is the first-ranked cause on this family, and the check needs a torch and nothing else.
- Close the door on a strip of paper and pull it out, at several points around the opening — On a compact cabinet the seal is the cheapest real cause, and this is the fastest honest test of it.
Before you open anything
Safety
Unplug the appliance or switch off its breaker before removing any panel. A capacitor can hold a charge after the power is off. These cabinets are light enough to move alone and heavy enough to tip - empty it first, and pull it out rather than walking it on its corners.
Models in the CCUN family — The models this page covers, as the product spine lists them. Every model in the table shares one stem and differs only in a trailing code, so a fault found on one of them is a fault the family has.
Reference| Model number | Family key |
|---|---|
| CCUN28B | black-decker:refrigerator:ccun |
| CCUN28BV | black-decker:refrigerator:ccun |
| CCUN28W | black-decker:refrigerator:ccun |
| CCUN28WV | black-decker:refrigerator:ccun |
When to call
Call once the door, the clearance and the condenser are all clean and the cabinet still will not hold temperature. That is the point at which the remaining causes are inside the machine.
Other faults on 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.
