[wighty]

Everything that comes out of the under the counter fridge at the moment comes out still frozen or so solid that you have to wait half an hour to be able to use it.  I have been through the pile of  instruction booklets that we have, discarding a few as I don't need to know how to use the kettle we had two kettles ago.    I can't find one which tells us which way to turn the thermostat dial, is the higher the number or lower warmer, does anybody have any idea?

[Lardman]

AFAIK the higher the number the higher the refrigeration power, so the cooler it will be. Seems counter intuitive but higher number = cooler temperature.

[Growster...]

Fridge thrmostats are pretty useless, as are freezer numbers, so maybe a dry run at '1', then at the highest number may help!

The dial on our fridge has been bust for ages, and we haven't a clue what it's doing, and the 'fast freeze' on one of the freezers is stuck, so again, we don't really know what's going on!

But this doesn't really help, does it...

[mumofstig]

On mine, an ancient Hoover, the higher the number the colder it gets. I run it on 2, but after 5 it has SUPER.
I bet that'd freeze everything 

[wighty]

Oh dear, we only had it on 2.  Sounds like a lot of things in this house are reaching the end of it's life.    The tumble dryer (when we use it now for towels) sometimes needs a bit of prompting.

[jezza]

Hello if the  stuff in the freezer starts to cook it's the wrong way or the freezers knackered ,had one 2 years ago that went wonky the frozen chicken stock started boiling ,the thermostat had gone ,cheaper to buy a new freezer than repair   jezza

[JayG]

If turning down the thermostat doesn't work, the odds are it's faulty.

Thermostats are usually relatively cheap items - needless to say the fitting costs would be the main expense.
Might be worth trying to get a quote for the job.

Although there are very few parts to wear out, if your fridge is more than 10 years old it might be better to replace it rather than risk throwing good money after bad.

[Kleftiwallah]

It6 seems a drastic measure but as it's a small fridge,  drag it out and turn it upside down for a minute or two.  There is a csientific reason for this, there may be a 'slug' of refrigerant in the system causing a partial blockage.

You may wish to do this or you may not.  Cheers,   Tony.

[hasbeans]

Stick a thermometer in there for a few hours with it turned down to one.  If it reads 3c then maybe you are good. If it's warmer, turn up the fridge till it drops to 3c, if it's cooler then the thermostat is probably kaput.