Refrigerator leaves water on the floor

A friend with a 2 year old big Sears refrigerator/freezer, freezer drawer on the bottom, has a small amount of water on the ceramic tile floor.

I said he should turn the water off to the ice maker and see if the water stops. It has a saddle-valve easily reachable in the basement. I said to tighten it "firmly" but not too tight. Now I think firmly could be heard as firmer than it should be. A better word?

*He* wants to pull the fridge away from the wall to look. It has wheels, but they don't touch the floor and he thinks you have to tip it back to get the wheels to lower down. Could that be true?

In addition, the fridge is only 3 inches from the wall and he can't tip it enough.

Plus it's in the corner, with little extra width, no place to grab on, and no one can pull it out! Maybe ropes attached to the two front legs, that will pull and lift a bit too?

Suggestions?

Thank you.

Reply to
mm
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More than likely the water is from plugged defrost line or overflow of catch pan.

There's a screw mechanism for lowering the casters or raising the leveling legs one (or both). Either find the owners' manual or look up the model on the Sears web site to find out which/how if can't figure it out by simply getting on knees w/ flashlight (which shouldn't be _too_ difficult assuming no physical limitations preclude same)...

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Reply to
dpb

Is there a pool of ice collecting at the bottom of the freezer compartment? That's what I got with a clogged defrost line.

Reply to
schmidtd

I told him that would be the other possibility, and I told him about turning off the fridge for a day -- that's what he should do, right?

...but then we got distracted by the other issue. If it's frost, he shouldn't be trying to pull out the fridge either.

He was loosening a silver hex-head screw/bolt that I think held on the bracket that held on the leg. There were two matching side by side. That's not the mechanism you mean, is it? Or maybe it is?

It was on the right, and there were 1 or 2 others on the left. OTOH, those were the only screws I saw. Maybe he was right.

He's healthier than I am. :)

Thanks.

schmidtd, no ice on the bottom of the freezer, or the bottom inside of the whole thing under the removeable freezer box.

Reply to
mm

Remove the plastic plate in the bottom of the freezer. If you find a big sheet of ice that includes the aluminum drain catch at the back of the freezer you have found your problem. Bunch of fridges have a design flaw that lets ice build up until the hole in the center of that rear drain is clogged. Defrost it. Then search for the "kit" that fixes it. I just used a hunk of 8 gauge bare copper wire wrapped around the defrost heater and stuck a little ways down the drain tube.

Reply to
jamesgangnc

In some models, there is a drain tube that leads to a shallow pan. A minimal amount of water comes out occasionally, flows into the pan, and because of the shallow nature of the pan, it just evaporates there being close to a fan with air flow. Sometimes the unit is jostled, and the tube comes out of the pan, and the water goes on the floor. You may be able to see this from the front if you take off the cover grate and shine in there with a flashlight.

Steve

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Reply to
Steve B

I had this problem on my sears frig. There is a small plastic pan in the bottom. It catches condensate. The discharge line from the compressor runs through the side of the pan. When the compressor turn off and on, it puts a strain on the side of the pan and it cracks This lets the water to leak out, and on to the floor. The only way to check for this is to pull it out and remove the back. Sears service wants $200.00 to change it.

Reply to
steve

Sounds like defective design. I would yank the back and take pictures of it, particularly if I could demonstrate the defect convicingly. Then I would mail the photos off to some senior Sears VP related to refrigerators whose name you can easily find via Google. I'd probably send copies to "Seven on Your Side" but only if you really could demonstrate the defect clearly.

This isn't rocket science. Evaporator pans have a long tradition of being pretty simple and robust.

In the meantime I'd slide a shallow lunchroom tray under the fridge, below the end of the drain pipe, even if I had to slip an oversize section of vinyl tubing to the end of the drain tube to lengthen it to reach.

I'm seeing more and more crap design work that looks good but doesn't last. This sounds like yet another one. Every one of the 100 LED flashlights I buy has to have a hole drilled through the case and into the switch assembly because the assembly is held in place by a small dab of glue. One sharp rap and it works loose.

-- Bobby G.

Reply to
Robert Green

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