Not much of a post today. Been working on a problem with our refrigerator for about a full, eight hour day.
We've been having a recurring problem with our refrigerator's freezer section dripping water which ends up on the floor below the freezer door. It has been happening intermittently and only small amounts we can see. I haven't kept a log, but it started out over a week ago, then has been a mix of sometime it's obviously bad while other days it can go all day without leaking. For most of the time, there has been a deposit of ice on the freezer's floor (inside), and I've tried to troubleshoot it to determine if it's the system auto-defrosting circuit, or just what's going on.
A complication popped up today and it stopped me for at least an hour. This refrigerator has a built-in icemaker and while it's a longer story than this, three years ago last month I moved its input hose from the input of a water filter we use on the kitchen sink, to that filter's output, so that our ice was made with filtered water, not "just" city water. Today, with everything off and cleaning behind the refrigerator, I heard a quiet little hissing sound. It turned out to be that hose was leaking - spraying a very fine mist of the filtered water out behind the refrigerator. I had to turn off the cold water under the sink to stop that spraying.
My fix was to disconnect the icemaker from that water filter, which means there is no connection to water for the icemaker at all. I had to go up to the corner hardware store to buy an adapter to not hook that hose back to the filtered water. The hose is just hanging there, not attached to anything. I think from now on we're just going to live without an icemaker. It's not like we use a lot of ice and neither one of us thinks it's an essential appliance. Since the water in the bottom of the freezer had to come from somewhere it was either the water going to the icemaker, or the refrigerator's defrosting system not working properly, and everything else in freezer looks normal, not too much frost. I think what comes next is I'm going to go buy some ice cube trays and we'll just fill 'em up in the kitchen sink and freeze them on a shelf in the freezer. Just like we used to do 60 years ago.
Anyway, that's why it's an odd day. Back to normal tomorrow.
same symptoms- turned out the drain tube was plugged.
ReplyDeleteDitto here. Check the drain line from the drip area in the back of the freezer to the tray under the fridge.
ReplyDeleteIn the house (mobile home) on our property that my MIL lives in I routed the output of the sink RO filter through an inline valve to the icemaker in her fridge. Thing is I had to put the line in myself as there was no icemaker hook-up built into the house.
ReplyDeleteAn ice maker is a guarantee for an eventual failure ranging from an inconvenient leak to a major leak leading to a kitchen renovation. Had a friend whose ice maker leaked over the weekend while they were away destroying the kitchen and main floor flooring. Adding to the cost was the spouse then wanting to renovate the kitchen. The occasional convenience of ice eventually lead to an $80K renovation. So pick your conveniences carefully.
ReplyDeleteAfter the 2nd failure of the ice maker, it has been removed and we're using 5 ice trays. We're slow ice users so its usually a couple of days between emptying the trays. Worry about a kitchen-killing-water-event: zero
ReplyDeleteI ain't never had good luck with a built-in ice maker . Got rid of the dishwasher & put in an ice maker.
ReplyDeleteA third experience of finding the drain line under the freezer evaporator clogged. Also experienced the pinhole in the plastic tubing to the icemaker causing floor damage. Replaced that with copper line.
ReplyDeleteIf'n you're going all the way back... https://www.amazon.com/WDCFXY-Stainless-Steel-Metal-Handle/dp/B0F1RMLSVB Now stainless cause the 'aluminum is bad' scare.
ReplyDeleteNow that's funny! Thanks for passing that on. I need to figure out what I'm going to need before I go shopping, though.
DeleteGood luck, SiG.
ReplyDeleteTalkin' 'bout 'frigeration: my 35 yo unit died. Costco was the only place I found that had one in stock that would fit. Ordered it. It shipped 30 days later. It arrived yesterday after 22 days in transit. I wonder how long it would take if it were out of stock. The sticker says it was manufactured way back in January, so that isn't a reason for the delay. It pulls half the juice of the old one (and runs twice as much) but doesn't sound like it is going to explode, so that's good. No ice maker. No egg shelf. Sigh.
I hope to got get to needing to replace the refrigerator. Good luck to you, too!
DeleteThis description of what happened came from Wednesday. I pushed the fridge back mostly out of the way so we could get around the house more normally, figuring I'd keep an eye on it but leaving it easier to get into the freezer section. The next day there was no sign of ice in the wrong place in the freezer. On the second day, Friday, there was more ice in the bottom but far less than when this adventure started. Saturday, there was maybe another bit of ice, maybe a quarter or half of what was there Friday. Today, there doesn't appear to be any more.
Still figuring out what to do next.
"I hope to not get to..."
DeleteThere's a reason the fridge repair guy showed up driving a nice car...
DeleteSounds like it is improving. Fingers crossed (which makes typing difficult).
Was monitoring the new fridge's power usage when: it stopped running; went CLICK!; power shot from 76 watts to 301 watts for 20 minutes. The owner's manual should let me differentiate between "normal" and "broken". It doesn't. Contradictory internet sources convinced me it's in my best interest to go watch TV and pretend I know nothing. Good luck. Let us know the final outcome.