Common fault
Why is there water under my refrigerator?
Short answer
Water under the produce drawers and water on the floor are two different faults.
What is actually going on
Under the drawers means the drain trough at the back of the refrigerator compartment is blocked and the defrost melt has nowhere to go, so it collects in the bottom of the cabinet instead of running down to the pan. Water on the floor is either that same drain overflowing far enough to escape under the door, or the supply line to the ice maker failing at a fitting. The water tells you which: clear water appearing while nothing in the appliance has run for hours is plumbing, and cloudy water arriving with a layer of ice across the floor of the freezer is the drain.
What we check, and in what order
The drain is a small tube on a long run and it fails in a predictable order. Debris and mineral film narrow the trough, the tube below it ices at its coldest point, the trough backs up, and the melt sits under the drawers where it freezes into a plate that owners reasonably mistake for a defrost fault. Some models carry a heater in that drain and it is worth testing rather than assuming. On the rest the repair is clearing it through to the pan and confirming flow with water, then finding out why it narrowed in the first place so it does not do it again in six months.
The plumbing half is the saddle valve, the compression fittings and the run of line behind the unit. Saddle valves are the fitting that outlives its welcome: they hold for years and then weep from the gland the first time anything moves. The line itself gets stapled to a stud during installation and eventually rubs through, or takes a kink when the appliance was last pushed back into place. All of it is inspected end to end rather than only where it can be seen, since water showing at the front of a built-in has very often started at the back and run forward under the base.
If that matches what yours is doing, say so when you call — it decides which parts come on the van.
Reviews
Water showed up at a floor seam several feet from the fridge. On slab it apparently travels sideways under the toe kick. It was the drain, and he poured water through afterwards to show it reaching the pan.
- ★★★★★
Long drive, gate and keypad out in Rancho Santa Fe, and they asked for the code and the model number when I booked rather than calling from the end of the driveway. The garage refrigerator was the dead one, and he pulled the grille on the Viking outside while he was here.
- ★★★★★
Drawers in the island were rattling and kicking on and off every few minutes. Downtown condo, everything crammed in tight, and the condenser under there had never been cleaned. Grille off, coil done, fan checked. Fast, tidy, explained everything.
Appliance down in San Diego?
Tell us the brand and what it is doing — we can usually name the likely repair before we arrive.
Questions
Frequently asked questions
What does the $89 cover, and how is the repair priced after that?
The $89 is a flat diagnostic charge, applied in full toward the repair if you go ahead. It buys panels off, temperatures taken with a probe at the coil and in the cabinet, not off the display, and a named fault. The repair is quoted afterward as one figure for parts and labor, agreed before a part goes in, and it does not change.