Fridge leaks water, pooling up... What do?
Hey, so there's been an ice buildup in our fridge creeping along the back. After a while it hit the front, and tadaaaa, it finally got bad enough the door didn't close fully... So most everything outside of one big pile of vegetables got defrosted overnight. (On the plus side, I walked into having a nice big pancake breakfast!) We threw out the meats and moved the veggies to our other freezer. This at least let me finally disassemble everything and see what's in there. It looks like this in there:
When we noticed this was happening a few months ago I turned off the ice maker switch in the back and, but it still kept doing this. There's still a ton of ice in the top tray, and set the temp to the max. But the fridge is right up against the left wall there, making it difficult/impossible to get the trays here out with the door blocking it. Additionally the right side has a dishwasher immediately next to it, so a decent amount of heat goes up the back. Then ALSO I found that big chunk of ice frosted on a pipe, so I wonder if it split? I'm unfamiliar with fridge design, so I don't know exactly what would give me the right answer.
I'm wondering what to do. My thoughts are that I've finally got the bottom tray/shelf/bucket thing out, so I could hammer the shit out of it and at least clear the bottom up... Then if I could get the top tray out I could see if removing all the ice in the top would stop the creep. I'm guessing that's a big fat no. At that point, is it possible to remove the ice module that I actively do not want anyway to see if it fixes anything, or is it integral to the freezer design? And at that point... Should we just get another fridge? Are there fridges without this busto icemaker shit nowadays? Thanks!
Complexity in refrigerators has been an ongoing cause of critical and early failure for a while now.
You may indeed want to look for a replacement: simpler is better (less features, ESPECIALLY no icemaker, just use classic ice cube trays). Also, research any specific model you are looking at and UNDER NO CIRCUMSTANCES BUY ANYTHING WITH A LG BRAND LINEAR COMPRESSOR.
In the short term to deal with this: you could unplug the fridge for a while, empty out the freezer, and CAREFULLY use a heat gun or hair drier to melt out all the ice and clear the frozen drain tube. Carefully means no leaving heat on one spot constantly, keep moving around to not damage or melt components. Use a rag or towel to soak up the water and squeeze it out in your sink.
An excellent channel I recommend for doing research is Ben's Appliances and Junk - he is an appliance repairman and makes about appliance problems, repairs, known issues and recommendations for what to and not to purchase.
If you're an ice fiend like me you know these won't cut it, but you can get a standalone icemaker unit that fits on your countertop for not too much money.
It has sufficed for me, but to be fair I rarely use ice so my needs are minimal there. Agreed on a standalone icemaker being a good option - the icemaker in a fridge so often tends to be a point failure source, especially if it is built into the door or designed into the fridge (rather than freezer) portion.
I used to keep a stack of 6 large ice cube trays, and just rotated as I used them. That did the job most of the time, but isn't as convenient as an ice maker.
Do be aware that most of them are not designed to store ice. The ice will melt and the combination of water and running electronics tend to attract bugs. When you use one transfer the ice into the freezer after it is done.
Also please clean them!!!! My sister wouldn't let us use the standalone icemaker at our beach house on vacation bc she worked in food service and knew how nasty those get inside when not cleaned super fastidiously (and most people do not do that).
Just get a fridge with a freezer with internal ice dispenser.
The reason why ice and water dispensers cause such an issue is that they require a big hole punched through the door, and in the case of side by side fridges, they require running (unfrozen) water directly through the freezer door, and in the case of french door fridges, they require the ability to freeze ice inside the refrigerator door, which makes no sense.
I have a Bosch french door freezer that does neither. The ice maker is integrated into the freezer, you just scoop ice out of the ice tray when you need it. The water dispenser is inside the fridge, keeping the water at the same temp as the rest of the fridge; ie not freezing.
I don't really get why all modern fridges aren't designed like that.
Expanding on what u/l_one touched on, a hair dryer is definitely less likely to melt or warp something than a heat gun (not impossible, just less likely and going to give you more grace to melt the ice out). You could also dump boiling water from a tea kettle to melt out the bottom. There's so much water it probably won't add much to your water clean up work. A clothing steamer is probably the best option if you have one laying around.
I did see a video on Instagram a few days ago that I think was this exact same issue. The repair man wrapped a piece of copper wire around the botton of the heat exchanger pipe and stuck it a little bit into the drain port to help keep ice from building up a sealing the drain whole over. Wish I had a better video link than the instagram one, but here's the video: https://www.instagram.com/reel/C8AK7nTIXwe/?igsh=d3k0dWM3cWMxOWo2
To extend on this to provide an alternative, what I've been using is to dump boiling water into the port and suck it up with a big injector. Because, as you melt the ice, you'll be fighting to heat the portion of the pipe that is filled with now cool (melted) water. It takes long time to get the heat down in the drain, alongside the clean up you have to do due to extra water you're dumping down on the bottom of your fridge. So my solution is essentially to just melt the surface of the ice and clean it dry, then repeat the process.
To give more information to OP, as someone owns a similar model GE fridge I recommend watching a different video addition to the instagram one because I find the back panel of GE fridges little bit too "involved" to remove. And for the clean up, I recommend pulling the entire fridge out to get access to it's back because the port in question leads to right on top of your fridge's motor. Design is to essentially drain the condensed water from inside the fridge and dump it to nearest heat generator, which is your pump.
When that drain is clogged, it fills the collection tray and once it gets filled water starts going down the bottom of your fridge as seen on OP's the pictures. Combine that with an environment that is unable to keep the condensation away, your cooling performance is lowered and water finds it's way to your fridge door.
And for the instagram video, that is a great find. I'll definitely be trying next time I do my maintenance. Thank you.
This looks like great info. Thanks for adding this!
Despite feeling like brain rot 75% of the time, I've managed to get some solid science, technician, and maintenance content into my Instagram feed. Just wish Instagram was more friendly for sharing content outside the platform. And better about letting me dig out previously watched videos if I accidentally forgot to save them. I was just glad I found a way to get a shareable link to the video.
Its hard to tell from the pictures, but I want to add my 2 cents. Your fridge appears to be far too close to the back wall and sides of your counters. Fridges need at least 1 inch around all sides and more than 3 inches (4-6 is safest) behind them to properly vent the heat coming out of the condenser. You also need to make sure you're regularly (every 6 months at least) cleaning the coils if you have pets since pet hair loves to get clogged up in them and overheat. As for the ice build-up, its likely either your automatic defrost system is kaput or the ventilation fan that is supposed to circulate air throughout the fridge is dead. Either way, that much ice buildup is a bad sign and will cause you more problems if it hasn't already killed the fridge.
Seconding all of this. These are needed PMCS (preventative maintenance checks and services) that will greatly contribute to a long working life of a fridge. Or rather, not doing this puts significant avoidable strain on a fridge and reduce its working lifespan.
I'm not a fridge guy or anything, but a fix it myself kind of guy, but I wanted to give you a suggestion for how I fixed ours. Also, I've had several drinks, so I hope I'm clear here:
Ours was icing over on the bottom and eventually leaking out of the bottom, leaving a pool of water in front of the fridge. After pulling it out and examining it, I discovered there is drain that runs from the back of the inside of the freezer down through the floor of the freezer and that seemed to be where the water was coming from. It's hard to tell in your picture, as the bottom drawer is in the way.
That said, it turns out this is a condensation drain and after pulling off the cardboard on the back of the fridge, on the bottom, I found the drain. There's a drip tube that has a little u-joint (p-trap?) in it that is suppose to drip into a drip tray and then be evaporated by a coil. This drip tube on mine was clogged with an orange slime mold and that was causing water to back-up in my fridge, leak into the bottom and freeze, being pushed out, unfreezing and leaving the puddles. That drain tube was being held up/in by an 8mm hex head screw, which I removed, took the tube out and then flushed with hot water, reinstalled and that solved my issue.
Your issue seems quite different from mine, but I wanted to relay what I discovered. Yours may or may not be a simple fix like mine and since you're asking, I'm assuming you're probably inclined to troubleshoot it yourself, so I wanted to relay my own experience with a fridge that had ice build-up in the bottom of it. Again, looks different from the issue I had, but maybe it'll start you on the right track.
The shape of those ice 'cubes' makes it seem like it's not getting down to temperature, or that it is struggling to keep temperature.
Cleaning the coils, as mentioned by others may help.
Is there ice buildup (it starts as frost, then turns solid) along the back interior wall of the freezer?
Aside from the temperature concerns, the water valve (on the refrigerator side) could be going bad and allowing water to bleed by. There should be a valve on the house side that you should shut off until this is resolved. They are commonly behind the refrigerator, but, may be wherever the closest pipe is.
Thermometers for both refrigerator and freezer compartments are recommended
Well buying a new fridge is definitely the easiest option, but too expensive in my opinion if the problem is in the ice maker or until you’ve exhausted other options. You say the ice maker has been off for a while now, so it shouldn’t be using up any water at all (the way the ice maker works is it has a small water line that brings in water to the tray, then freezes it, then defrosts a bit and kicks it out of the tray and into the main ice bin, then repeat).
So I would probably try to find out exactly where and why it’s leaking. Remove the ice maker (might be a screw or two, and a wire clip to disconnect) to see if it has anything to do with the ice maker still, or it maybe it’s something to do with the line of water itself (maybe cracked or something). Hopefully if you find the source of the leak you can at the very least look that up with your fridge's model number and maybe it’s a common problem/fix.
Good luck!
Oh, arg. This reminds me of what I should have suggested. De-activate the ice maker permanently. Unhook or turn off the water input to the fridge and find and disconnect power to the ice maker - that would (should?) remove it as a problem source.
Turning it off is way easier, at least in my experience. Its just a simple valve behind the fridge.
Modern fridges run a de-icing cycle to keep the cooling coils clear of ice build up. There is drain line that collects the melt water. If this drain gets clogged, or slows downs, the de-icing cycle doesn't work, the coils then ice up, then the ice block grows and grows. On cheap fridges, like the little cube fridges, you are supposed to unplug them once a year and let the ice melt off.
To fix this, you
My fridge was leaking water internally and getting stuff inside wet, and what I discovered was the drain tube from the freezer area was freezing up and so what normally would drain out, was flooding over inside of the fridge. I disassembled the inside of the freezer compartment enough to reach the drain area and was able to clear the frozen blockage (and hang a wire-hanger off of the heating coil and down the drain a bit to keep it unfrozen, and so far that's worked well.
The internal coils in the freezer freeze up and defrost from time to time which I think can be fairly normal, but it is like 20+ years old so I do wonder if some maintenance could help it operate more steadily and without even needing repeated defrosts. The outside coil/fan might need cleaned on mine or it might need a refrigerant top up or something, idk
As far as the water and icemaker- at least with mine it seems like the icemaker can be optional, i just keep it installed and off and the water line to it shut off, just because i never use it. I don't think it's ever been the source of a leak for me though but that would make sense if a valve or something is screwy
Just a quick update, I took some boiling water and a meat tenderizer, went to town on the bottom, and also cleared out the top ice bucket. If the top was melting down then I can see how that does, but I think the mix of dirty coils, bad flow, possible damage, and a blocked drain pipe sound pretty, uh, bad here. And unfortunately the thing is wedged in because the wall is there... So I'm probably going to let a professional take care of it. But thank you guys!
Another vote for: "check the drain hose" .
Mine clogs up often and causes the bottom of the freezer to fill up with ice similar to this.