How to Fix a Leaky Fridge

If happens to everyone - you walk into the kitchen and find a shallow puddle of water slowly spreading out from under your refrigerator. A leaky fridge can be a pain for a amount of reasons, and not only do you risk losing all the food in the fridge, but all that water on the floor can cause potentially serious problems for your floor as well as the fridge itself. Fortunately, most refrigerator leaks are fairly straightforward fixes that you can take care of pretty beyond doubt on your own.

How to Fix a Leaky Fridge

Refrigerator Door Seals

Check the door seal - probably 7 times out of 10, a "leak" in your fridge isn't beyond doubt a leak at all - instead, the question arises because your fridge door doesn't close properly, causing the fridge to have to work harder to keep your food cold, causing excess condensation to build up on the coils which ends up development a swimming pool on your kitchen floor. To fix this problem, shut off the fridge, peel off the refrigerator seal and wash it with warm, soapy water. Next, apply a thin layer of petroleum jelly to the seal and put it back on the door. Once you've done this, replace the gaskets on your fridge and then adjust the legs so the refrigerator leans slightly backwards - this will keep any water that builds up inside the fridge from leaking out.

Check the drain pan - if you're not having problems with your refrigerator door seal, check to make sure your refrigerator drain pan is not cracked or damaged. The drain pan is what catches all that condensation from your refrigerator coils, so if it has any cracks or holes in it, this is obviously going to cause some problems. Considered slide the drain pan out from under the refrigerator (don't spill!) and seek it. If you see any damaged, have the pan replaced. Where is the drain pan located?

Check the defrost drain - if your drain pan is fine, the question might lie with the defrost drain in the back of the fridge. Remember how we said the drain pan was there to catch condensation from the refrigerator coils? Well the defrost drain is what catches all that condensate and directs it to the pan. Ice or other debris can clog up the defrost drain, so if you have any of these problems, pour a dinky hot water into the drain. This should melt the ice or push the clog out into the drain pan. Where is this located?

Check the ice maker - if your door seal, drain pan and defrost drain all check out, you may have a question with your ice maker. It doesn't happen very often, but occasionally the ice maker water line can come unplugged and drip water right into the freezer - obviously not where you want it to be! Reach into the freezer and tighten up all the screws in the ice maker. You can even replace the whole water line if you need to.

Call a plumber! - if you've tried all things listed above and you still can't stop your fridge leak, call a refrigerator mend company. They'll be able to form out exactly what's wrong with you fridge and how to fix it.

How to Fix a Leaky Fridge

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