Common fault
Why is there water under my refrigerator?
Short answer
There are two sources of water under a built-in and they do not look alike. Clear water at the front, worse right after the dispenser or the ice maker has run, is the supply line or a fitting on it.
Why that is usually the answer
Slow seepage with ice forming on the freezer floor is the defrost drain: it has iced over, and the melt water it should be carrying away backs up inside the cabinet and escapes under the door. Both are small repairs, neither stops on its own, and the subfloor under a built-in is the one part of the kitchen you cannot dry out once it has been wet for a week.
Where it usually turns out to be
You can tell the two apart in about a minute. Pull the lower freezer drawer and look at the floor of the compartment. A sheet of ice there, or ice around the drain hole at the back, tells you the defrost drain has frozen shut. A dry freezer with clean water at the front, especially right after the dispenser has run, means the supply side. If the water is cloudy or smells of the cabinet it came from inside; if it is clear and cold, it came from the line.
The coastal strip loads the drain harder than the inland tracts do. Marine layer mornings in Dana Point, Capistrano Beach and San Clemente mean the air entering the cabinet on every door opening carries more moisture, more of it condenses on the evaporator, and all of it has to leave through a drain about the width of a pencil. Add a summer of entertaining and that drain works harder in June than it does all winter. Inland in Ladera Ranch, Las Flores and Coto de Caza the drier air gives the drain an easier time, and the leaks we find out there are more often on the supply side.
If that matches what yours is doing, say so when you call — it decides which parts come on the van.
Cubes came out short and hollow all through August, and with people in and out of the house from the beach we go through a lot of ice. It was the filter cartridge and ice forming in the fill tube. He stayed and watched a whole batch drop before leaving.
The Wolf had been running cool for the best part of a year. He tested the sensor before touching anything else, then sat and watched the real temperature through a full cycle. One part. Baking is normal again. Tidy, explained everything, no fuss.
There was a whine behind the grille that climbed through the afternoon and went quiet by evening. Condenser fan, worn out from the summers we get out in Ladera Ranch. He had one on the truck and the kitchen is silent again.
Appliance down in Orange County?
Tell us the brand and what it is doing — we can usually name the likely repair before we arrive.
Questions
Answers before you call
What parts do you fit?
Factory-approved parts. We stay out of the busy market in pattern control boards and generic fan motors. On a condenser fan motor near the water, a non-original tends to be back on the fault list within a season or two, and the second visit costs more than the saving was worth. Ask if you want an alternative priced, with a straight opinion on it.