Air Conditioning - What Causes Fridge to Make water ??

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milmat1
01-01-08, 03:09 PM
This may belong in another section but I figure you guys know refridgeration better than anyone.
What Causes a Fridge to leave water everywhere, Its not a Leak, More like a Defrost problem or something. Every few days the bottom of the Fridge will have 1/2" of water standing in it. Then spill out on the floor etc..And the walls of the freezer are as smooth as Glass. (No Ice Buildup at all).
Is there a Common cause of this type of problem ? The Fridge and Freezer still work fine, Even making ice as Normal. Just also making a lot of water ??


pflor
01-01-08, 03:40 PM
All "no-frost" refrigerator/freezers DO build-up ice (frost) on the surface of their evaporator coils. They also have a few controls that work together as a team, and their job is to make sure the ice does not stay there but rather melts and is drained away. This is the defrost cycle.

Old refrigerators used to just dump this water to a condensate pan, tyically located on the bottom of the refrigerator. The home owner then was expected to empty the pan when full (else have a mop ready :) )
How does this water get from the inside of the fridge to the bottom? Through drain holes. These sometimes get plugged with food.

The newer refrigerators still have this pan, but they also have the hot condenser coil sitting inside of it. As you;d guess, the heat from the condenser could evaporate the water so one would not have to do so manually.

What do you mean with water standing everywhere?

Also, I don't quite understand your comment regarding the walls of the freezer becomming as smooth as glass. Are they sweating? The outside or the inside? Please ellaborate further.

cjett
01-02-08, 10:30 AM
Some have a drain plug under the crisper drawers. Clean the plug, if that is the style you have, it will usually lift up from underneath the refrigerator.


Saturn
01-02-08, 05:28 PM
The way the typical refrigerator works is that ALL THE COOLING is done by a evaporator coil inside the freezer compartment. This evaporator is hidden from view behind a removable panel in the rear of your freezer compartment. Air is blown over the evaporator coil to the fridge side to keep it at the desired temp but the coil is extremely cold in fact so cold that it forms a solid layer of ice over its surface fairly quickly. Now for your refrigerator to operate this layer of ice must be melted off so the evaporator coil is wrapped with a electric heater in the defrost cycle the compressor shuts down and the heat coils will operate for a short period of time and when this happens the ice is melted off the evaporator and makes of course WATER (condensate) that must be drained out of the compartment. You have a stopped up drain. Remove the rear panel in the freezer compartment and unstop the drain (get those frozen peas and corn outta there man) and you should be good to go.

pflor
01-02-08, 05:37 PM
AMEN brother Sat...