Leak inside my refrigerator-need advice

In My Humble Opinion
1

Any ideas about a leak in (under) my refrigerator? To clarify, the refrigerator itself is not leaking. I buy water in 2.5 gallon containers with a tap so I can use refillable bottles with less plastic waste because my tap water tastes terrible (yes, I know I am ruining the environment and being punished). Occasionally the taps will leak a little but a paper towel under it will usually work. Last night I put a new container in the refrigerator. This AM I woke up and the wood floor in front of the refrigerator was wet.

The water was on a shelf with another shelf below it and two drawers below that. Under that, the refrigerator floor is like a tray with the back highly sloped and a small ridge in front. The shelf the water was on was wet and a large box of baking soda on that shelf was completely soaked several inches up. The shelf below and both drawers were completely dry. The bottom of the refrigerator had about a centimeter of water in the tray which is about 10x12 inches maybe. There did not appear to be any water on the sides of the refrigerator.

When I have a chance, I guess I can measure the tray and calculate the volume of water that was sitting there to estimate how much was there and how much is “missing”. My question is, how likely is it that there is a large pool of water under the refrigerator that is going to turn moldy or rot the floor so the refrigerator falls down to the basement? If I reached as far as I could under it with paper towels and they are not very wet, does that mean that there is not likely to be water there, especially since the floor on the sides of the refrigerator are dry? Is it possible that the majority of the water was in the bottom tray of the refrigerator and only a slight amount dripped out through the door seal to make the floor in front wet? Do I have the hire somebody to move the refrigerator to find out?

As best I can determine, the water leaked on the shelf then must have dripped down the sides of the shelf, avoiding the shelf below and the drawers, which have a slight gap at the sides, then collected in the tray. It was clearly a slow leak since there was still some water in the container. I just don’t know the construction of a refrigerator and how likely it is for water to get under it. I still don’t understand how the floor got wet except to think that it is old and the door seal may have leaked.

Anybody who knows about refrigerators feel free to chime in.

2

You fridge has a pan under it meant to catch and evaporate (with some help from heat from the compressor) condensate water. Obviously that overflowed and ended up on the floor.
Personally, I wouldn’t be too worried about it. Maybe get a towel under there as far as you can or point a fan towards it, but the fridge is generating heat and that should help to evaporate a lot of the water.

Of course the ‘correct’ thing to do would be to pull the fridge away from the wall and see what’s going on. Even if you have someone to help you, you might be able to tip it back a few degrees so someone can take a look.

3

Thank you. This was exactly what I needed to know.

4

Has there been any water on the top shelf? If so, you could have water dripping from the vent where the cold air blows. Ours has been dripping water from the vent since it was new; we keep a metal bowl under the vent to catch water – which freezes over and gets dumped when nearly full.

5

I agree with @Joey_P it’s probably a condensate issue, but I think the question is why is it suddenly overflowing.

We had the same situation with our fridge, however it was a slightly different problem / solution.

In our fridge, the condensate runs down the back into a concave channel near the bottom of the fridge (molded into the back plastic of the fridge). That concave channel is sloped like a “V” to a hole in the centre back of the fridge. The water then runs down that hole into the drain pan.

The sloping channel is open to the fridge interior and if debris lands on it, it’s swept down toward the centre drain hole. In our case, over time the hole became plugged with debris [things like bits of onion skins etc.]. The condensate overflowed the sides of the sloping channel and spilled into the fridge itself.

My solution was to simply take a long thin kebab skewer and poke around the hole until it drained out.

6

Sorry if the OP was unclear. The refrigerator itself is not leaking. My water container was. I basically spilled 2 1/2 gallons of water in the refrigerator and was trying to figure out if it could get underneath and cause damage or if there was some design feature to keep water from doing that. Since the floor looks dry today, I think it is evaporating quickly.