We have started having a problem with water on the floor around our fridge/freezer maybe twice a day. I intend to call a service guy to look at it - no way am I competent to fix this sort of thing, but it would be good to know more about the likely causes of the problem.
The freezer occupies the leftmost third, top to bottom. I have noticed then when we have the water problem, something that I can see through a grill near the bottom of the freezer section is so hot that it is glowing red. It is melting ice in the freezer, which then runs onto the floor. It only comes on for short periods, though, as the food nearest to it seems to stay frozen.
The glow is the automatic defroster. Ice forms on the coils inside the freezer, after a set time the defroster turns on, melting that ice which then flows thru a tube down into a pan near the bottom of the fridge. That tube might not be feeding the water to the pan right. Blocked or dumping. The pan could be overflowing too. One cause of excess moisture in the freezer is poor sealing around the doors. With more humid weather, that can cause the problem to be noticable now. Do the “dollar bill” test around the door gasket of the freezer (all the way around).
Do you have an automatic ice-maker and/or water dispenser? The water line could be leaking.
Frost-free freezers are only different from old-fashioned freezers in that instead of just freezing, they have a freeze/heat cycle to melt off any ice that may be forming in the freezer. This water goes to a cup which then drains into a tray on the bottom of the dridge. The heat of the compressor generally keeps this tray from overflowing but sometimes it will overflow, or it may be leaking. Alternatively, the drain line could be plugged and the cup is leaking, but this usually casuses a leak inside the fridge. The glowing red might be the heater coming on, I am not familiar enough with side-by-side type fridges to know if it can normally be seen.
Lastly, it could be condensation dripping from any of a number of components.
Yes, I have both an ice maker and a water dispenser.
On inspection, the water is coming from inside the freezer. The bottom of the freezer has a hard pack layer of ice on it. When we get a leak, the water comes from inside the freezer. Although it is supposed to be automatic defrost, might it help to defrost manually and get rid of the hard-pack ice - maybe my leakage is just that ice melting?