Mysterious puddles of water on the floor of a kitchen are rarely good signs. The moment you feel your sock get wet, you’re instantly running through different possible scenarios. Hopefully, it’s just a spill that didn’t get cleaned up, but maybe it’s a broken drain pipe under the sink, or maybe the dishwasher is clogged and overflowing. One of the places you might not instantly think could be the source of water on the floor is a refrigerator dripping water, but it happens more often than you may realize. Depending on the exact nature of the problem, a leaky fridge can either be a quick do-it-yourself appliance repair project, or it could be a more complicated and in-depth job that requires the attention and expertise of a qualified appliance repair technician. The first thing you need to do before you panic and write it off as a broken fridge is to try to find out where the fridge is leaking water from. The answer to that question will tell you a lot about what your next step should be.

 

From Below

 

If the pools of unwanted wetness are coming from near or under the bottom of the fridge, you may be in luck. The nature of the cooling system employed by modern fridges generates a reasonable amount of condensation along the evaporator coils. This condensation is then collected in a pan at the bottom of the fridge, where it sits while harmlessly evaporating. However, if your fridge is improperly levelled (i.e. if it’s perfectly levelled or, worse, leaning forward even slightly) the water collecting in that pan will spill out before it can evaporate, leading to wet socks and fears of having a broken refrigerator. If this is your problem, you’re in luck. All you need to do is make adjustments to the height of the front legs of your fridge, which will tilt the whole unit back slightly, and the water will stay where it should be, and your floor will stay dry.

From Above

 

That’s the best case scenario. If, however, your leaking refrigerator is dripping water from inside on the ceiling of the main compartment, your troubles are likely a bit more substantial. In a case like that, the problem is an internal one, and this is when you should start doing some research into which local appliance repair company you’d like to get in touch with to book a visit from a home repair technician. For someone with the right experience and tools, opening up the proper panels and fixing and internal mechanical issue is a piece of cake, and the same goes for replacing the pulled out insulation before closing everything back up, as good as new, once the repair is completed. The more complicated inner workings of the fridge, coupled with the risks of working on electric connections on your own, make this a job for the pros.

 

So while there’s a chance that your refrigerator dripping water all over your kitchen floor may yet lead to a service call from a local repair person, there’s also a good chance that it will be an simple repair job you can handle all on your own.