How to repair a leaking refrigerator with top mount freezer :

If your refrigerator leaking water from the freezer section in to the refrigerator most likely you have a frozen drain line .

Here is couple simple steps how to repair it.

STEP 1

Unplug the refrigerator

Empty the freezer

Remove couple screws holding floor cover , back cover and fan cover. You need to get access to the drain line,

STEP 2

After removing all panels defrost and clean all the ice formed underneath the floor cover:

Remove all ice and clean the floor , you should see something like this :

STEP 3

DEFROSTING AND CLEANING OF THE DRAIN LINE

Usually whole drain pan is cover with ice , please defrost it and using turkey baster or syringe filled with hot water please defrost the drain line. Make sure that the drain line is defrosted completely ( all water drains easily through the drain line. Do NOT USE TO MUCH HOT WATER ( two or three cups should be sufficient to defrost the drain line) if you use to much water you will overfill the drain pan underneath the fridge and it will leak on the floor.

Basically you are all done. Now you do have to decide if your refrigerator needs drain line heater.

Most of the refrigerators will be fine after just defrosting and cleaning the drain line at least for a while. If this happen in your fridge for the first time you dont really need to do anything else just install all covers in revers order . If this happen multiple times already and you had to defrost the line couple of times you can consider installing a DRAIN LINE HEATER . In couple next steps i will explain how to do it.

STEP 4

DRAIN LINE HEATER INSTALLATION

Drain line heater is like an upgrade for your refrigerator. Because it is an universal part there is a lot of different types of the drain line heaters. one of the most common is SUPCO SH201

this heater is string type heater , very simple to install with good quality leads , very flexible.

depending on the refrigerator model you will have to determine how to install the heater. Usually what i do is putting it in half and wrapping whole thing in aluminum sealing tape leaving 2" of open heater LIKE THIS :

DO NOT PUT MORE THAN 1.5" OF THE HEATER INSIDE THE DRAIN LINE, Usually 1" its enough. If drain heater will be to long it could melt the plastic drain line inside the walls of the refrigerator

Now you need to hooked it up to the main defrost heater :

The simplest way to do it is locating main defrost heater terminals and hooking up the drain heater to it. sometimes you do have to extend the wires to accomplish that.