Start here
Water around the Alpicol RTW refrigerator is nearly always the cabinet's own condensate arriving somewhere it should not, rather than a pipe failing. The model record for this family is a single code, RTW25, so everything below applies to one build rather than to a range of them. The first job is deciding whether the water is coming from inside, from the drain path or off a cold outside surface, because those three have nothing in common but the puddle.
The observables on these models
- Drips down the outside of the shell — Evenly spread over a cold panel rather than running from one point.
- Water standing inside, in the bottom of the cabinet — It has been made where it should be and has failed to leave.
- The water appears only when it is parked on a slope — Same machine, different attitude: the drain is no longer at the low point.
- NEAR MISS — the cabinet is also not holding temperature — Work the cooling page for this family first: a seal fault makes both symptoms, and the cooling page ranks them for that case.
Ranked causes for these models
- The condensate path, blocked or displaced — First. A cold cabinet makes water every time it defrosts, and that water is supposed to leave by one small drain and evaporate from a tray. Block that drain with debris, or knock the tray out of line, and the water takes the only other route it has: forward, onto the floor. The record holds only RTW25, so this check is the whole of the family's exposure to that cause.
- A seal that is letting damp air in — Second. Warm air carries water, and the moment it meets a cold surface it puts that water down. A seal that does not grip turns the cabinet into a condensing machine: ice inside where the air lands, and a puddle outside when it melts.
- Condensation on the outside, which is not a leak at all — Last. On a humid day a cold shell sweats, exactly as a glass of iced water does, and the drips collect under the cabinet in a way that looks alarming. The tell is that the water is on the outside surfaces and that the inside is dry and cold.
- Body: With one code recorded there is no older or newer build here to tell apart. Every code in this family has to put its defrost water somewhere, and that path is both the most common place for it to go wrong and the only one you can inspect without tools, so it leads regardless of which model is in front of you.
The order to work in
- Find the drain and see whether it is clear — Water standing in the bottom of the cabinet rather than on the floor says the drain, not the seal. Clearing it with warm water is owner work; forcing anything rigid down it is not. On RTW25 that is the whole of this step.
- Test the seal with a strip of paper all round — Anywhere it pulls out without resistance is a leak path. The wet corner of the floor is usually under the loose part of the seal.
- Body: The record holds one code for this family, so the order below is not a model matrix — it is the order in which these causes can be eliminated on the machine in front of you, cheapest and least invasive first.
Before any panel comes off
Safety
Unplug the cabinet or switch off its breaker before you put a hand behind it; a capacitor can hold a charge after the power is off. Clear a blocked drain with warm water rather than with wire — the tube is soft and the plate above it is thin. If water has reached the supply socket, leave the circuit off until it has dried out completely.
Models this page covers — The one model code recorded for this family.
Reference| Model number | Family key |
|---|---|
| RTW25 | alpicol:refrigerator:rtw |
Where owner work stops
Everything above the tray is owner work. It becomes a service call when the drain will not clear with warm water, when the tray itself is cracked, or when water is appearing with the cabinet switched off and dry inside, because that last combination is a supply line rather than condensate. Do not leave a leak running into a floor you cannot see: water damage outlasts the appliance fault that caused it.
The rest of this family
Lead Appliance Repair Technician · 12 years experience
Experienced technician with 12 years specializing in washing machine and dryer repairs across all major brands.
