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An Arctic Wind ABMJ refrigerator leaking water is rarely leaking refrigerant, which is the fear that brings most of these calls in. The roster covers one base number, ABMJ171E, carried twice in the parts data. Refrigerant is a gas at room conditions and leaves no puddle; what is on your floor is water from the defrost system, the supply line or condensation.
Symptoms on these models
- A steady wet patch at the back low down — Constant water points at the supply line, a compression fitting or the inlet valve rather than at the defrost side.
- Sweating on the outside of the cabinet or on the door — A humidity and sealing story rather than a leak. It gets reported as a leak because the water ends up in the same place.
- NEAR MISS - water plus a cabinet that is no longer cold — A warming cabinet defrosting itself makes a lot of water. That is a cooling fault and belongs on the cooling page for this family.
Likely causes in order
- Blocked or frozen defrost drain — First on this roster by a wide margin. Meltwater from the coil is meant to leave through a small drain to a pan over the compressor. Food debris and a slow glaze of ice close that path, and the water then backs up under the liner and appears beneath the crispers.
- Drain pan cracked, displaced or overflowing — The pan under the machine compartment evaporates what the drain delivers. A pan knocked out of position when the unit was moved, or cracked with age, puts that water straight onto the floor.
- Ice maker fill tube or valve dribbling — Water that appears in step with an ice maker cycle rather than continuously points here. A valve that does not close cleanly leaves the fill tube dripping, and the result is ice under the bin and water below that.
- Condensation from ambient humidity or a blocked air path — Last among the water causes because it is a condition rather than a failure, and no part fitted will change it.
- Body: This order follows the water backwards from where you found it. On the ABMJ listings inside-the-cabinet water and floor water almost never share a cause, so the first job is deciding which of the two you have.
The order to work in
- Dry everything and watch the timing for a day — Water hours after a defrost points at the drain; constant water points at the supply; water after an ice cycle points at the fill path.
- Pull the crisper drawers and look at the liner floor — Standing water under the drawers with a dry floor outside is a blocked drain until proved otherwise.
- Body: Work down this list. The first two steps are observation rather than repair, and they are what stops an afternoon being spent on the supply line for a fault that lives in a drain.
Before you start
Safety
Unplug the appliance or switch off its breaker before clearing a drain or removing any panel. A capacitor can hold a charge after the power is off. Water on a kitchen floor next to a live appliance is a slip and a shock risk at the same time, so dry the floor before you start rather than after.
Models in the ABMJ family — The roster this page covers, taken from the model spine. Every listing in the roster shares one number series, so the access notes below hold across the roster. A starred entry in the table is the same base number recorded a second way in the parts data; treat it as the same platform for this fault unless your own parts diagram says otherwise.
Reference| Model number | Family key |
|---|---|
| ABMJ171E | arctic-wind:refrigerator:abmj |
| ABMJ171E* | arctic-wind:refrigerator:abmj |
When to stop and call
Stop when the next step needs the freezer liner off or the water line opened. On the ABMJ listings both are true once the accessible drain clearing has been tried. Call urgently if water has reached anything electrical, or if the cabinet is both leaking and warming.
Other pages for this family
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