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On the Arctic Wind ABMQ refrigerator family water inside the cabinet and water on the floor are two different faults with two different fixes. The roster here is one base number, ABMQ171E, carried twice in the parts data. Water under the crispers is almost always a blocked defrost drain; water on the floor is almost always the supply line or its fittings.
Where the water is
- Ice building on the floor of the freezer compartment — The same blocked drain seen one stage earlier, before enough water accumulates to reach the fresh-food side.
- 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.
- The puddle is worse after a hot day — More humidity in, more meltwater out. A drain that copes in winter can be overwhelmed in summer.
- 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.
What a technician expects to find
- Blocked or frozen defrost drain — First because the drain is narrow, cold along its whole length and sits at the lowest point of a compartment that holds food. Everything about its design makes it the thing that blocks.
- Water supply line, fitting or inlet valve weeping — On this roster the line enters low at the back, so the wet patch appears behind the unit first and only reaches the front later. By then it looks like the appliance is leaking rather than the plumbing.
- 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.
- Condensation from ambient humidity or a blocked air path — Not a leak at all in the mechanical sense. In a humid kitchen a cold cabinet sweats, and shelves packed against the rear vents create cold spots that do the same thing inside.
- Body: Ordered by what gets found rather than by what owners suspect. Condensation and door sealing sit high because they produce water in the same places as a real leak and cost nothing to rule out.
Diagnostic order on these models
- 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.
- Look for ice on the freezer floor — Ice building at the base of the freezer compartment is the same blocked drain caught one stage earlier.
- Body: Follow this in order, and give the timing question a full day if you can. Water that tracks the defrost cycle and water that is simply always there lead to completely different halves of the ranking above.
Before you start
Safety
Unplug the appliance or switch off its breaker before working inside the cabinet, and close the water shut-off before touching any fitting. A capacitor can hold a charge after the power is off. A supply line loosened under pressure empties onto the floor faster than it can be stopped.
Models in the ABMQ family — The model roster for this family. This page covers all of it, and nothing on this page is claimed of one listing and not another. Every listing in the roster shares one number series, so the access notes below hold across the roster.
Reference| Model number | Family key |
|---|---|
| ABMQ171E | arctic-wind:refrigerator:abmq |
| ABMQ171E* | arctic-wind:refrigerator:abmq |
When to call a technician
Call when a drain that has been cleared blocks again within weeks, because on the ABMQ roster that is a defrost fault reporting itself and the parts for it sit behind the liner. Call the same day for a constant leak: water under a cabinet damages a floor long before anyone sees it.
Other pages for this family
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