The short answer
Water under one of these cabinets comes from one of three places, and telling them apart is a matter of where the water is rather than how much of it there is. Defrost water is supposed to run down a channel, through a tube and into a pan over the compressor; block any part of that and it goes somewhere else. Find out whether the water is cold and clean or not, and whether it appears whether or not the icemaker is running.
Where the water shows up
- A damp patch appears and dries between uses — Small volumes arriving on a defrost cycle. That timing points at the drain rather than at anything plumbed.
- Water under the crisper drawers inside the cabinet — The signature of a blocked defrost drain. It collects in the lowest part of the fresh-food liner and nowhere else.
- Condensation running down the inside walls — Humid air getting in. Suspect a door seal or a door being held fractionally open by a shelf or a bottle.
- The floor is wet only on one side of the cabinet — Water following a slope rather than pointing at a source. Note where it is dry as well as where it is wet.
- NEAR MISS — the cabinet is also warm — Then the leak is secondary to an airflow problem and the cooling page for this family is where to start.
Ranked causes for these models
- Defrost drain blocked with ice or debris — Top of the list and not close. The drain entry sits at the coldest point in the cabinet, so a slow drain becomes a frozen one, and a season of food debris finishes the job.
- Door seal set, torn or held open — Humid room air meeting cold surfaces. Commoner in summer, commoner still where a bottle or a shelf stops the door travelling the last few millimetres.
- Cabinet not level, tipping water the wrong way — The drain channel is a gravity feature and nothing more. A cabinet leaning forward sends condensate into the compartment, and levelling it is the entire repair.
- Supply line, fitting or inlet valve leaking — Bottom by frequency and top by urgency. This is the only water on the page that is connected to a main, which means it does not stop when the cycle does.
Work in this sequence
- Establish whether the water is inside the liner or on the floor — Inside means condensate and the drain; outside at the back means supply. This single observation halves the list.
- Check whether the water appears in step with the icemaker — Water that arrives shortly after a fill belongs to the icemaker path and not to the defrost path.
- Look behind the cabinet at the supply fitting and the tap — Do this early despite it being the least likely: a mains leak is the only one here that gets worse while you think about it.
- Check the cabinet sits level and the drain pan is seated — Both are free, both are common after a cabinet has been moved, and both send water somewhere it was never meant to go.
Before you open anything
Safety
Nothing below happens with the machine live. Unplug it or switch off its breaker, and treat any capacitor as charged until it has been discharged properly.
Models in the AT family — Every listing below is in scope. The table is the boundary of this page's generalization.
Reference| Model number | Family key |
|---|---|
| AT16B | attitude:refrigerator:at |
| AT16BF | attitude:refrigerator:at |
| AT16BL | attitude:refrigerator:at |
| AT50FRE | attitude:refrigerator:at |
Where the owner line is
Stop when the water is warm, or when it has any colour to it. Condensate is cold and clean; anything else came from somewhere it should not have, and that is worth having looked at rather than mopped up.
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.
