The short answer
A leaking refrigerator on this family is usually a blocked defrost drain, and the water appears a long way from where the problem is. A door seal that has taken a set lets humid air in, which condenses on every cold surface and runs. Deal with a supply leak the same day. A drain blockage can wait a weekend. A single-listing family leaves no room for "it depends which one you have", which is worth something on a page like this.
Where the water shows up
- Water appears only after the icemaker fills — Points at the fill tube, the tray or the connection to it rather than at the defrost side.
- The drain pan at the back is full or overflowing — Normal for the pan to hold water; not normal for it to overflow, which means more water than the airflow can evaporate.
- 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.
- Ice building under the freezer floor or in the drawer — The same blocked drain, seen from the freezer side, where the water freezes before it can reach the compartment below.
- 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.
What it turns out to be, in order
- Defrost drain blocked with ice or debris — First on this roster and not close. The drain entry sits in the coldest part of the cabinet, so a slow drain freezes shut, and food debris that reaches the channel completes the job over a season.
- Drain pan displaced, cracked or overfull — Second. The pan sits over the compressor to evaporate what the drain delivers, and a pan knocked out of position when the cabinet was last moved will spill everything it receives.
- 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.
What to check first, second, third
- 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.
- Pull the crisper drawers and look at the liner beneath them — Standing water there is the blocked drain, confirmed, and it is the commonest finding on this page.
- 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.
- Close the door on a strip of paper at several heights — Paper that slides out freely marks where the seal is not sealing, which is where the humid air is getting in.
- 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
Unplug the appliance or switch off its breaker before removing any panel; a capacitor can hold a charge after the power is off. Water on a kitchen floor next to a cabinet you are about to pull out is a slip risk before it is anything else — dry it first.
Models in the APR family — This profile generalizes over every listing in the roster below, and stops where the roster stops.
Reference| Model number | Family key |
|---|---|
| APR-18RSG | ausranvik:refrigerator:apr |
When to call a technician
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.
