The short answer
Water around an AWC cabinet almost always started as condensate the machine made on purpose and then failed to route away, not as a burst pipe. On a wine cooler the route is short and the places it can fail are few, which makes this one of the better faults to diagnose at home.
What you observe on these models
- Beads of water on the inside of the glass and on the racks — Expected on a cabinet that runs close to room temperature with a glass door.
- The puddle appeared after the cabinet was moved — Levelling, tray or hose, in that order.
- Water only after a long door opening — That is the cabinet catching up with the room rather than a leak.
- NEAR MISS — water only after the door has been left open a long time — That is the cabinet catching up with the room, not a leak.
Causes, most likely first on the AWC family
- Condensation on the glass and on the racks — First on this platform: wine cabinets run closer to room temperature than a food refrigerator and are opened into humid rooms; water on the inside of the glass is what the cabinet does, not a fault.
- Blocked drain hole in the floor of the cabinet — Second: it is small, it sits behind the bottom rack, and it plugs with cork dust and label paper.
- The cabinet out of level — Third: racked cabinets get loaded heavily at the bottom and settle; the drain then sits at the high point of the floor.
- Door seal taking a set — Fourth: a seal squashed flat where the door has been closed on a rack lets a steady draught of room air in along one edge.
- Evaporator icing and then melting in a lump — Last: a cabinet whose coil freezes and clears in a cycle delivers its water all at once rather than as a trickle, which is the pattern that points here.
Check in this order, and why that order
- Separate condensation from a leak — Water on the inside of the glass and on the racks is the cabinet behaving normally in a humid room.
- Empty the bottom rack and find the drain hole — Cork dust and paper labels plug it, and it is behind the last thing anyone moves.
- If water arrives in a lump rather than as a trickle, look for ice — A coil that freezes and clears delivers meltwater all at once, and that pattern belongs to a control fault rather than a drain fault.
- Decide whether the water is on the glass or on the floor of the cabinet — Condensation on the inside of the glass is normal in a humid room; water standing on the floor of the cabinet is not.
- Clear the drain hole at the back of the cabinet floor — It is the smallest part of the water path and the part that plugs.
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. Isolating at the breaker is better than pulling the plug where the socket is behind the appliance, because it removes the temptation to work one-handed.
Models in the AWC family — The numbers this page covers.
Reference| Model number | Family key |
|---|---|
| AWC242TDZ | avallon:refrigerator:awc |
| AWC242TSZ | avallon:refrigerator:awc |
When to call a technician
Clearing a drain, levelling a cabinet and replacing a gasket are all owner jobs on a wine cooler. On these models the line falls at the machine compartment and the refrigerant circuit inside it. Call without working through anything at all for oil around the tubing in the machine compartment, a compressor that hums and stops without starting, or a cabinet that trips its breaker.
Nearest pages of this class
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