The short answer
A leak on the RVB family has three possible sources and they are told apart by where the water appears. Water inside the cabinet is defrost drainage; water on the floor at the front is usually the same water having travelled; water at the back is a supply line or the tray. Finding which one you have is the whole of the first step.
What you observe on these models
- A pool that reappears within a day of wiping it — Steady production rather than a one-off spill.
- Water under a crisper drawer with nothing spilled — The drain outlet inside the compartment is the first suspect.
- The floor is wet at one corner only — Levelling decides where water leaves the cabinet, which is why the corner is not the source.
- It started after the unit was moved or levelled — A cabinet tilted the wrong way sends drain water somewhere it was never meant to go.
- NEAR MISS - warm cabinet as well as water — Two faults or one bigger one: start on the cooling page for this family.
Causes, most likely first on the RVB family
- Defrost drainage — First on RVB477790. If there is ice under the bottom drawer, the diagnosis is effectively made: the drain is not clearing and everything else follows from it.
- Levelling and where the water leaves — Second, and the reason the puddle is never the source. A cabinet leaning forward delivers drain water to the floor through the front, which sends people looking at the door.
- Seals and ingress — Third: every bit of warm air that gets in becomes water that has to go somewhere. Seals are cheap, checkable with a sheet of paper, and commonly the underlying cause.
- Supply line and tray — Last. Real, but the water shows at the back rather than inside, which makes it easy to separate from the rest.
Check in this order, and why
- First: clear and dry everything, then watch for a day — You are establishing the rhythm. Water that returns every few days is defrost; water that returns continuously is supply.
- Second: empty the bottom drawer and inspect — Ice or standing water under it is the drain. Thawing it with the unit off and the doors open confirms it within a day.
- Third: look behind the unit for a supply line — Where the model is plumbed, run a dry hand along the fitting and the line. Water there does not come from the drain.
- Fourth: stop at the rear panel — On the RVB family the drain runs from behind the freezer rear panel, and clearing it there is a service call rather than an owner job.
Before you open anything
Safety
Unplug the refrigerator or switch off its breaker before removing any interior panel, and before working anywhere water has collected; a capacitor can hold a charge after the power is off. Dry the floor as you go - a wet floor in front of a heavy appliance is the actual hazard in this job. Never use a metal tool on ice near the evaporator.
Models in the RVB family
Reference| Model number | Family key |
|---|---|
| RVB477790 | bosch:refrigerator:rvb |
When to call a technician
The owner side of a leak on RVB477790 is: find where the water is, thaw what you can reach, check the seals, and level the cabinet. If the water returns on schedule after all of that, the drain is blocked where only a technician can reach it. A continuous leak at the back is plumbing, and that is a call rather than a repair to attempt.
Sources — The symptom-report corpus recorded against Bosch RVB refrigerator pages for this fault is cited below. No share is quoted from it anywhere on this page: the snapshot reaches this page as a provenance chain without values, so every ordering here is technician judgement rather than a measured proportion.
Documented- amazon-reviews — amazon-reviews, fetched 2026-09-02
Other faults covered for the RVB family
Lead Appliance Repair Technician · 12 years experience
Experienced technician with 12 years specializing in washing machine and dryer repairs across all major brands.
