Leaking G.E. Hotpoint Fridge

[mloza82]

I believe I have water leaking from my freezer into the fridge. Every morning and every night before bed I must use a towel soak up water that has gathered up underneath the produce drawers. At times it is so bad that the water is leaking out of the fridge and onto the floor. I have observed water dripping from the roof of the fridge which holds the the light and defrost unit. How can I trouble shoot and fix? Please help.

Model HTS20GBNCWW

[JWWebster]

It is pretty simple. The defrost drain is stopped up. Every 8 to 12 hours your ice box will come to a screeching halt. A heater will be turned on to melt frost on the evaporator. It only takes a minute melt that frost, but that keeps that evaporator from freezing up and blocking the fresh food compartment. The frost melts into water and is supposed to drain out to the pan on the bottom of the icebox. If a popcicle wrapper or a chicken gizzard blocks that drain then the water will cascade over the rear wall of the fresh food compartment and pool up underneith the crispers. Solution: unclog that drain. To unclog the drain the panel will need to be removed and the objects blocking the drain must be removed.

[mloza82]

Thank you very much. This is probably a stupid question, but which panel must I remove and once thats done where should the drain be located. Thanks in advance for any advice.....

[JWWebster]

Either the bottom or the rear. One of these guys in here might have a book on it if you ask around. My PC is so lame I cannot keep up with the various tech books they have here. I do it all by my head.To the left of this page is a box marked service manuals I bet your manual is in there somewhere.

[mloza82]

Thank you.....

[mloza82]

well, i could not find my manual, I took the top lid of the cooler off but could not find where the drain was located. I attempted to take off a panel behind the fridge with negative results. I did however locate where the water was coming from. I was leaking from the Styrofoam console where the cold air travels through from the freezer to the fridge. I don't know, I might just have to hire someone to come out and take a look at it. Any other ideas???

[JWWebster]

find the end of the drain pipe over the catch pan and blow it out.

[mloza82]

Hey JW, I took your advise and located the screws which made it possible to remove the panel inside the freezer. Once taken off, I located the drain and discovered it was clogged with ice. I ran hot water through the drain till the ice was gone. I tested the drain and it finally worked properly. I have a couple areas of concern, the wall behind the evaporator was peeling, the paint or plastic used to coat the wall is chipping and peeling off, is this normal wear and tear? And still this morning I had water build up under the crisper's again, not a bad as it was before, but still there. The only thing I can think of is that my fridge is not exactly level, its kinda at a slant forward due to my kitchen floor being uneven, can it be that when the evaporator is defrosting and the water is leaking into the drain  it is falling forward and into the fresh food compartment? Does that make sense? Or can the frost be defrosting and dripping directly onto the wall of the fresh food compartment? I see the knobs underneath the fridge that would allow me to level the fridge, but when I attempt to unscrew them i am unable to, they are screwed on really tight, any advice on how to undo these so that I may level the unit. Sorry for the lengthy response. Thank you for all of you advise......

[JWWebster]

Well if you raise the legs on the front it does 2 things. It shifts the weight of the doors towards the rear and helps keep them closed tight and seal better. It also most certainly would help the water to drain out properly. The paint pealings may actually be the things that stopped up the drain. This peeling likely occured when the heaters came on and blistered the wall. I don't know why that would happen. Perhaps someone else in here can explain the pealing of the wall paint better than I can. I would not advise painting it though because the paint you use may not withstand the heat from those defrost heaters. They do have High temp paint you can buy but I don't think I would worry about it.

[JWWebster]

As far as the legs go they may be locked into place with a lock nut snugged up against the bottom. You may need to loosen the locking nut before doing any adjustment. Using a pair of water pump pliers and moving the legs from right to left or counter clockwise should cause them to lengthen. Or you could do it the redneck way and slide a board under the front end. I have seen it done.

[mloza82]

Thanks for all of the advice, the fridge seems to be defrosting correctly now. NO MORE LEAKS!! I was able to loosen up one leg, but the other wont budge. The plastic casing surrounding the bolt is all torn up from trying to get it to budge with water pump pliers. The plastic casing moves but the bolt stays in place.  Any advice, is it possible that the bolt is rusted and needs to be sprayed with WD-40? What would you try and do?

[JWWebster]

Try some rustbuster. Get it at the hardware store.
http://www.hvactool.com/product_images/Rustbuster.gif