Maytag Fridge Leak

[quincyman]

We have a Maytage French door fridge with freezer on bottom. In condo when we bought a year ago. I figure it to be about 12 yrs. Past several months, we have found an occasional puddle of water on floor in front of unit. Some times a rather large puddle, like today. We pulled it out and floor under unit was dry. After putting it back in place, I pulled out the freeze drawer and looked in at the bottom of unit. There is a layer of ice covering the bottom.

Anyone know what causes this? Can it be fixed easily?

Thanks
Keith

 

[rp2813]

Check the drain in the bottom of the freezer, usually located at the rear of the freezer floor.  It can get clogged by something like a loose frozen pea or other small item.  That's what happened with our old Whirlpool side-by-side.

 

[combo52]

There's a blockage in the drain tube in the back of the refrigerator [ compressor area ]

 

If I had the model # I could tell you more easily how to clear and fix the problem.

 

Some of these MT refs were built in Amana Iowa and others were a different design built in Mexico.

 

good news it is an easy fix and the ref could last another 15+ years 

 

John L.

 

[mattl]

My cousin has a FD WP with this as an ongoing problem.  WP has been out there 3+ times and told her they will not return again. Problem not solved.  I has a similar issue wit my WP SxS and the tech wrapped a #12 wire - fully stripped - around the defrost element and routed it into the drain, never had an issue since.

 

[fisherpaykel]

Amana,Maytag, Whirlpool bottom freezer defrost drain plugged

Some of these units have a rubber nipple at end of drain line in back of fridge, remove cover panel to access, that gets stuck shut preventing defrost water from flowing into evaporating tray which then causes the defrost water to back up over time eventually overflowing the drain trough inside the freezer behind the metal or plastic evaporator cover and freezing a puddle on the drain trough and the freezer floor. I repaired a relatives fridge following a YouTube video and simply cut off the end tip of the drain nipple so that it was always open and defrosting the evaporator with a hair dryer after removing the freezer wire basket and shelf and supports to then remove cover and see the frozen evaporator and drain trough, a fair bit of work. After doing all that I realized much easier to simply cut off nipple end and then to defrost frozen drain line and evaporator by simply opening freezer and have a large fan blow room temp. air into freezer, might take a little longer to fully melt the ice up but no messing around removing freezer interior racks. That was several years ago and no repeat of the problem.

 

[quincyman]

Update

Last night I was able to reach behind the freezer drawer and easily brake up the sheet of ice and got almost all of it out. Didn't see any drain on bottom of freezer. Being a late hour, I didn't want to do much more and will look this morning. And as I said, I did not remove drawer or basket. No matter,, I didn't see any drain. Can anyone advise me as to where it would be located?

 

[quincyman]

Model number

The model is MF12569YEM2

 

[DADoES]

 
The defrost condensate drain is behind the freezer compartment's rear panel, beneath the evaporator coil where the melted frost drips off during defrost.  Disassembly is required to access it there.  It drains into a pan which should be behind the panel on lower rear of the refrigerator.  The clog probably at the end of it there, accumulation of slime/algae and dust.

MFI2569YEM2 ... 3rd character is letter I.

The serial number is coded for date of factory production if you want to confirm the age.

 

[rp2813]

In addition to the frozen pea blockage on our mid-'80s WP SxS, we also had the issue Matt shared on our ~ 1970 WP top-mount garage fridge.  The defrost drain kept freezing over.  I can't remember how I came across the fix because this was long before we owned a computer, but it was the same as Matt described.  I got length of copper wire that was laying around, either 12 or 10 gauge, wrapped it around the defrost heater element on the evaporator and let the long end of the wire extend maybe an inch down into the drain.  That solved the problem, and it's apparently not an uncommon one.

 

This makes the old Coldspot system of a heated floor channel and drain in their early frost-free models seem enlightened.  Too bad the floor heaters were prone to failure.  Most of them required a retrofit that involved a heated trough to catch and route the defrost water into the floor drain, which worked well.

 

[DADoES]

 
I did the copper-wire-drain-heater trick on granny's vertical freezer.  Of course, that isn't necessarily the fix if the drain port is clogged with smutz residue vs. freezing condensate.

 

[kenwashesmonday]

In my last apartment, I had a large Whirlpool top-freezer refrigerator.  At one point the freezer drain would clog a few times a year and I found an interesting solution.  After blowing it out the the hair dryer and clearing the drain with a turkey baster, a applied a little green Palmolive dish soap the the top of the drain with my finger.  The soap acted as a wetting agent and the recurring problem went away.

 

[westtexman]

This post is very timely . . .

I just experienced the very same thing with my Jenn-Air french door refrigerator with the freezer on the bottom. I even have the sheet of ice on the bottom of the freezer! I’m afraid it’s going to ruin my new hardwood floor.

Bryan