My Refrigerator Leaks in the Bottom of Vegetable Bin

Energy Saver

• Eliminate the least likely cause quickly by checking to see if your refrigerator has an “energy saver” switch located inside the fresh food compartment. If it does and the energy saver is turned on, this could be your problem. The switch controls heaters that prevent condensation inside the compartment. When the refrigerator is in energy-saving mode, the heaters are disabled to lighten the power load. But the lack of heating could cause excessive condensation in some refrigerators, depending on the amount of humidity in the air. The condensation will form on the walls of the refrigerator and run down into the bins below. Turning the energy saver off will activate the heaters and prevent this problem.

Automatic Defrost

• There is a greater likelihood, however, that your problem is with the automatic defrost system in your refrigerator’s freezer compartment. A timer, thermostat and heater combine to melt off frost on the evaporator coil in regular intervals to avoid frosting and cooling problems. When the frost melts, the resulting water drains into a tube that carries the water away to a catch pan below the unit.

Causes of Clogs

• If the drain hole designed to remove the excess water from defrosting ices over or debris such as food particles clogs the drain or the tube, then the water backs up and overflows into the fresh food compartment below. Eventually, it makes its way into the vegetable bins at the bottom. This is not uncommon with automatic defrost refrigerators. You will have to clear the drain and line to make it work properly again.

Ice

• When the low temperature in the freezer causes the water to freeze before it can drain away, this can cap the drain and prevent the next defrost runoff from draining. Eventually, you’ll have some water in the bins below and a sheet of ice in the floor of your freezer. All you need to do to clear this ice away is to inundate the iced-over drain with hot water. It won’t take much and you should be careful not to use a large amount or you’ll just add to the leak problem below.

Debris

• If there is no ice over the drain then you can assume there is a piece of food or another piece of debris blocking the line. You can mix 1 teaspoon of baking soda with 2 cups of hot water and suck it into a turkey baster and blast the water mixture down into the drain with force to clean out the line. You may have to remove a panel near the evaporator coil to access the drain in some models. Some refrigerators may even have a drain below the bins in the fresh food area itself and the water may run down the back wall by design.