Water where it should not be
Where is the water behind the unit coming from?
Water behind a built-in has three origins: the supply line and its fittings, the defrost drain and its pan, or condensation forming on cold metal. Supply water keeps arriving and spreads; defrost water appears on a slow rhythm and smells faintly of the compartment. Denver Sub-Zero Repair Experts decides which of the three it is first, because each one belongs to a different pair of hands.
Pattern
What we usually find
- A compression fitting at the back of the cabinet that has worked loose, most often after the unit was rolled out and pushed home again.
- The shut-off valve itself, weeping at the stem or at the tail leaving it. Sub-Zero has that valve installed by a plumber, and it stays a plumber's.
- A defrost drain that has silted up, so meltwater leaves its intended route and reaches the floor instead of the pan.
- The feed to the ice maker, split at a kink. It only wets the floor while the valve is open, which makes it look intermittent.
Most often first. Order comes from what the visits keep turning up, not from a count.
Telling supply water from meltwater
Supply water is clean, cold and persistent: it keeps coming whether the unit is running or resting, and it finds the lowest point of the floor. Defrost water arrives in bursts hours apart, carries the smell of the compartment, and stops when the cycle does. Ten minutes with a dry floor and a sheet of paper separates them without anything coming apart.
One thing worth knowing before you go looking: Sub-Zero is clear that the cabinet carries no water shut-off of its own. The only tap is the one a plumber put on the line, which is why finding it is the useful first move.
Before you call
Two minutes, before anyone comes out
- Close the shut-off: look in the next cabinet along, beneath a sink nearby, or downstairs.
- Dry the floor, lay paper down, and note how long it takes to wet again.
- Look along whatever length of line is visible without moving the unit at all.
Stop there. If that has not settled it by the next morning, call Denver Sub-Zero Repair Experts on (720) 903-2603 and the rest of the water path gets traced with a meter.
When it needs somebody out: Refrigerator Repair in Denver.