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Comment by Verdex | Hacker News Reader

My samsung refrigerator slowly fills with water under the vegetable tray. It keeps a schedule that is pretty mysterious, so I just check it periodically to make sure it doesn't flood out onto the floor. In the winter it becomes ice for some reason, which actually is a lot more easy to clean out.

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Mine does that too. Took off the back, found the drain where the condensation is supposed to go to. It's made of rusted steel. It's supposed to lead to the compressor where the heat makes it evaporate back into the room. But since it's rusted, it clogs and then eventually ices up, so the water spills into the inside back and lands under the vegetable tray.

I cleared mine out, all happy, and 3 months later it clogged back again. I don't bother fixing it because I need to remove all the contents of the fridge, then dissassemble the inside rear of the fridge to get access to the right spot. It's just a bad design.

Your drain tube is freezing up. This can be fixed permanently by using a small copper wire to connect the heating element to the drain, for better heat conduction.

Yup, and this is what one of the class-action lawsuits is about. The problem is that on our model, that drain is behind glued-in molded styrofoam that also channels the air over the coils. It broke apart when removed. The plastic is also glued on and the fan is part of the styrofoam/plastic assembly. Samsung’s design uses just a thin Z-shaped finger of aluminum that sits in the drain, and it doesn’t do enough to prevent freezing. They made their fridges destined for landfills because they wanted to save $0.20 on thicker copper vs their lame little aluminum finger.

I didn't know there was a class action! I have the same or similar model as you. When fixing this I managed to get the Styrofoam out in two pieces and put it back well enough to cover it up again.

Terrible design. Won't be buying Samsung again.

This is a good point. I thought I had this problem but it ended up being the water filter.

What an awful fridge.

This is likely the water filter. The system is notoriously fragile. If you don't follow the "proper procedure" then you inevitably end up with a leak. I have no idea why.

Try running through the process and double the duration of every step, and don't skip any steps, and it should stop leaking.

Alternatively throw the damn thing in the garbage.

Clogged drain hole. I have this issue. For some reason they put the drain line near the freezer elements in my samsung fridge. The slightest hiccup and it freezes permanently shut. You can find "Refrigerator Drain Hole Blockage Remover" kits online that get the job done.

For mine I had to flush it with a syringe of warm water to thaw out the drain port. The hard part is getting to the drain hole. Also, the fix lasted 6 months or so before it iced over again. I'm out of warranty so I might just run a much larger line and call it a day.

If your lucky your issue might just be a blockage, which should clear easily.

I had the same problem and discovered that sticking a qtip into the drain hole solves it. Have to repeat every year or so

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