Common fault
Why is there water under my refrigerator?
Short answer
The color of the water tells you which repair you are looking at. Cloudy water with a sheet of ice on the freezer floor means the defrost drain has frozen shut and the tray is overflowing inside the cabinet. That is a two-minute call to North County Sub-Zero Appliance Repair on (858) 465-4117.
Why we start there
Clean water at the kick plate means the line feeding the ice maker has gone, almost always at a fitting behind the unit. Two different parts, two different tests, and you can tell them apart before anyone arrives.
What happens next
Look before you mop. Is there ice on the freezer floor, and is the water at the front of the kick plate or further back under the unit? Those two observations are what decide which part travels out, and both of them disappear the moment the floor is dried.
Then shut the supply off at the valve if you can reach it and get anything absorbent off the boards. Neither of these faults stops on its own, and what decides the size of the day is how long it has already been running.
If that matches what yours is doing, say so when you call — it decides which parts come on the van.
Appliance down in North County San Diego?
Tell us the brand and what it is doing — we can usually name the likely repair before we arrive.
Questions
Frequently asked questions
We were without power for a couple of days. What is worth checking before I call?
Start at the breaker and confirm the unit actually woke up rather than sitting on a latched alarm. Then look at the freezer floor for a sheet of ice, because meltwater that refroze on its way down the drain is the usual souvenir of an outage out here. Note whether the ice maker restarted. Say so when you call North County Sub-Zero Appliance Repair on (858) 465-4117.
Is a built-in this old worth repairing, or should we be replacing it?
Usually worth repairing, and the deciding factor is the opening rather than the appliance. A built-in is sized to a cabinet cut and wears a door panel made for that kitchen, so replacing one is a carpentry question before it is an appliance question. The sealed system, the failure that would end it, almost never goes. North County Sub-Zero Appliance Repair takes those calls on (858) 465-4117.