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Today we found a nice puddle of water under our refrigerator/freezer. Both sections seem to be working fine, maybe it was a one time thing, but when taking a look at rear I saw two tubes with a blue thingy on their tips which seemed to me should be plugged together (please see the pic below). Is that the case? Or can i leave everything as it is as long as there is no more water leaking?

Thanks a lot in advance.

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  • Unless there is a loose piece on the floor, doubt those pipes/tubes connect, or is the problem. fridges sometimes have a drain pan under them that excess water can leak from. Would check instructions and/or manual for how your fridge works.
    – crip659
    Commented Jun 18, 2022 at 14:15
  • Make/model of fridge? Freezer over/under/beside?
    – Aloysius Defenestrate
    Commented Jun 18, 2022 at 14:23
  • Does it have an icemaker or spigot?
    – Harper - Reinstate Monica
    Commented Jun 18, 2022 at 17:39

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but when taking a look at rear I saw two tubes with a blue thingy on their tips which seemed to me should be plugged together

No, they should not. It's common to have the fill pipes capped of like this on fridges.

Furthermore, that's part of the refrigeration cycle loop. It contains gas or liquid under pressure. This gas/liquid is far more volatile than water, generally boiling at <0°C. There would be no puddle - it would vaproize almost instantly at ambient temperature and pressure.

There's two possible sources of the water you see:

  1. If the fridge has a builtin water or ice dispenser, and a connection to the water mains, this system may be leaking.
  2. Condensation. Many fridges collects condensation inside the fridge, and channel it down to a small beaker on the compressor or evaporation coils, and use the heat from these to evaporate the water to evade buildup. That's likely the black pan shown above the compressor.

However, if the fridge door has been left open, the fridge can collect more condensation from the air than it manages to evaporate, leading to a overflow of this box.

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  • Option 2 is quite likely what happened. We just had a heat wave in Europe and temperatures have been unusually high. The fridge model is a Bomann KG7327 and you were completely right, the black tray above the compressor is where the water goes to. Unfortunately I don't see a way to extract it (by manually trying or checking the manual). So... I guess it will always overflow under these conditions... Thanks a lot!
    – Frilance
    Commented Jun 19, 2022 at 16:43
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The capped off copper tubes are supposed to be that way. I'm pretty sure those are used to fill it with refrigerant then sealed off at the factory.

Has it been unusually hot and humid lately? Refrigerators gather moisture from the air and when defrosting the freezer, and many have a tray near the bottom somewhere to collect the water so that it can evaporate. But if it's really humid already, not much evaporation happens and it can overflow. Look at the front bottom of the fridge under the door, and see if there's a small panel you can pull off - if there is, that's likely where the water tray is, and if it's full of water you can pull it out and dump it down the sink.

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  • Also check the drain in the freezer compartment. One, it may be blocked. Two, many models(like mine) have a little heater to keep the drain from freezing over, and the heater can fail.
    – Jon Custer
    Commented Jun 18, 2022 at 14:50
  • Yeap, overflow of the water tray due to high temperatures seems to be the cause. Thanks for the answers!
    – Frilance
    Commented Jun 19, 2022 at 16:44

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