Why a fridge "leaks" inside (when the water was always supposed to leave)
Every few hours, your fridge melts the frost off its own cooling plate. That meltwater runs down the back wall into a drain hole the size of a thumbnail, then down a tube into a shallow pan on top of the compressor — where the machine's own warmth evaporates it. You were never meant to see any of it. Block that one hole, and the water has nowhere left to go but your salad drawer.
Which culprit, by where the water shows
- Puddle under the drawers, or an ice sheet on the base → the drain hole: food crumbs, a sticky spill, a peeled-off label, or an ice plug sitting right in it.
- The back-wall channel is full but the hole looks clean → the channel upstream: boxes shoved against the back wall, a sugary spill that set like glue.
- The outside walls sweat, beads at the door edge, door swings open on its own → the gasket: moist air sneaking in and condensing — the impostor that looks like a leak.
One honest limit: water on the floor (not inside) is a different repair — with an ice maker, shut the supply valve first. And if the pool returns within days of a thorough flush, the drain keeps refreezing or the defrost heater has quit; that lives behind the evaporator cover and belongs to a technician.
Before you start. This is a simulated interior, not your fridge. Warm water, never boiling — the fittings are plastic. And no knives or screwdrivers on the ice: behind that wall live the cooling pipes, and a puncture turns a 30-minute chore into a write-off.