My refrigerator, a Jennair french door style, seemed to be running almost
constantly, although the freezer and refrigerator is keeping its cool.

When I pulled it out to connect a KW meter, and then pushed it back, I
noticed a line of light green fluid deposits on the floor. Felt more like
water than oil. Fluid does not smell of anything.

Obviously, something is leaking out of the bottom of my refrigerator. but
WHAT can it be? We had the compressor replaced about one year ago ( a cool $
950) because the unit was not cooling.

Any ideas?

-

www.rationality.net

A frost free fridge is nothing more than an ordinary fridge that has a way of automatically defrosting itself. Instead of the freon running through channels in the freezer compartment itself (as was the case on non-frost-free fridges), the evaporation of the freon occurs in a coil typically located at the back of the freezer compartment on a frost free fridge. That evaporator coil gets very cold (down to about -60 deg. F) and any humidity that gets into the fridge when you open the doors ends up in the form of frost on that evaporator coil. A frost free fridge will also have a defrost heater and a defrost termination switch (DTS) which melt the frost off the evaporator coil. The resulting melt water then flow down a tube to the bottom of the fridge where the melt water is re-evaporated into the air by the heat of the nearby compressor.

I expect what you saw was melt water from a defrost cycle that spilled onto the floor when you moved the fridge. I don't know why the water was a greenish colour.

Maybe the next time you move the fridge, wipe up the green liquid with a paper towel, and save the paper towel. If it dries up, then it's almost certainly water. The refrigerant in a fridge will evaporate almost instantaneously at atmospheric pressure and temperature, and the oil lubricant in that refrigerant is dark in colour and won't evaporate.

In your fridge's freezer compartment you should see a removable panel held in place with screws. To diagnose the problem with your fridge running continuously, you need to remove that panel and take a picture of the evaporator coil (which is what gets really cold) and the fan that's drawing air over the evaporator coil and blowing it into the freezer compartment. Take that picture to any appliance repair shop and they might be able to tell you what's wrong with the fridge that it's running continuously.

When you take that freezer panel out, you want to see frost forming uniformly all over the full length of the evaporator coil, no accumulated water or ice under the evaporator coil and the fan spinning to blow air into the freezer compartment. If that's what you see, then the problem is likely to be either the cold control or the defrost timer.

In fact, if you put your hand into the freezer compartment, you should feel a cold breeze from the fan. If you feel that breeze, then there's nothing wrong with the evaporator fan. However, the evaporator itself may be so frosted up that the air flowing over it doesn't get cooled enough to keep the fridge and freezer sufficiently cold.

Walter,

Watery fluid under a fridge suggests an overflowing drip pan. I'd check
those and give them a quick clean. That does not explain why the fridge is
running constantly.
Leaky door seals would cause the fridge to run a lot and the entering
air's humidity could explain your water.

Dave M.

Freon coolant has a colored "tracer" dye (sometimes green) in it to aid in
leak detection. What you
are seeing may be the result of a coolant leak, possibly at the evaporator
where the dye can mix with
condensate water.

Bob K.


"Walter E." wrote in message
...
My refrigerator, a Jennair french door style, seemed to be running almost
constantly, although the freezer and refrigerator is keeping its cool.

When I pulled it out to connect a KW meter, and then pushed it back, I
noticed a line of light green fluid deposits on the floor. Felt more like
water than oil. Fluid does not smell of anything.

Obviously, something is leaking out of the bottom of my refrigerator. but
WHAT can it be? We had the compressor replaced about one year ago ( a cool
$ 950) because the unit was not cooling.

Any ideas?

-

www.rationality.net

On 8/10/2014 6:18 PM, Robert King wrote:
Freon coolant has a colored "tracer" dye (sometimes green) in it to aid
in leak detection. What you
are seeing may be the result of a coolant leak, possibly at the
evaporator where the dye can mix with
condensate water.

Bob K.


Thanks, I'd never heard that.


--
..
Christopher A. Young
Learn about Jesus
www.lds.org
..

We had the same problem with the fridge running too often and long.
The switch for the light was bad and the light was on 24/7. A new
switch was the cure.
FWIW
YMMV




On Sat, 9 Aug 2014 16:18:36 -0700, "Walter E."
wrote:

My refrigerator, a Jennair french door style, seemed to be running almost
constantly, although the freezer and refrigerator is keeping its cool.

When I pulled it out to connect a KW meter, and then pushed it back, I
noticed a line of light green fluid deposits on the floor. Felt more like
water than oil. Fluid does not smell of anything.

Obviously, something is leaking out of the bottom of my refrigerator. but
WHAT can it be? We had the compressor replaced about one year ago ( a cool $
950) because the unit was not cooling.

Any ideas?

-

www.rationality.net

Could the green spot on floor be from the copper tarnishing? As it sweats the green tarnish drips with water & dries onto floor after water evaporates from floor. I saw the same thing when I was moving,when I unplugged my freezer to let thaw out.Mine is a frost free upright. I looked under it on back side & notice majority of copper lines had green tarnish over them. No issues with my inside temparture. Occasional puddles but I think its due to my defrosting cycle is not evaporating all the water & then leaks onto floor sometimes

Nasty looking purple and green fluid in the bottom of the fridge no smell the purple was like sticky but the green was like water. We checked if there was any leaking food and no