01Frost and Ice
An Ice Slab on the Freezer Floor
Check these before you call anyone
- 01
Lift the bottom basket clear and look along the floor. A smooth plate that follows the shape of the liner is drain water, not something spilled.
- 02
Look at the bin and the chute above the slab. Ice overflowing from there lands in exactly the same place and reads identically from the doorway.
- 03
Note whether the rear panel is glazed as well. Ice in both places moves the suspicion to the defrost circuit rather than the drain on its own.
- 04
Glance under the cabinet for a damp mat or a lifted board. Water finding a way out lands there long before anyone notices it inside.
If none of that is it, stop there — the next step needs a meter. Sub-Zero Repair Experts Los Angeles, (310) 496-3358.
Where the water is meant to go
Each defrost turns the frost on the coil back into water. It drops into a shallow trough under the coil, travels out through a tube at the back of the cabinet, and leaves the frozen compartment for good. None of that is optional. The coil only stays clear if the water gets out between one cycle and the next.
Close the tube and the water still arrives on schedule. It backs up over the lip of the trough, spreads under the baskets, and sets before the following cycle begins. Repeat that thirty times and the plate is thick enough to lift the lowest basket off its runners.
Why the path shuts
Two things narrow it. Debris — a crumb, a shred of packaging — washes down with the water and catches somewhere along the run. Or the water freezes partway out, because that stretch is colder than the design allows, and every cycle thickens the plug instead of rinsing it away.
Which of the two you have decides how the visit goes. A trough rinsed out and a tube blown clear is a short job. A drain that ices again within days is telling you the water is setting before it reaches the outside, and the reason for that sits behind the rear panel with the coil. Either way the slab is the symptom. Melting it out settles nothing.
If it is not that
Where the water is arriving from the module overhead instead of the coil behind, the work and the figure are laid out onthe freezer ice maker page.
Find it still running rather than already frozen and the page you want ismeltwater running down the inside wall.
Clearing the path, and settling why it shut in the first place, is part ofwhat we do on freezers here.
Follow-ups
Is it safe to chip the ice off the freezer floor?
Chipping goes well until the screwdriver finds the liner or the drain opening buried under the plate, and a punctured floor is a much larger repair than a shut drain. Switching the cabinet off and letting the slab melt with the door propped open is slower, harmless, and shows you how fast it returns.
Should I pour hot water into the drain hole?
It sometimes flushes a soft plug, and it sometimes puts water where none was meant to go if the opening is already iced over. A slab back within a fortnight means the path is refreezing rather than blocked, and that wants a meter: Sub-Zero Repair Experts Los Angeles, (310) 496-3358.
Sub-Zero Repair Experts Los Angeles works on Sub-Zero freezers across the east side and the south valley. (310) 496-3358 — answered 24/7, on-site 8:00 am – 8:00 pm, seven days, $89 for the visit and the diagnosis.