This fault is repairable but it's messy!!! Do not undertake this unless you are prepared for lots of water, and lumps of melting frozen insulation material around! Have plenty of waste buckets and old towels to hand!!
This fault is caused by moisture saturating the foam insulation about 2" thick on the bottom of the freezer compartment.
The moisture gets into the foam because the bottom and side-walls of the freezer compartment are not properly sealed against moisture during manufacture.
When/if you defrost the freezer, there's lots of moisture swilling around to leak into the insulation.
As the insulating foam gets moist, it also freezes.
Over a period of several years, the layer of freezing moisture eventually extends to the bottom of the insulating layer, meeting room temperature air, where it promptly melts, causing puddles under the freezer.
How to fix it?
Send your wife/partner out for the day!!!
Obtain the following items:-
1 aerosol can of car underseal.
1 slab of polystyrene wall insulation about 2" thick x slightly smaller than the base area of the cabinet. (builders merchant)
1 aerosol can of expanding foam insulation.
Extension pipe to fit on the aerosol can tube, sufficient to extend to the back of the cabinet from the front.
Procedure: -
Switch off and empty both the fridge and the freezer.
Tip the whole unit onto its side to gain access to the bottom of the unit.
Hack out the wet/frozen insulating layer from the base of the cabinet. Use a hot air gun or hair drier to melt the frozen insulation. Allow several miserable hours for this bit!!!
When all of the insulating material has been removed, thoroughly clean and dry the resulting cavity.
At this point you can see the gap between the bottom and side-walls of the freezer compartment where moisture penetrates.
Spray car-underseal into this cavity and allow to dry.
spray more underseal at the points where the bottom and side-walls meet, to ensure a moisture-tight seal.
Some may penetrate inside the compartment. You will need to clean this out with white-spirit when it's set.
Cut the wall insulation slab to fit into the cavity.
Fit this into the cavity as tightly as possible.
There will be a small air-gap between the outside-bottom of the freezer compartment and the top of the insulating slab.
Using the aerosol expanding foam, ensure that this air-gap is filled, leaving as few voids as possible. Ideally it will extrude out of gaps around the edge of the slab. These bits can be cut off to tidy it up.
It may be necessary to fit a retaining metal strap underneath the slab to hold it up in place.
Having completed this bit, restore the cabinet to its normal vertical posture and switch on.
Now you can clean up the surplus car-underseal and expanding foam from the kitchen floor and cabinets before she arrives home again!!
I carried out this procedure on my Hotpoint 8553 about two years ago, and it has remained dry underneath ever since.
I now have another fault! The freezer thermostat is stuck on and the motor runs continually. The temperature inside the freezer is -25degrees Centigrade!! Anybody got the part number for the FREEZER (Not FRIDGE) thermostat please?
David Clark, June 2009
