All right, so this freezer has been...
I can't even get any work done with you here.
Look at him. Look at this face.
LOOK AT THIS FACE!
So this freezer has been giving us a hard time for a while now. It has ice constantly built up
at the bottom, and has a tendency to melt sometimes, which drains here out on the floor.
And we have to keep a towel down here,
or a golden retriever, to soak up the water.
And I think the problem is that the drain at the back of
this thing is clogged, and that's causing all this water to overflow.
I *think*
So today I'm going to try to fix that, if I can get this guy to move out of my way.
All right, it's starting to get pretty melty in here, so I'm going to try to see if I can
scrape this off. I'm going to use a soft -- not soft, but like a plastic spatula,
as opposed to something metal, because I don't want to scratch it up if I can avoid it.
Oh look at that!
Let's go have some fun with this!
All right, ready?
There's still a lot of ice back in here.
I think I'm going to have to take off that whole cover.
That one's gonna be tough.
There's always that one screw that gives you issues.
(laughing) I guess that's true in a lot of facets of life.
Well then.
All right, so right here you've got all your evaporator coils, and right down there at the bottom,
you can see a little drain that I believe is the problem. I think it might be clogged up.
And I've cut my finger.
All right I'm also going to take off the back of this
to check out the drain pan and the line at the back
Okay, let's take that off. Now where is that drain?
So right up there is where it drains underneath the freezer,
but to get down into this drain pan underneath here,
it does this weird little loop-de-loop thing.
It looks like there's a bunch of crud in here, it's all black in there.
All right, the best way to unclog something like this is NOT to try to shove a something like a
drain snake down there. The better way to do it is actually to use an air compressor and blow air in
from the bottom, and push that clog out through the top of the hole.
I do have an air compressor,
but it's this big monster of a thing,
and I really don't want to have to bust that guy out if I don't have to.
Plus I don't think I'd even be able to get the hose from the air compressor back
in there, because it's WAY back in there.
I did try to use some compressed air, like you'd use on your
computer keyboard, but that really didn't work out all that well either.
So what I'm going to do instead is I'm going to take a Shop Vac,
duct tape it to the hole so that it forms a nice good seal,
and see if i can suck it out through the top.
Luckily I have this weird little attachment that
has a little hole on the side there.
I don't think it actually originally went to this,
So this is going to be some serious rednecking going on right now.
Thank the Lord for duct tape.
All right, let's see. I think that's in there good.
I'm just gonna hold it there.
I really can't tell if I'm getting anything at all, so we'll see.
Now one last thing I'm going to do before
I put that cover back on the evaporator coils is put a little bit of bleach
down that hole using an eye dropper, just in case those dark spots I'm seeing on the drain
are actually just mildew, as opposed to a clog.
I don't know how much this is going to help, but it's worth a shot while I'm at it.
I'm also going to just bend this up a little bit just to make
sure that the water is directed properly down that hole, as opposed to just overflowing all the time.
Well, the ice is back.
It only took about 24 hours
for a whole new sheet of ice to form on the bottom of this freezer.
So I posted the problem on the ChickFix DIY Group page on Facebook,
and one of the other admins commented that
there's a very common problem amongst a lot of these Whirlpool and Maytag refrigerators
built during a certain time period with the drains.
A lot of them are built with what's called a "Duckbill valve" (or "duckbill check valve")
which is very tapered at one end to help keep things
like frozen peas and frozen blueberries from going down into the drain and blocking it up.
Unfortunately, the opening on them is so small that even with the littlest amount of sediment,
it gets clogged up and no water can get through. So you have a problem similar to what I have here.
So I went ahead and ordered a part that they had issued to help correct this problem
off of Amazon.com. It was only about 10 bucks, and I'm waiting for it to come in today.
But I don't actually think that that's my problem.
I decided -- while I'm waiting -- to take off the old piece of the drain underneath,
which was remarkably simple to do,
and it was actually pretty clogged.
I'm actually just using a zip tie to do this right now.
A good southern woman is never caught without duct tape and zip ties.
Once I had that drain pipe off, I was able to stick my finger all the way down through that hole
without any kind of obstruction, so I don't think I actually have a duckbill valve on mine.
So I'm gonna pop this back on there, and wait a couple of days,
see if I get any more ice build up. And if not,
YAY!
All right it's been four or five days, and there is no ice at the bottom of this freezer.
So this part that I got off Amazon? I'm gonna send it right back, never even opened it.
I know a lot of folks would be a little nervous to attempt something like this.
Even taking that back panel off is gonna make some people nervous.
But this was actually very straightforward and very simple to do,
and didn't even take that much time.
And it saved me a service call from a technician, which is fantastic.
So don't be too afraid to at least open it up and take a look.
Hey buddy.
Are you gonna help me today? You want to help me today?
(laughing) Stop.
You're a ham for the camera, aren't you?
This light back here, this fancy little light panel thing that's back here?
I was going to replace it because it's broken.
$86! For a light bulb!
Whatever happened to those nice little appliance lights?
86 dollars?
Think about what this kid could do with $86.
I could do a lot.