[mad mommie]

Thank you Dr Tom. I hope if enough people say something it may make it harder for companies to stick consumers with them. I have a really great local repair man and he thinks they are awfull. He gave some advice to help the situation but it won't be a permanent fix. Our fridge is dated so I will probably replace it with our tax refund but I don't think I should have to. Not everyone can afford that. I think it's crummy.

[jollymel84]

I have a frigidaire modelFFTR2126L. Please help! I have tenants and need them to stay.

[drtom4444]

I have no way of looking up those numbers without a description like whether it's a side-by-side or bottom mount freezer, etc. Here are some manuals: https://dl.dropbox.com/u/8010163/Fri...rigerators.zip
If you were in Jacksonville, FL I could help. Please write Mitt Romney and get him to repeal the Montreal Protocol which outlaws good Freons.

[huyle66]

Hello all: I have the Frigidaire Professional PLRU1778 refrigerator. I have been experiencing the problem of water collecting at the bottom of the refrigerator, and not draining. After weeks of monkeying around with the darn thing, I think I figured it out. My solution is specific to the Professional model/series, although I hope this will help those with similar series.
Step 1: clear the drain line: if you open the refrigerator, remove the crisper drawers, in the back, center, you will see the drain port opening. Usually this is clogged and will require clearing. To do this, I removed the frig lower grill cover (this covers the base of the refrigerator) and look under the refrigerator to locate the drain line. The drain line is black plastic, and is .50 in dia -- you can spot it coming down from approximately where the drain port is located from inside the refrigerator. Be careful when you are trying to clear this drain tube, as you do not want to poke a hole in it as you are working. Once located, this tube may or may not be clipped to the drain pan. If it is, to unclip it, you may have to drop the drain pan down.
Step 2: drop the drain pan: the drain pan is held in place by four screws, which will be visible if you open the refrigerator door, and look at the lower bottom area facing you (I was unable to find any info on this problem, and finally figured it out after a lot of messing around under the refrigerator). My drain pan seems to have some warming elements running along the bottom of the pan, so if yours has the same, be careful when you unscrew, make sure to support the pan, so you do not damage the pan or the heating element. The drain line should be held in place in a slot through a vertical plastic wall roughly in the center of the pan. To remove the drain line from the pan, gently slide the drain line toward you (toward the face of the refrigerator) and slide the tube out.

[huyle66]

Sorry, had to take bathroom break.
So, to continue, I know all this work is done under the refrigerator, and in tight space, but stick with it. Now that I have the drain line, I connected it to my shop vac (I cut an old plastic 20oz soda bottle at the base, and taped it to the shop vac hose, and slipped the drain line into the drinking end). Now, I open the refrigerator door, turn the shop vac on, and with something small and pliable, poke down the drain port from inside the refrigerator gently, to the rewarding sound and sight of a swoosh as the collected water is evacuated. With the shop vac on, I pour some hot (NOT BOILING) tap water into the drain port inside the refrigerator, until I am satisfied that all is clear and clean.
Step 3: re-install the drain line to the drain pan, re-install the drain pan, using the reverse steps, and you are done. Once again, I recognize that there is not a lot of space under the refrigerator, but I was not able to tilt it up (custom cabinet around top) or pull it out (the refrigerator is big, and I am lazy). This was the best way for me to do this. I have a lot of pictures of the drain line under my refrigerator for reference, so if anyone is interested, PM me and I can send them to you. I am not a professional repairman, just a homeowner, so please be careful, and note that I can not be held liable if you follow this and something goes wrong. If you are not comfortable, you should call a professional.

[drtom4444]

You still need to wash out the condenser coils with cleaner and water from a hose nozzle to get it clean. Otherwise you will burn up the compressor.

[dennis998]

Lots of speculation in the answers here. Has anyone tried some of these suggestions? Pleez! You pour bleach in the drip pan and you'll get a new disgusting smell.

This is what I've done and it worked. My Frigidaire has the pan on top of the compressor.

Unplug the fridge. Get a pillow for your knees--you'll be more comfortable. (You'll thank me) Rubber gloves. Large sponge--7 by 3 by 1. Pan with bleach solution. Newspaper to place around the pan.

Dip the sponge in the bleach solution. Wring. Work the sponge into the opening of the drain pan. There's enough room and the pan is plastic and can be manipulated. Hold on the end of the sponge.

Let the sponge soak up the gunk. Pull out the sponge. Some of the nastiness will drip on the paper.

DON'T put the sponge back into the bleach solution. Take it to the sink and wring it out down the drain. Rinse out the sponge and thus start with a "fresh" sponge to put back into the bleach solution.

It took me about 3 repetitions to completely empty the pan. You can stuff a dry rag into the pan when you're done to know that it's dry. At best, you'll have a pan dampened with the remnants of the bleach solution--far better than a standing puddle of bleach that you'd get a snort of every time you pass the fridge. (Then again, maybe a good diet strategy.. . )

My Fridge has a smaller unconnected pan, the opening of which is "conveniently" blocked by the freon tubing lattice. I used a smaller sponge and worked it behind from underneath. Providing "extra fun", the bottom of the lattice is like a sharpened picket fence. Afterwards, with various punctures on my hands, I realized that putting a strip of tape on the bottom of the lattice would have prevented the punctures and made it easier to slide the sponge behind the lattice.

Whole job took about half an hour. Yet I don't understand why the refrigerator can't have a simple removable pan on the bottom of the unit that you can remove and make this a 30-second job. I guess the company is just creating business of appliance repairmen--the rationale being that the smell will eventually get so annoying and/or disgusting that you'll pay pretty much anything to get rid of it.

To end on a political note: Many people ( i.e. businessmen) complain about government regulation of business. We need MORE regulation to prevent companies from imposing this kind of product on the public. So I'd be quite happy with Regulation #100,879,368,298: All refrigerators will have easily removable drip pans.

[drtom4444]

I agree with having easy-to-remove drain pans. What is bad is the outlawing of R-12,22, &502 which are the most beneficial refrigerant gases that save the most money. One thing you need to do is to clean the condenser coils because it will keep the refrigerator from burning up. Any time that drain pan is dirty you need to clean the coils, too. You should spray the coils down with a good soap and wash out with hose nozzle using a fine mist of water to get them really clean.

[bellamota]

Most disgusting thing ever!! I used febreeze dusters. Worked fine, soaked all the gunk out first. Then used a new one with soap and water.. At least they attach to a handle so I didn't have to touch any gunk..

[frigidaire lame]

I know this might be out of date a little , but I have this same issue and I totally agree it's a health issue. I will never buy another Frigidaire for this reason. Also had issues with the condenser leaking about 2 years after we bought it. Tech came out' and rebuilt the whole condensing unit.. piece of crap and I would totally be on board with a CA lawsuit...

[frigidaire lame]

k, so I decided my best course of action is to take the EMPTY fridge outside and hose the holy out of the drain pan and condenser area. Step 2 is to cut the drain hose away from the pan and use an EXTERNAL drain pan made of an old Tupperware container that I can easily remove, Frigidaire can kiss my lilly white...

[swipp9]

I was able to take the drain pan out, not easily this time. Next time I could probably get it out pretty fast.

I have a late-ish model Fridigaire (2006?) It was stinking up the place so much I was convinced a rat or something had died up inside it. After looking at the back I found the drain pan was full in the front and spilling into the back part of the pan and that was stinking the place up.

After trying to force it out various ways, I stumbled across this link in another forum: http://www.bluetoad.com/publication/?I=16090&p=11. If you look in the lower right corner there is a picture of the clip that holds the pan in. To get a better idea of how it all looks, see this picture of the pan that is inset into the compressor parts pic (part 26). http://www.searspartsdirect.com/part...&prst=&shdMod=
This pic does not match the one in my fridge exactly but it gave me a pretty good picture of what it looks like. It is a view backwards from the way you would see it from the back of the fridge.

There is a tab to the left (looking from the back to the front of the refridgerator) of the compressor sticking out of a slot in the top the pan. You want to slide the a deep socket above the tab to force the clip down that holds the pan in place. The guy in the previous link says to use a 9/16". That was too small for our fridge. I tried different sizes and found a 16mm worked perfectly for mine. I think I still had to push it down with a drill bit extension too to unlock it. (I was trying a lot of things to unlatch it). Or maybe I pushed it down by hand by reaching inside and around the pan. Once I got the clip depressed, it came out very easily. I didn't spill a drop, which I was very concerned would happen and be an even worse thing to clean up.

Hope this helps

[swipp9]

OOPS! I neglected to put the pan picture in: http://www.searspartsdirect.com/part...&prst=&shdMod=