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 ⇍   May 21st, 2006   ⇏ 

Copyright 2006 Michael Anttila

This may be my most boring Picture Of The Week ever, but there is a reason.

Angela and I wanted to do something special to take a break from moving and celebrate the past three weeks of hard work we've put into the house. So last week I checked the weather forecasts and came up with the brilliant idea of spending Victoria Day at the Toronto Zoo, and then going to Ontario Place to see the fireworks in the evening. This plan had the added bonus that I expected to have at least fifty new pictures to choose from for this week's Picture Of The Week. Unfortunately, it turned out to be at least six degrees colder than the forecast, and about ten times more windy.

So instead of going out in the cold, we stayed home and did more work.

One of the tasks on our list was to figure out why our refrigerator was flooding. It seemed like pools of water were magically appearing on our shelves, and water appeared to be dripping down from the freezer compartment. A quick internet search revealed that this is a fairly common problem with refrigerators. Apparently, modern freezer units are self-defrosting, which means that every so often the freezer runs a defrost cycle and excess water runs down a drain pipe to the evaporation pan at the bottom of the fridge. If the drain pipe clogs for some reason (usually due to freezing solid), the excess water can't drain properly, and so it pools in the freezer. Eventually, enough water builds up that it starts leaking down into the refrigerator section, causing random flooding.

The internet was quick to point out what the problem was, but then every site or newsgroup I read concluded with a sentence like this: "Find the drain hole and unplug it." Some suggested using a turkey baster to blast hot water down the pipe, and some mentioned that the drain pipe might be somewhere at the back, but after much reading I still had no idea where to look for the drain pipe. I had such trouble finding it that I actually dismantled the entire inside of my freezer looking for it. (It also didn't help that it was buried under a thick layer of solid ice that I couldn't see through.)

So, this Picture Of The Week is dedicated to owners of Whirpool Gold refrigerators, especially units with plugged drain pipes, to help them easily find the drain hole and to let them know that they don't have to disassemble the entire freezer to find it. All you have to do is remove the bottom tray (held in place by four screws on my model), and then use hot water to melt all the ice on the floor of the freezer. After the ice has melted, you should be able to spot the drain hole at the back under the cooling coils, and then you can pour hot water into the hole until the pipe is clear again.

Note that you should completely empty the fridge and freezer before attempting this procedure, as water will be flowing everywhere when you start to melt the ice.

Anyway, apologies again for the boring picture, and probably even more boring explanation... but at least now my fridge is working again.

For the record, this was shot with my Rebel XT + kit lens at 18mm (55mm inset), ISO 1600, f/3.5 for 1/100th of a second (f/5.6 for 1/15th of a second for the inset picture).

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