We noticed a puddle of water in front of the fridge a couple of months ago-dried the floor up both times and thought someone had dropped ice-or spilled water. A couple of weeks ago there was water dripping through the dropped tile ceiling in the basement. I shut off the water for the water supply to the fridge at the copper pipe in the basement and removed some of the tiles which felt a little damp. It still dripped all day. When my spouse came home he pulled down more of the tiles. It was as if Niagara Falls was coming into my basement. Evidently the leak had accumulated in the cold air return-reached capacity-overflowed through the duct work and finally saturated the fiberglass on the ceiling tiles. After that was cleaned up we attempted to roll out the fridge upstairs believing this was the cause.
It took three of us (thanks to a great neighbor's help) to move the empty fridge as the water leak had warped the hardwood floor boards (next time ceramic tile for sure!). This model fridge is the only one that will fit the space available. What looked like a fine mist was spraying from the plastic water supply line through a tiny pin hole opening that leads from the copper pipe feed. As I learned immediately the shut off valve for the pipe was not fully shut off (needed a plier and more strngth-not just my hand turning it as I was told...). After that valve was properly shut off we rushed to the hardware store to get a replacement kit (this was--we thought an emergency....). This was installed.
We turned the water supply back on at the valve in the basement-pressed the fridge water dispenser to clear the line and nothing came out, but we washed most of the hardwood floor between the fridge, and back hallway as water ran under the fridge across the floor. Naturally we thought that we had done something wrong. Dried the floor-re-checked everything-and did the 'test' again with the same result. Shut off the water supply from the copper properly this time, turned on a fan to dry out the floor.
Since the fridge was still in the middle of the hall blocking the kitchen we took the lower back panel off the fridge (we had vacuumed it out earlier) and starting checking the interior tubing--that's when we found a crack in the water feed line. I went on the computer to AppliancePartsPros.com and started looking for the right part. (I had used you to fix the oven heating element and know how good you folks are.) This is a fantastic site. I ordered the parts needed, and a 'back up' Union Connector in case we did something wrong connecting the new water line internally.......
When we cut the original tubing free from the fridge we found a section was completely rigid-and it actually cracked apart in my hand. The new tubing was cut with sharp scissors and was installed and up in running in about ten minutes (including testing for floor washing ability) removing and replacing the back panel, etc..
We thoroughly dried the floor under the fridge (fan running for two days), have hired a repair man to replace that part of the floor, and the ceiling below has dried out nicely-the tiles dried out and are back in place. The worse part was trying to move the fridge! It's a monster even empty.