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southardrv · 10-25-2020, 11:02 PM

My family's been enjoying our Bay Star Sport, and are out camping in the mountains (with full hookups, so maybe it should be "camping"). We've been quite pleased with it so far, but tonight we found a small trail of water in front of our fridge.

We quickly cleaned it up and went looking for the source. We took off the cover underneath the fridge and found it. The attached photo was shot from the floor, looking up. The black you see on the right is the lower fascia of the Norcold AC/LP fridge. The carpeting in the upper left is on the top of that area (and why would there be carpeting, by the way? There must be some function for it).

As you can see, it's clearly seeping through the joint between those two pieces of wood. The one piece of wood where the drop is is the top piece of the framing to which the furnace return vent cover (I think that's what that is under the fridge) is attached. At the time we noticed it (after a decent sized trail of water was there, but not all the way across to the other side of the hallway), it was a very slow leak -- a drop every couple of seconds. Over the course of 15 minutes it slowed down to a drop every 5 seconds and now (about 30 minutes later) it's down to about a drop every 10 seconds.

What could this be? Here's all the possibilities we can think of:
1) It has been lightly raining for about 8-9 hours. We can't find any other moisture in the RV, and it's still raining, so that seems to rule out rain.
2) We had the heat pumps on most of the day, but my daughter got a bit warm, so I turned the AC on in that zone. Since they share the same ducting, my wife thinks that the warm air from the other zone meeting the cold air might have cause a mini thunderstorm, but I heard no crackle of miniature lightning. We turned the AC off as soon as we thought of this, just in case.
3) While looking through everything, I noticed that the fridge was off. I don't know when it went off -- it could easily have been while I was opening up all the doors and feeling around the seals for water. I didn't find liquid water, but I did notice that at the front of the freezer compartment there was a very thin sheet of ice. If the freezer had been off for a while (all the frozen food in it was fine), I could see that sheet thawing a bit -- but would the water get out of the fridge like that?

So, what do you far more experience people think it could be? And, more importantly, what would you do now to trace it back and find the source?

Oh, and what is a big square of carpeting doing under there? It's cut to completely cover the ceiling, with a neat cutout for the water line to the ice maker and another neat hole for a copper line to go up from the basement (I'm not sure what that is, but it goes straight up form the basement into the rear of the fridge area).

Thanks in advance for your help.

FL420 · 10-25-2020, 11:46 PM

I have a Norcold 1200LRIM 4 door reefer which sits on top of the galvanized HVAC plumbing for the front furnace. I had a very slight leak like yours which was puzzling for awhile until all of a sudden it got bigger.
I pulled the louvered air intake panel off and discovered the ice maker line was contacting the metal heater housing which rubbed a hole in the plastic line. I hope it's something simple like that on yours.
[emoji40]

krivanj · 10-26-2020, 08:17 AM

I'm voting for the defrost water when the refrigerator was off. Water can definitely get find a way down. Especially if you saw a line of ice. I would keep an eye on it and see if it happens again as long as the refrigerator stays on.
ON the other hand, I did have a pinhole leak in my icemaker line once, like FL240 above, and it did run down under the refrigerator and appear in front of it on the floor.

southardrv · 10-26-2020, 11:30 AM

Whew -- looks like we dodged a bullet. Once the sun was up, I went around and did an inspection, and the attached picture shows what I found once I opened up the panel to the fridge. As you can see, the top of the plywood at the bottom is wet, and that's the plywood to which the carpet that you can see in the picture in the first post is attached.

The water line was dripping right at the indicated connector. I'm not sure yet whether it was just a little loose, or if the connector is faulty or not well-attached to the main water line -- but at least I know where it's from and can start to deal with it.

I expect that it simply loosened up a bit due to temperature variations -- it's about 35 where we are now, and we haven't been in temperatures below 60 or so before now. So I tightened it up a bit, and we'll see where it goes from there.

I'm very relieved that it's not a leak somewhere.

Old-Biscuit · 10-26-2020, 12:06 PM

If I was you I would check ALL water line fittings....sink faucets, showers, toilet etc
They are only hand-tightened at factory and can loosen/leak

Also check/tighten electric wire connections......ATS & Main RV AC Panel
Power/Load, Neutrals, Grounds
They will also loosen up from road vibrations etc

ddowntown · 10-26-2020, 12:12 PM

I believe the ice maker connection is a common issue, I have 2 friends with the same unit and both had leaks, a little plumbing tape should secure it.