Fridge Freezer - RB36R8839SR - Water in bottom fridge - advice please!

[KathB1]

We have had our fridge freezer for a couple of months - installed by our kitchen fitters.  I've just noticed water at the front of the bottom box.  I've removed the box and the bottom of the fridge was full of water - 1.5 litres to be precise - which I've now removed.  

Can anyone advise why this has happened and how we can avoid it happening again, please?  

Many thanks, Kath

[KathB1]

I thought I would pop back to say that (my fingers are crossed when I type this!) we've not had any further problems with the fridge freezer.  We had left the unit switched off for 48 hours before the part was fitted and all seems to be well now.  I hope everyone gets a solution soon.

[Animale1]

Bringing this up again. Our fridge-freezer is in Helsinki, Finland. Just today found out that there was a couple of litres of water at the bottom of the fridge. Any other Finnish /Scandinavian users here? Our warranty has expired, this machine is close to 2 years old.

[Tigertone2000]

Likewise, I'm happy to report no further problems (fingers firmly crossed...!) since we had our heating element and software update 11 months ago. Details of the heating element can be seen in this thread thanks to KathB1. Good luck to anyone else who ends up here!

[Issi2]

We are on our second RB36R8899R -the first hatched the water in the bottom problem after 12 months and Samsung offered to replace it but with a different model (as out of stock)-but we asked for a refund as this model was correct size to fit flush with my kitchen cabinets -we then got another from John Lewis as they had it in stock-three years ago.

This morning we noticed a pool of water on the floor and my heart sank as I realised that this one is probably doing the same-we removed 1 litre of water from the bottom of the fridge.

It is under an extended warranty so a non Samsung engineer is now booked to look at it Saturday-I rang Samsung after reading your posts as it appears to be a known problem but customer support said if it’s out of their Samsung warranty they would charge to send an engineer look at it !!

Will make the engineer aware on Saturday and see what happens! Will update on how this is resolved….

…and for what it’s worth when this fridge freezer is not gathering water I have been delighted with it-keeps food fresh and beautifully cool so gutted that it has this fault!

[JayFong]

Hi all purchasers of Fridge/Freezer RB36R8899SR,

I purchased this model in early 2021 and had not realised this issue until October or November 2023 when I suddenly noticed water flowing down to Freezer from the Fridge. When I inspected the fridge, there were full of water at the bottom of the drawer, roughly 1.5 litters as estimated after cleaning. I looked up online and found this useful community, from which I knew this was an unfortunate fault with this fridge/freezer model. I have kept monitoring until now - the water were refilled up within about 7-8 weeks. Thanks for this community and I am contacting Samsung technical support for issue inspection and repair, if no similar updated model available for replacement. 

[Issi2]

Hello just seen your post and thought I’d update the community on our current situation after my previous post…

So after being told by Samsung that they would charge me to look at it as it’s out of warranty I invoked the extended warranty via Domestic and General-the non Samsung engineer came and after nearly an hour put his head around the corner and said “It’s a write off and you’ll have to have a new replacement “ -that’s where the trouble started!!

So Domestic and General got in touch about a replacement (as for some reason Samsung don’t make these anymore ) and offered us a smaller replacement which when I looked at how much it cost retail was £550-this one had cost £999 so hardly like for like!! 
Explained it had to be 600mm depth max and 2 meters height like this model ,they said choice was limited then and basically if we aren’t happy to find one similar price which would fit and they would pay but basically there aren’t any on the market 2 meters tall by 600 mm depth in stainless steel-I asked them if we accepted the model offered at half the price would they compensate us for the rest to £ 999 and they said no basically take it or leave it-then sent us a refund of most of the money we paid for the warranty (£116)even though we hadn’t asked them to-so we still have the faulty Samsung in our kitchen and I am mopping water out though fair to say it is intermittent as sometimes it’s dry for 2-3 week’s then starts again…

 Contacted Samsung to point out the posts on their community and moan and got a reply saying there is no known fault with this model so no help there!!

 As I said I’m actually pleased with it when it’s behaving and reluctant to let it go but wish Samsung would drop the “Post Office Syndrome “that there’s no problem-come clean and offer a solution as some appear to have had a fix and are happy!

Considering the next move-as I don’t believe we’ve been treated fairly by Samsung -or Domestic and General ( although it’s not their fault the product has this fault)

A visit from one of their own engineers to assess this problem-without charge -would be a start….

You certainly don’t expect to buy what is an expensive model-now on our third one (after first two had problems and had to be replaced )and left mopping out even though we took out an extended warranty which was no use to us unless we accepted a replacement for half the price!!

[Tigertone2000]

I really do feel for you, having been in a similar situation - in our case, being on the third example which, fingers crossed, appears to be behaving itself....

There appears to have been two separate issues with this particular model: a manufacturing fault where insulation foam was mistakenly squirted into the drain tube rendering it entirely and irrecoverably blocked (there being no access to the tube) and a separate (design issue) where the tube ices up and requires a heating element fitting into the tube plus s/ware update to ensure it regularly warms up and melts any ice that has formed.

For Samsung to deny this issue is just plain wrong and makes me very angry.

For what it's worth, a couple of suggestions: 

Approach John Lewis?

Credit card chargeback? (assuming it was purchased that way)

Approach a different repair company? ('The Repair Guys' seemed to be aware of the problem in our, and KathB's case  - maybe point them at the details of the heating element required (which KathB very helpfully posted on here) and go from there (though remember you'd need to do a 48 hour defrost before their visit as all ice has to have gone before the heating element can be inserted. I don't know but am guessing that 'The Repair Guys' might do Samsung's warranty work anyway so might be aware of this issue even though you'd have to pay for an out of warranty visit and repair - surely worth a phone call or two?

Hope this helps!

[JayFong]

Yeah, it was an expensive fridge/freezer. My purchase of this fridge was because of its dimensions too - fitting my space well. But we didn't expect a technical issue so soon with such a modern and expensive fridge freezer, did we? 

On your case, have you advised the Domestic and General repair engineer that fitting a heating element would resolve the issue?

My fridge freezer is under 5 years warranty. An engineer from Elite Digital Appliances instructed by Samsung attended the issue 3 weeks ago. The engineer fitted something inside the fridge section and told me the issue was fixed. I had thought my fridge would work fine without leaking issue anymore. When I was notified that you replied to my last message on 12 Mar, I attempted to directly reply you saying that the leaking issue with my fridge was fixed by a repair engineer. Being cautious, I had a thought of better verifying it before my speaking out. I checked my fridge - OMG, there were water again!!!!! I reported the issue back to Elite and they has asked me to contact Samsung again, which I am going to. 

Expecting good luck with next repair.

[Tigertone2000]

Just wondering: you say the engineer fitted the part but did he also update the software so it will heat up every so often and melt any ice?

[JayFong]

It looked like the engineer upgraded the software but I am not sure. I saw the engineer put a thin hose into a tube on the back of the fridge for unblocking the tube or draining the water inside the tube and then he installed something. I didn't watch every step of his doing, he also didn't clearly explain what he was doing or what the installed part was named. 

One thing I am sure is that I didn't switch off the fridge freezer while the engineer was fixing the issue.