I have had problems with my 12 year old $7000 built-in Kitchenaid frig(French Door freezer on bottom) for at least a year. Every few days or weeks, it would leak water onto kitchen floor and there would be a sheet of ice on the freezer floor under the pullout baskets. You can see the drain in the middle on the floor in the back. All the blogs I can find talk about a P-trap. This model(actually made by Whirlpool) does not have a P-trap. Instructions to fix a P trap issue involve pulling the refrigerator out and taking off the back panel. You cannot easily take the back off of one of these built ins. As a matter of fact, instructions tell you if you have a builtin, then you need a service call. I finally found out you do not need a service call. I used to just use a hairdryer to melt the ice on the floor and covering the drain. Problem recurs. Then I tried the solution to wrap a copper wire around the heating element behind the panel in the back of the freezer compartment and put the other end of the wire into the drain with the idea being the copper wire would conduct heat to the drain plug and keep defrost water from freezing. Well, that didn't work either. I finally figured out there must be something physically blocking the drain itself. So, today, I used a hair dryer to melt the ice well. Then, I brought my small pancake style air compressor into the kitchen and blew out the drain from the freezer compartment. It was awkward to get to it, but, I succeeded. Then I squirted several ounces of vinegar into the drain to use the acid in the vinegar to clear any gummy residue. The vinegar drained right out into the drain pan under the frig like it was supposed to. When I took the pan out, I found not only the vinegar, but, also plug of gummy residue that had built up over the years and eventually plugged the drain causing my problems this past year. I really expect this has fixed my problem. I wanted to get the word out because, I know this is a more widespread issue than just my unit. I am going to try to attach a picture of the gummy plug. It is conically shaped.
