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Why does nobody talk about how fast an old fridge can wreck your porch floor | Off the Record - Free To Speak

Why does nobody talk about how fast an old fridge can wreck your porch floor

So my landlord finally replaced the ancient beer fridge we had on the back porch last week. I thought no big deal, just swap them out. But when my buddy and I dragged the old one away, there was this dark stain spreading from where it sat. Turns out the drain pan had been cracked for who knows how long, slowly leaking rusty water onto the wood. The boards are now soft and spongy in a 2 foot spot near the back door. My landlord is gonna kill me when he sees it this weekend. I had no idea those fridges just silently destroy things under them like that. Has anyone else dealt with hidden water damage from an old appliance they didn't know about?

4 comments

4 Comments

evahenderson3mo ago

Totally agree, I had an old dehumidifier in my basement that did the exact same thing, just slowly dripped for months and now I've got a mushy patch near the wall that I'm terrified to even look at. It's wild how these things just quietly ruin stuff without making a peep.

cole_flores443mo ago

That old dehumidifier drip is the worst kind of problem. My buddy had a similar thing happen with a fish tank pump that barely made a sound for months. One day he moved the tank and there was a whole swamp under the stand, floor was completely rotted through. He had to tear out a section of the subfloor and half the baseboards. Cost him like two grand to fix because the wood rot had spread into the framing. People don't realize how fast that moisture creeps into the joists once it gets past the surface. By the time you see the mushy spot, it's already way worse underneath.

lily_torres313mo ago

Is it bad that I used to think people were just being dramatic about appliance leaks? Honestly, I had this old mini-fridge in my garage for years and never once checked underneath it. Then last month I went to sweep and the whole floorboard kind of dipped when I stepped on it. Pulled the fridge out and there was this gross black sludge and the wood was completely rotted through in a spot the size of a dinner plate. Took me a whole weekend to cut out the bad wood and patch it up. So yeah, I'm a full believer now, those things are silent killers. Ngl, I'm never trusting an old appliance again without checking under it at least once a month.

sage_moore373mo ago

Learn from your mistakes, right? I get it though, nobody thinks about what's happening behind their appliances until something bad happens. That black sludge sounds absolutely nasty, I've seen that stuff before and it's like something out of a horror movie. Good on you for fixing it yourself, that saved you a lot of money compared to hiring someone. Now you're probably paranoid about every other appliance in your house too, which honestly isn't a bad thing. Just give them a quick peek every now and then, saves you a whole lot of headache down the road.