Water out · 8 of 21
Water Under the Toe Kick
A damp patch that creeps out from under the kick panel, with nothing wrong inside the tub.
| What you can see | What it usually is | Whose job |
|---|---|---|
| A damp patch under the kick that dries out between washes | A slow weep at a hose clip or a union beneath the tub, which only reaches the floor while the pump is running | Ours |
| Clean water spreading quickly during the drain | The waste branch will not take the discharge, so what the pump pushes comes back out below | Ours, with a plumber if the branch is at fault |
| Grey water with food in it | The sink side is backing into the recess, which puts the blockage downstream of both fittings | A plumber first |
| A stain on the ceiling below before the kitchen shows anything | The floor has been taking water for a while and passing it straight on through | Ours, urgently |
Water arriving under the kick panel has already travelled, so the wet board is rarely above the fault. In the older houses here the machine shares a branch with the sink, and the waste itself can be the thing sending it back. Stop using it and call Viking Repair Denver on (303) 729-0972 before the floor takes it up.
Water under the kick panel has already run somewhere before you saw it. The base of the recess is flat, the machine stands level on it, and what is leaking may sit at the back while the wet shows at the front.
Why the wet board is not the leak
Only three things under there carry water: the hoses in and out, the sump the tub empties into, and the joint where the machine meets the house waste. A weep from any of them collects on the floor of the recess and travels forward, because forward is where the gap is. That is why the age of the plumbing counts for more here than the age of the machine. An old branch will take a sinkful without complaint and refuse a whole tub delivered in one short burst, and what it will not take has to come out somewhere.
What the visit has to settle first
Whether this is the machine or the house. Draining the appliance into a bucket answers that in a single cycle: if it empties cleanly into the bucket and floods the moment it is plumbed back in, nothing inside it is at fault and the right call is a plumber. If it wets the floor either way, the leak is under the tub and it is ours. Timber is what makes the order urgent rather than academic. Boards in the older bungalows around here cup and lift long before anyone notices the kitchen smells damp, and by then the repair has moved out of the kitchen and into the floor.
What to try before anyone drives over
- Lay a sheet of kitchen paper on the floor right at the front of the machine, run a short programme and note at which point in it the paper takes up water.
- Fill the sink, pull the plug and watch it go. A sink that empties slowly puts the shared waste at the top of the list.
- Switch the machine off at the wall and leave it off until somebody has looked. Every further cycle puts more water into the floor, and the floor is the expensive part.
That is as far as it goes without tools. If it is still wrong, call Viking Repair Denver on (303) 729-0972 and say at what point in the cycle the floor goes wet — it is usually enough to know which part is coming on the van.
Every symptom, grouped by what you can see Water in, water out, cleaning, power and the door — the whole library on one page.
Clifford Nakamura
- Written
- On the van
- Service technician — controls and intermittent faults
- Years at it
- 22 years in the trade