Palo Alto, California
Built-in refrigerator and premium appliance repair in Palo Alto
Viking, Gaggenau and Miele show up in our recent Palo Alto work, along with a Manitowoc ice machine. The repair we have written up here is a panel-ready Miele refrigerator leaving water where it should not.
Water at the base of a built-in Miele
This was a panel-ready Miele KF 2982 Vi, 36 inches wide with the freezer at the bottom. It was cooling fine but kept collecting water at its base. In this kind of refrigerator, the water from each defrost is meant to drip off the evaporator into a channel and drain away to a pan by the compressor, where it evaporates. Block that path and the water has to go somewhere else.
We took off the lower rear panel and found the drain blocked, with meltwater sitting in the channel. We cleared the drain and the channel, flushed the line, confirmed water ran through, and checked that the next defrost drained properly. No parts were needed.
On an integrated Miele the water often turns up away from the drain itself, which makes it look like a bigger problem than it is.
Four Palo Alto jobs from 2026
Counting jobs closed from November 2024 through October 2026, Palo Alto has four in our premium and commercial records, all from July through September 2026. Viking appears twice, once for a refrigerator and once for cooking. Gaggenau and Miele appear once each. A Manitowoc ice machine job had its first visit in October but closed in November, after that window, so it is not in the count.
Four jobs show what we have been called to in Palo Alto lately, not how reliable any of these brands is. The Miele case above was documented separately from these records.
What to tell us from Palo Alto
If water is showing up, tell us where, and whether the unit is still cooling. For a cooking appliance or an ice machine, describe what it does right before it stops.
We charge $99 for a diagnostic visit. Any second appliance we look at on the same trip is included, and the $99 comes off the repair if you approve it.