Where does the water go?...in a frost-free refer after the ice is melted from the coils?

Question

I see no drains, no way for the water vapor to exit the refer's closed system. If it is simply recycled, that seems very inefficient.

Answer 1

Howard was doing so well until the end....
Defrosting a refrigerator would be pointless if you just refroze the water back onto the coils...

Frost free refrigerators collect a limited quantity of water from the melted ICE in to a drip pan..... The drip pan is mounted above the compressor where the heat generated by the compressor causes the collected condensate to evaporate. Due to the size of the drip pan a limited volume of condensate can be handled before it would over flow.

Answer 2

A frost-free freezer has three basic parts:

i) A timer
ii) A heating coil
iii) A temperature sensor


Every six hours or so, the timer turns on the heating coil. The heating coil is wrapped among the freezer coils. The heater melts the ice off the coils. When all of the ice is gone, the temperature sensor senses the temperature rising above 32 degrees F (0 degrees C) and turns off the heater.
Heating the coils every six hours takes energy, and it also cycles the food in the freezer through temperature changes. Most large chest freezers therefore require manual defrosting instead -- the food lasts longer and the freezer uses less power.

The water that has formed from thawing ice on the coils, simply stays in the freezer. It reforms as ice.