I know fridges aren’t designed to last forever, and I didn’t want a thru the door ice maker at all.
But…my five year old fridge…the ice maker isn’t making ice. Water flows fine through the door, but the ice maker just isn’t working.
Any ideas?
We have ice cube trays…if this can’t be fixed
I’ve had this happen twice on my fridge. The first time the tube that delivers water to the ice maker was clogged and it was easily fixed, by a repairman not me. The second time it was the electronic module that controls the ice making and would have cost over $300 so we elected not to fix it.
We move every couple of years for my H’s job and rent because of that. Our last home had a refrigerator with an in-door ice/water dispenser. The water worked but the ice did not. I submitted a maintenance ticket and they tried to fix the ice maker. They finally determined that the issue was wiring inside the door itself and it couldn’t be fixed without replacing the door. The refrigerator was older and parts were no longer available.
I asked the rental company if they would provide a new refrigerator with a working ice maker, and they said if they purchased a new refrigerator, it WOULDN’T include an ice maker. Not sure how cheap a refrigerator has to be to not have an ice maker; the rental was advertised as an “executive home”.
Long story short, I made ice cubes every day in an ice cube tray for the almost 3 years we lived there.
I purchased an ice making device (kind that plugs in and sits on your counter) and did use it some times, but it was easier to use the trays.
Long answer to say it’s possible to have the water working and not the ice. A repair person could tell you if it can be repaired (for a price, of course).
I moved to a new state in June, new home rental, and am so excited I have a refrigerator that makes ice! I work from home and drink water all day, and ice is something I use every day.
Ours broke, we fixed it once (not cheap), then it broke again soon after the repair warranty expired. We make our ice the old fashioned way now and store it in the ice bin in the refrigerator.
Mine has been broken for the last year. We tried all of the simple fixes like making sure the water was flowing that nothing was clogged, etc. but it didn’t work. We are just using ice cube trays as well. The fridge was only six years old.
Does your refrigerator have a filter? Ours stopped making and dispensing ice when the filter needed to be replaced.
If ice and plenty of it is important to you (it’s VERY important to my H) then in that new of a unit I’d pay the service call fee just to see what the fix will cost you. If doing ice cube trays daily is ok with you and you have the space to dedicate to that, try it for awhile and see if it’s a hassle or not.
Those counter top or cupboard ice makers are a hot item now for ice aficionados!
Our ice maker broke at about 15 years old. Having been retired, we went on line, ordered replacement parts and repaired it watching a you tube video. It was a 2000 kitchen aid. Then after 25 years the water filter no longer was made and the door didn’t shut well. We ordered a new GE refrigerator with an ice maker this year.
The thru-the-door icemaker/water dispenser repairman I had fix the last refrigerator told me next refrigerator just get the ice bucket in the freezer, there is no long term fix for GE or Samsung or whomever, they all break and will break again and are not worth fixing. So, we did - we bought a new refriger with water dispensiver inside the refrigerator and the ice dump bucket in the bottom freezer. Much less frustration.
I have replaced the icemaker inside the freezer of our 2005 fridge multiple times. I order one from Amazon for $50 or whatever, hook it up, and then it lasts a few years. This is not a difficult DIY job. Mildly tedious. Trying to avoid spending thousands on a new fridge.
Adding, while the cost isn’t much more now than it was in 2005 for our type of fridge (large french door), seems like maintenance guys lament the poorer quality of newer appliances compared to older ones. I’m also hoping my 20 yr old washer and dryer keep going. They are very basic, but get the job done. Washer has a problem I need to do something about (drain sometimes opens during rinse fill) and I have been procrastinating on fixing it. For some odd reason I’d much rather do it myself than pay someone to come, maybe because it usually ends up being some $5 part.
thru-the-door ice makers have the highest failure rate on refrigerators.
Could be a frozen water line which feeds the ice maker. Depending on location, kinda hard to defrost. Could be a bad valve, a $15 part.. (My GE has separate valves for the cold water line and for the ice maker.). At the other extreme, could need a completely new ice maker. Look up your year, make and model for the parts price of a new ice maker to get an idea. Add in ~$200 labor, and you can decide whether that repair is worth it.
I’m somewhat handy, so enjoy tinkering. Some units are easy for DIY, essentially plug-and-play, but other manufacturers I won’t touch.
Ours would freeze up and have to be defrosted. They said faulty gaskets since it sat in frig instead of freezer. After a coupe repairs We just quit doing it. Fortunately we had an old fridge in the basement that had a functional ice maker. We just emptied it into freezer bags and put them upstairs. I did eventually get a on counter ice maker but it makes soft ice that doesn’t last as long.
You can look up your fridge model for specific details. In my fridge, the ice maker can be pulled out and removed. This makes it easy to replace. Pulling out the ice maker and waiting for all components to thaw and water/ice to clear can also fix a good portion of issues. A similar comment could be made for the freezer in general. Unplugging the freezer and let it thaw out for 1-2 days every few years can help preserve the life of many components, as well as improve efficiency, reducing electric bill. My fridge/freezer is ~20 years old and has only had one part that needed to be replaced during that period, in spite of being a brand/model that is not known for good reliability.
However, I pulled my ice maker out for a different reason. It’s a waste of space that I don’t use, which is more prone to fail than other portions of the fridge. Removing my ice maker adds as much space in my freezer as an extra shelve. Unfortunately, I still have to deal with the hole for ice cubes. I filled the hole with a small microfiber cloth, which seems to prevent the condensation-related leaks.
I don’t see the big appeal of adding ice to beverages. Not drinking cocktails/alcohol may contribute. Room or fridge (not freezer) temperature is fine for the beverages I do drink. I’d also prefer to not dilute the beverages with water, as the ice melts.
Big ice user here! We have a fridge w/ ice maker & door dispenser of ice. About every month we have to get in there and break up what essentially is an ice dam in the components. I don’t know if it’s the water line creating it or just condensation from the water line that then freezes but once we break that up, it starts making ice again. My H youtubed how to fix it the first time it stopped working to identify all the different issues it could be and this was it. I’m sure there’s a more professional fix that could be done for $$$ but we’ll stick with our DIY.
I’ll check that. Yes, it has a filter. Wouldn’t that also affect the water?
The ice cube maker was on…but apparently it wasn’t making ice because the container remained empty. We have tried taking the unit out, and turning the thing on and off a few times. If I were guessing, I’d say no water is going to the little cube thing. If it were, we would hear it…and we don’t.
We don’t mind using ice cube trays. But really…it would be nice if it was a cheap fix…
Google and Youtube have been my best friends several times over the life of my last refrigerator (especially the icemaker). Sometimes it was something as simple as a line being frozen up (maybe aim a hair dryer in the right direction if the internet can tell you where that in in your model). Sometimes as mentioned above, taking it out and letting everything defrost for a day or so would fix it for a while. (My model was extremely easy to remove & replace - one screw and a couple of “plug and play” wiring harnesses.)
Just be cautious when searching on the internet that you’re getting a reliable source, and not one that’s going to ask you for a credit card! One I found helpful was https://forum.partsdr.com/.
Eventually when all else failed I was able to get a replacement pretty easily. It might have been over $100 but not much over . Of course that will vary for different refrigerators. If you get good DIY info from a website/forum and they offer to sell you the replacement, you may want to check Amazon for the price. I don’t mind letting a helpful forum make a little profit but sometimes there was a big difference.
Also, during the downtimes, I had ice trays that made cubes the same size as the icemaker, so while they still had to be filled & emptied manually, I could dump them into the icemaker bin so they still dispensed through the door.
DH says our filter was overdue for a change so he did that. So far…it’s still not working. Oh well. The through thread door water works…and we have ice cube trays. We will survive!
It didn’t resume operating normally immediately. I want to say it was 12 to 16 hours. I only know because H needed a lot of ice after surgery and being without a ready supply was a pain. I hope yours comes back to life.
Thanks! We will report back!