There are few things more frustrating than pressing your cup against the ice maker paddle, only to hear the sound of an empty ice drawer. There are a small handful of common reasons that your ice maker has stopped producing ice, and a few of those don’t require a service tech to come out to your house. If your ice maker is leaving you out in the cold, check out these potential causes and solutions.
Stuck Bail Wire
Most ice collection bins have a bail wire, which is basically a simple mechanism that tells your freezer when the ice maker is full or empty. The wire hangs down at a fixed position, and if there is enough ice to lift the wire, your freezer will stop producing ice. If the bail wire isn’t being lifted, your freezer will continue to produce ice until it is lifted. So, the potential problem here is obvious: if your bail wire is stuck in an elevated position, due to wear & tear or to freezing, your freezer will assume that the ice bin is full, regardless of whether or not it actually is full. If your bail wire is stuck, carefully work it out until it is comfortably in its normal hanging position. Ice making should resume immediately.
Fill Tube is Frozen
This is a very common problem. Essentially, ice is backing up in the fill tube, which is preventing new ice from being made. One of the tell-tale signs of a frozen fill tube is if your ice maker is producing smaller and smaller ice cubes, until it’s not producing any at all. If you’ve noticed this tapering in cube size, you probably have a frozen fill tube. Ice makers can be quite complicated, so it’s best to leave these fixes to the professionals. If you’re in fear that your fill tube is frozen, give us a call at 844.3.Fix Appliance Repairor shoot us an email here:
Water Line Blockage
On the back of the freezer, there will be a copper water line. If that water line is somehow clogged, water can’t enter the freezer to produce ice. Before you know if you need to replace this copper line, you should consult with a technician. Good news, we’re full of them. Give us a call at 844.3.Fix Appliance Repairand we’ll come out and take a look!
Faulty Tap Valve (if used)
If you took the steps to check the copper pipe, as mentioned above, and when you reengaged the valve no water came out, and if the water supply line is also not kinked, chances are it’s an issue with the tap valve itself. To be clear, the tap valve is the small mechanism that connects the water supply line with the copper water line. If you’ve checked the two water lines, checked the fill tube, and inspected the bail wire, it’ll likely be time to purchase an ice maker connection kit to replace the tap valve. These can be found at most hardware stores, and can easily be installed by yourself, or with the assistance of a certified technician.
If none of these five points helped your ice maker return to its prior glory, you may have a serious and/or more complicated problem. At that point, we’d highly encourage you to give Fix Appliance Repaira call. As a 2015 Angie’s List Super Service Award recipient, you can trust us to take care of this issue for you.
We hope that these tips helped you restore your ice maker to working order during these hot summer months, and as always, Thank You for Letting Our Family Help Yours!
