Woke Up To a Flooded Kitchen

[TX-Dennis]

Ice makers - with our hard water they don't last more than three or four years here. I shut off the water supply to mine years ago when it quit. No point replacing it - they just don't last with hard water.

Many years ago when we lived in a townhouse (row house connected on both sides to others) we came home late one night to find the downstairs carpet wet. Couldn't figure out where the water was coming from. Walked out the front door to have a look around, and I noticed a waterfall coming from under the next door neighbor's front door. His washing machine line had burst, and he was out of town. After shutting off his water at the meter, we started fans to dry things out. Called insurance the next morning. We had a mess, but nothing like what the neighbor had. I replaced all the carpeting downstairs with hard surfaces after that - ceramic tile and engineered hardwood. Did all the work myself.

EDIT - oh, yeah - I replaced my washing machine hoses with the braided stainless steel ones after that, too. I wouldn't have the standard issue rubber hoses in my house.

 

[snubbyfan]

My fridge in Japan — bought the place in 2012 and renovated it — makes ice cubes, but, the water reservoir is removd by hand, filled up in the sink, and replaced. Nothing to leak.

Couldn't find that in the US, and it was hard finding a fridge w/o an icemaker, but ultimately found one w/o one.

Me, I don't like 'em. They leak. (Hence the thread, of course.) Don't use that much ice anyway.

We got this particular 'fridge because it was big and had an ice maker. Living in a small town in the mountains of West Virginia, it pays to be able to stock up.
The ice maker was more for my wife. She lost most of her major saliva gland to cancer and sucking on ice cubes helps to keep her mouth moist. I wanted to make sure she had all the ice she wanted.
Thinking 'bout it though, a person can just run the supply line to a container placed in a convenient spot in the kitchen, just fill it in the sink.

 

[snubbyfan]

Ice makers are the weak spot on refrigerators.

I've never had one that didn't eventually cause trouble.

My solution has been simple: disconnect the thing and use old fashioned ice trays (available everywhere for a buck or two).

I don't miss the ice maker.

I guess we're just spoiled. It's very convenient having ice automatically made. 'Specially in the summer when we need lotsa ice for the coolers.
Right now we're using old fashioned ice trays and they are working juxt fine.

 

[snubbyfan]

I haven't had ice maker troubles, but it's exciting when the water heater lets go. Fortunately I was home to shut off the water when it happened!

It dumped the entire contents on the floor, so of course it tried to refill itself, unsuccessfully. I guess on the plus side it was the apartment manager's problem to fix.

Our old water heater split down the side and spewed all over our basement.
I wasn't home at the time but my wife was and was able to shut the water off.

 

[snubbyfan]

Snubby,
I just had mine replaced in my 8 year old unit but thankfully under warranty. Apparently the Ice Maker in mine did not have the proper defrost cycle, ice froze together as a giant clump, got stuck and caused the ice maker door to stick opened. The warm air from the outside got into the stuck opening and in turn defrosted the ice into my Kitchen.

Thankfully we have a 10 year extended warranty because this fancy dan Fridge would have cost me $1,400.00 to fix! They replaced the Ice Maker itself, the Control Module that tells it what to do, the Master Computer Circuit Board with new defrost programs, the rear Insulator Panel in the back of the Fridge, and a few hook up cables. WOW!! They also replaced a draw glass top lid but that had nothing to do with the ice maker issue. I normally do not but the extended warranty's, but this fridge has so many gizmo's and gadgets a bell went off in my head and told me this was the time to do so. I certainly got my $275.00 back for the 10 year ext. warranty!

The bells and whistles are very tempting but we decided just to get a big 'fridge with an ice maker. That's all we really needed at the time.
The cool thing was that since we both did warehouse work at the time, we just put it in the back of our truck, tied it down, brought it home and hooked it up our selves. My wife's not only strong for a woman, she's out lifted some guys.

 

[snubbyfan]

In our old house I could never get the ice maker hooked up so it wouldn't leak. In our current house it would take a major effort to get water to the ice maker, so, once again, no ice. With summer coming on I have been thinking about one of the counter-top makers. Anybody have any experience with them??

I'd just run the feed line to a container next to the fridge. Something that can easily be filled.

 

[chief38]

Yea - the ice makers seem to be the weak spot on most Refrigerators but no one can deny that chilled water and almost endless ice available at the touch or a button is nice. This is the first failure I've had with this 8 year old fridge. Hopefully this repair (2 weeks ago) will correct the issue.

 

[snubbyfan]

Yea - the ice makers seem to be the weak spot on most Refrigerators but no one can deny that chilled water and almost endless ice available at the touch or a button is nice. This is the first failure I've had with this 8 year old fridge. Hopefully this repair (2 weeks ago) will correct the issue.

Our is 12 years old but the ice maker's been acting up for a coupla years. I never would've thought the problem would also be the water supply valve, otherwise, I'd have gotten an extra.
I try to keep an inventory of stuff that I think may need repair/replacement.

 

[arjay]

Noticed the oak flooring in front of the fridge looked a little humped up when the light hit it just right.The plastic supply line behind it had a tiny split.

 

[VaTom]

Had one flood the kitchen in previous house. Ruined the parquet wood floor. Replace floor with tile. Last summer a water softener ruptured and flooded basment. ServPro to the rescue. After that replaced all water supply lines with braided stainless (sinks, toilets, ice maker, washer). Supposed to be ruptured proof. I now shut off water supply to house when travelling.

Flooding is mess and even though ServPro does a great job it is a pain in the rear.

 

[DeathGrip]

Snubby,
I just had mine replaced in my 8 year old unit but thankfully under warranty. Apparently the Ice Maker in mine did not have the proper defrost cycle, ice froze together as a giant clump, got stuck and caused the ice maker door to stick opened. The warm air from the outside got into the stuck opening and in turn defrosted the ice into my Kitchen.

Thankfully we have a 10 year extended warranty because this fancy dan Fridge would have cost me $1,400.00 to fix! They replaced the Ice Maker itself, the Control Module that tells it what to do, the Master Computer Circuit Board with new defrost programs, the rear Insulator Panel in the back of the Fridge, and a few hook up cables. WOW!! They also replaced a draw glass top lid but that had nothing to do with the ice maker issue. I normally do not but the extended warranty's, but this fridge has so many gizmo's and gadgets a bell went off in my head and told me this was the time to do so. I certainly got my $275.00 back for the 10 year ext. warranty!

I also got the warranty. Mine is less than a year old but I didn't want the worries down the road.

 

[Chik a Boom]

Love the story about a couple who purchased a brand new fridge with in-the-door ice dispenser. Every morning they would find a small puddle of water on the floor. After thorough search of the new appliance for leaks and a chat with the place of purchase, no solution was found. When just about ready to replace it, they finally caught their German Shepherd one evening who liked to reach up and push the lever and eat the cubes that fell.
So check your pets!

 

[snubbyfan]

Love the story about a couple who purchased a brand new fridge with in-the-door ice dispenser. Every morning they would find a small puddle of water on the floor. After thorough search of the new appliance for leaks and a chat with the place of purchase, no solution was found. When just about ready to replace it, they finally caught their German Shepherd one evening who liked to reach up and push the lever and eat the cubes that fell.
So check your pets!

Good point, that water valve was at the bottom back of the 'fridge. Cat level and we have three.
Ya know, sometimes they have a pow wow in the middle of the hall. I wonder what they're planning sometimes.

 

[chief38]

Not our current Golden Retriever, but the one we had 15 years ago would routinely push the lever for ice when he wanted to chomp on some. At first we were stumped as to what the puddles on the floor were, but one day we caught him in the act. i didn't mind him doing that, but SOMETIMES the kids left the switch on chilled water instead of ice and he made a mess. We tried to make sure the switch was always in the ice mode - but once in a while.......

 

[TX-Dennis]

Animals will do strange stuff sometimes. I remember a cat my Grandmother had when I was a kid that would ring the doorbell when he wanted in. Craziest thing I ever saw. Darned cat would jump up, hit the doorbell, and wait to be let inside.

He was clumsy, though. Several times I watched him fall out of trees.

 

[Chik a Boom]

Good point, that water valve was at the bottom back of the 'fridge. Cat level and we have three.
Ya know, sometimes they have a pow wow in the middle of the hall. I wonder what they're planning sometimes.

Knowing cats, it wouldn't surprise me if they were the original troublemakers. Best wishes with the new part.

 

[snubbyfan]

Knowing cats, it wouldn't surprise me if they were the original troublemakers. Best wishes with the new part.

Right now the three of them are on the kitchen floor facing each other. Makes we wonder what they're up to this time.

 

[snubbyfan]

At least I know the new ice maker does work. It spit out come ice cubes with the water that leaked into it when I first installed it.
I'm thinking of replacing the feed line as well. I connected the ice maker when we got the 'fridge and still have a roll of the water supply line.
'Cept this time, I thinking of putting a shut off valve in. If we have trouble with the ice maker again I want the option of just shuting it off.

 

[johngalt]

I shut off the ice maker in my freezer by flipping the lever up. Can it still leak? I suppose so.

I use ice trays with bottled water instead because the ice from the ice maker looks like frozen chalk.

 

[Snapping Twig]

Ice maker is a slave unit to the water valve. It sends the signal to the valve to fill, but if the valve goes renegade, nothing to be done for it.

Just to provide full disclosure, your dishwasher and clothes washer also have a water valve(s).

Filtering the main water into your house can help prevent water leaks due to shmutz build-up in the valve seat. No help for a valve that fails in the open position however.

Plastic water supply lines, as opposed to copper, for the refrigerator are frowned on and should be replaced with copper. Nothing to be done for the lines on the refrigerator, but they are low pressure and not a problem generally.

Clothes washer hoses should be inspected periodically and replaced @ 5 years. Braided hoses are a good idea and Whirlpool offers a modern technology hose using space age materials even better than braided, but they are $$. I use them and I put them in my Mom's house too. You should have seen the embolisms on her hoses before I replaced them. Shocking.