A lot of us don’t have much patience when electrical issues cause the most fundamental utilities in our homes to start acting up. When it comes to your ice maker, you decide just forget it because you don’t wanna go through some long, “pointless” process checking out countless little metrics and factors. We’ve all said many times before that we wish we knew then what we know now. In reality, ice makers in fridges are one of those things where the vast majority of cases come down to the exact same basic little tricks.
There’s a possibility that something more technical is going on with your fridge that you may not be able to handle yourself, but most likely you’re going to be kicking yourself in your rear end, since these machines have some ellusively obvious features that can foil your beverage cooling joy.
Today, you’ll learn some tips as well as a very simple checklist to eliminate what may be going wrong until you soon discover the culprit.
The First Things to Look Out For
If you don’t find the location of a particular feature on your fridge, always refer to the instructions manual for your particular fridge. Most of the time, fridges all work more or less the same, but your manual will help you pinpoint exactly where it is. If not, you’d need a professional outfit like Subzero to fix it.
Watch the temperature
You want your machine to be kept cold enough to actually produce the ice. If it goes too high, it will turn itself off. Notice any oddities with things melting in either compartment? Also, curiously, the fuller you keep your fridge, the more stable the temperature will be. However, don’t overdo that, or this can block airflow and cause warm spots.
A lot of the time the reason that temperatures in the fridge get too high, over 0 degrees F, can have to do with blocked freezer vents. If boxes or bags of food are pushed up against them, the air can get blocked off. The coils on the back or bottom of the fridge relese heat, so they can get covered in dust or pet hair. That makes the fridge have to work harder to stay cold. On top of that, door gasket problems occur when too much wear or grease on the door allows humid air to seep in every time the door is closed.
On/Off Switch
LG fridge will have an on/off switch right on the ice maker on the left side, right to the side of the ice maker itself. Also make sure the bucket is inserted right, since if it’s awkwardly put in, it won’t work either. All NYC ice makers have one.
Then there are French door refrigerators such as those Frigid Air produces. Not all on/off buttons are located on the ice maker itself. In this case, look at the edge of the icemaker door that you swung wide. It has a control pannel on it with other settings, one of which is the on/off switch. Hold it for a few seconds and it turns on.
Then suppose you have a Bosch French door refrigerator. In some models like these, youll actually have to remove the bucket of the ice maker. In this case, you have to press a button on the side of the bucket to take it out. Then after the bucket is out, reach around the side and feel for a button, which switches the red “On” light on or off.
Other models don’t have an on and off button but instead a lever. Here, you need to check if the lever is set up or moved down. In the up position, the ice maker is thus switched off. You need to push it down.
Also keep in mind that once you first buy your ice maker and plug it in, you’ll usually have to wait 24 hours for ice making to begin.
Door Switches
If you never suspected an on/off switch for that machine, you’d be even more surprised to learn that there are door switches for the entire compartment located inside. It controls the light inside as well. Check if it turns on the light.
Water Filter
There are a whole bunch of reasons why this can get clogged, and as you’re probably not surprised, you need water injected into the machine to create the ice as well as the fridge for cooling. Sometimes it can’t get in anymore. If you’ve put off cleaning your water filter for more than six months, it should come as no shock that it’s giving you problems. Somewhere inside your fridge is a little space where your filter is inserted. You just in most cases twist the top and yank it out.
Otherwise, sometimes the fill tube gets frozen where the water gets frozen into the ice maker. Just look and see where the water is channeled into the machine to make the ice.
Check the back of the refrigerator for the water hose. Sometimes it gets kinked and clogged sometimes. The way to test this is first turn the fridge off. Pull it off. Turn the water off that feeds the water. Unhook it. Put the hose into a bucket or the sink. Turn it back on. If it runs, it’s not clogged.
How Your Ice Maker Works
There’s a method to the madness every time you press that button to get an ice cube.
- A little electric valve opens to let water from your water supply line which flows into a mold with the shape of ice cubes. This lasts a few seconds so they don’t overflow.
- Thanks to the freezer, water turns into ice in 60-90 minutes, while the tray helps even it out, makeing same-size cubes.
- Now frozen, a tiny heating element losens the cubes just enough for the ejector arm to sweep them into the storage bin. Otherwise they’d stay sticking to the tray.
- Mechanical arms or infrared beams are used to detect if the bin is full, in which case the cycle pauses. Otherwise the cycle soldiers on.
Less Common Causes
By going through the checklist above, you should be able to figure out what’s gone wrong with your ice machine on your own and solve it. If not, there are also mechanical issues still possible in New York City.
Motor
The ice maker motor could not be working as well, thus the ejector arm would not be going through its cycle of pushing cubs into the bin and resetting the tray for the next fill. It would then stall mid-cycle, leaving cubes stuck in the mold. The ejector arm physically sweeps the cubes out of the mold. If it’s bent, jammed, or broken, the cubes never leave the tray, even if they’re fully frozen.
Sensors
Some advanced refrigerators also have issues with sensors and small circuit boards to time each stage of the ice-making process. A defective sensor may not recognize when the tray is full, while a faulty control board can interupt the power supply to the motor or heating element.
Final Thoughts
The moral of the story here is there really arent that many potential causes for 80% of scenarios. All you have to do is get the hang of those same few gambits most homeowners can use the same way. Clean the evaporator coils, eliminate ice buildup, find the on switch , and track the temperature. Youll be feeling like a technician yourself, and in most cases you will be the technician.
