Elite Honolulu Appliance Repair performs refrigerator repair in Honolulu, including professional services to repair broken ice makers. Learn about some common ice maker issues below:
Refrigerator ice makers are perhaps one of the best inventions of all time. An ice maker is a small luxury a lot of people not appreciate. Ice makers are simple machines that don’t feature a lot of complicated components that might have problems.
Like with any repair, there are basic things that should be looked at before assuming the worst. And, remember, if needed, you can replace your ice maker without replacing an entire fridge, dependent on the brand and model. First, let’s review a couple of the causes for an ice maker breaking.
If an ice maker is making ice but it is not ejecting the ice cubes it is usually a mechanical issue vs. an electrical problem. This happens when moving food around in the freezer, you might accidentally shift the control lever up or down. A lot of the time the ice maker can be blocked with something else, possibly a piece of ice. So, check to see if there’s anything blocking this part from operating properly.
Before starting the steps of clearing out the freezer, ensure the ice maker is on. This is done by moving the metal control arm in the down position. From time to time, moving things around in the freezer unit might put it in the off position. If the control arm is free, then there may be food or ice stuck inside of the ice maker or it is not getting a good connection.
Check the Control Arm
When the control is down and there’s ice but it is not ejecting it, this might be an electrical or mechanical issue. This is going to require some more troubleshooting. Ready to begin? First, we need to check the electrical connection. This can be unplugged from the rear of the freezer when shifting or moving the food in the freezer.
To check this, unplug the freezer and pull it out from the kitchen wall. Then, turn off the freezer’s water supply valve. Locate the connection on the rear of the inside of the freezer unit. Essentially this is what plugs the ice maker into the freezer. Be sure that it is actually plugged in properly.
Next, remove all of the ice that’s inside of the ice maker. This can be accomplished by adding a bit of water to help to get ice that’s inside of there out.
Once this is done, restore power to the refrigerator and then turn on the ice maker. It may take the solenoid component a couple of seconds to react and fill the mold. Once the mold is completely full, wait 4-5 hours or so to see if you have solved the problem.
Check for Frozen Lines
More ice maker issues that could cause your ice maker to not produce ice are frozen lines. The water lines might be blocked with frost. This is an easy fix.
Unplug the refrigerator and find the shut off valve. Turn the water off and get a hair dryer to heat up the water line or just let the fridge sit turned off for a couple of hours and wait until the line is thawed.
There are some models that have a water filter that can freeze or ice over. For these cases, finding the water filter is the first step. Then repeat what was done for the iced water line.
When an ice maker is not making big enough pieces of ice, there’s a problem with the settings. To adjust the settings, take the top part of the cover of the ice maker off and locate a standard control that has plus and a minus signs. For this process, you could need a flat head screwdriver.
ADDITIONAL REFRIGERATOR RESOURCES
- Refrigerator Noisy
- Refrigerator Water Dispenser Not Working
- Refrigerator Not Cooling
- How Does a Refrigerator Work?