Just a shot in the dark here, but does anyone here know about Kenmore ice-makers?
I have a Kenmore Elite refrigerator/freezer with a bottom mount drawer freezer. The ice maker no longer works. When it fills the cups, water drips out somewhere and freezes in the ice bucket. The “cubes” go ahead and freeze, but now the paddles no longer eject the frozen water. It just sort of sits there and makes a soft grinding noise. I suspect I just need to replace the entire ice unit. I have found the part and it costs about $150. It looks fairly simple to remove the old ice unit and install the new one. In fact, I have installed an ice kit on an older Kenmore freezer many years ago.
This is my question: Do I need to turn off the water? When I detach the old ice maker and disconnect the water line, is water going to shoot freely into the freezer? Disconnecting the water is not impossible, but it is not terribly easy, either. If I could avoid doing that, it would be great. Any info or advice you have would be great.
The symptoms of the problems: as the cups are being filled, water drips from the end closest to the door (closest to the user). This causes an icicle to form, and eventually liquid water drips into the ice bucket, forming a frozen stalagmite and freezing the loose “cubes” together, making a solid mess. Until recently, the ice-maker continued to work properly, however. Now, the paddles do not eject the “cubes”, and just sit motionless. To correct this, I poured warm water into the cups and melted the ice that was in there. The paddles appear to have moved through the liquid water and re-set for the next cycle. However, now the water is frozen again and the paddles are not ejecting the ice. This is a bummer.
Sears just rebadges other makers’ models as Kenmore, so depending on what you bought and when it was bought, it could be a Maytag, or a Frigidaire, or a Whirlpool or some other brand of fridge entirely.
I’d look up what you actually have (via the magic of Google), and see if there’s any more info out there for that.
Barring that, I’d say yes, you have to turn the water off. I’m sure there’s a valve in the icemaker assembly that lets a specific amount of water into the trays, and if you take out the entire assembly, what’s to keep the water from shooting everywhere?
Yes, turn the water off. In my fridge (for example) the valve is located outside of the ice maker, but do you really want to have the line disconnected when it decides to call for water?
As for what’s wrong, I’m guessing the gear is stripped and/or the heater (that helps eject the ice) is broken. You may be able to pull the unit out and see what’s going on.
Shutting off the water is safest, but usually, the water fill valve is triggered by the ice maker, so there won’t be a mess when you swap the ice maker.
Do yourself a favor and google the fridge’s model number to see what the common repair themes are. It would be annoying to buy a new ice maker and find the real fault is with a thermostat or timer.
Or your problem is with the electric water valve.
Lifting the bail will shut the ice maker down and with the on-off bail in the raised position there should be no more water dripping or dispensing into the ice maker.
My thermostat stuck on my fridge and froze the water filter breaking the upper half.
I run my ice maker by poring 2/3 cup of water into the cube tray then lift and lower the shutoff bail. Not as convenient as a full automated ice maker, but better than trays.
I have also found that ice makers don’t work well if temp is set to cold. We have a couple fridges in the church kitchen and both will not function if temp is set colder than the normal setting or very close to it.
Have same fridge with similar issues. Removed ice bucket & thawed thoroughly. Cleaned out bucket where it sits in door. Cleaned out chute. Used hair dryer to clear out tubing. Works great now.
As stated above, this is a generic unit shared by several makers and should be available for less than you have found. Assuming the electrical plug is in tight (if it isn’t, the release heater may be disconnected) and the tray itself is level, buying a new one is probably the way to go. Over a long weekend I diddled one of these and voodoo is involved. The assumption is that the icicles are caused by a faulty water level setting…but moving the level screw more than 1/2 turn will put it out of range. And check for peeling Teflon in the trays. If it’s coming off, you’ll feel better about the $100.
It might be worth removing everything, cleaning it all and replacing it, making sure it’s all level, before pulling the trigger for a new one.
Thank you all for the helpful replies. This weekend, I am going to dismantle the unit and see if just cleaning any crud out will help. If that doesn’t get it working, then I will replace it. I have found one on eBay for about $45, which is $100 less than Sears PartsDirect. Our water here is very hard, so it is possible that sediment has accumulated. To combat this, I have an in-line filter in addition to the fridge’s own built-in filter. I will check the dates on those and see if those require replacement as well.
Well, I didn’t wait until the weekend. I got home from work a little early today and had some free time. Removing the ice-maker from the freezer was very simple. Once I had it out, the problem was fairly obvious. The water had corroded the ice tray and was leaking ever so slightly. This accounted for the icicles. Upon closer visual inspection, I discovered that the leak also ate through part of the heating element. The element no longer had continuity, so wasn’t working. The stuck ice then could not be ejected and the gears just sat there grinding.
I found a seller on eBay that has the ice-maker for $45. It will be on its way soon.