Residential Ice Maker Line

Well,,, guess what I've been doing for the last hour + , starting about midnight. Was thinking of going to bed when we heard a strange noise and began smelling something burning or getting hot. Started looking and could not find anything, just a smell in the kitchen. Had to go to the potty room and no lights... so went and checked breakers found one tripped. Had wife in kitchen where we thought smell was coming from and reset breaker. It immediately tripped again. Wife hollered she saw sparks and smoke come from behind fridge. So moved fridge out and found the ice maker line was/had a teeny tinny leak and had gotten enough water squirting on the wall plug and fridge plug that it shorted out. Thanks GOD for circuit breakers. From the size of the spray and amount of water on floor and wall soaked, I would say it had been leaking for a week or close to it.

So I dig around and found another wall plug I had and another power cord I spliced on and will get new end for cord and replacement wall plug tomorrow.

I guess the reason I am posting this is to advise those of you that can do it, and have an icemaker in the fridge to replace the nylon/plastic line, or at least check it. The line on mine was aprox 10-12 years old. It was still flexible and looked OK, but it did leak. It has never been over heated or frozen due to it's location. Just hope the fridge compressor was not damaged.

Jim M

Jim, I had pin holes in the line a couple of times. I replaced mine with a braided stainless steel line.

I should have recommended that, because that is what I will be doing also.

Jim M

How difficult is this to do? Really want to change mine out also.


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boatto5er said:

How difficult is this to do? Really want to change mine out also.


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Click to expand...

I think difficulty varies by floor plan. Several of us replaced Jay Coffman's a year ago. The hardest part was getting the line through the slide floor up behind the fridge. There was a large open space between top and bottom entry points that made it a little tricky.

Gus, If you have the water shut off for the ice maker under the sink it is not very hard. I did cut an access panel in the plastic under the camper. I disconnected the plastic line and connected it to the stainless with a coupling. I pulled it down from under the camper and then ran it in the raceway under the slide the same as the plastic line. Next up to the connection for the icemaker. Used eternabond to seal the access panel under the camper.I had help from Jim Marigliano, so it took little longer. We had to stop for some adult beverages. Took about an hour.

My shutoff is right behind the UDC in the basement. I need to do a full line trace to get a comprehensive picture.


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