Loading…
20
My brother in law swore by the $12 heat gun trick on my fridge ice maker, and it lasted 9 days
My ice maker quit making ice back in March, so my brother in law Mike came over and said skip the $180 repair guy and just hit the fill tube with a heat gun for 30 seconds. He said he fixed his the same way at his place in Dayton and it held up fine for him. I bought a $12 heat gun at Harbor Freight, melted the ice, heard it fill that night, and I felt like a genius. Nine days later it froze solid again, and this time the tube cracked and leaked water all over my kitchen floor. The repair guy charged me $260 for the tube plus a new valve, and he said thawing it without pulling the unit just breaks the plastic over time. So what is the real fix here, do I need a new ice maker or is there a way to keep that tube from icing up again?
1 comments
Log in to join the discussion
Log In1 Comment
paule534d ago
Reading up on this last year when mine did the same thing, the tube icing is usually a sign the water valve is letting a little water seep through when it should shut off all the way. That slow drip hits the cold tube and freezes, over and over, until it's a solid plug. Mike's heat gun trick only clears the symptom, and every thaw cycle makes that plastic weaker, which is why yours cracked on round two. The real fix is replacing the valve and checking the fill tube alignment so water doesn't sit in there, or just living with it and defrosting the tube with the unit unplugged. Some folks also put a little foam wrap on the tube, but the valve is the root of it most of the time.
3