Refrigerators and Ice Makers

The first time the ice maker quit functioning was 5 days after our year long warranty expired.

Of course.

A bit of history. The only ice makers we have ever had up until last year were square and made of plastic which you had to remember to fill periodically. We'd fill 'em, and when we would remember, we'd put the ice cubes in the egg tray we kept in the freezer for that purpose. We didn't have an automatic ice maker -- let alone one that opened on the door where you could get ice AND fill your glass with filtered water. Such an amazing thing!

But I digress. The refrigerator repairman showed up with the cheerful news that one should always have an extended warranty because ice makers were THE most common reason for service calls -- and they were likely to go out on a fairly regular basis.

This was not good news.

We got the new part that was needed, the ice maker was fixed, we paid for the service and decided we would opt for the extended warrantly -- yet another way for Sears to make more money.

Sigh.

Since then -- about 9 months ago, the ice maker has stopped working on average every three months. It happens only on Mondays when we are about to have our Life Group over and we need ice for the soda (also known as pop or Coke, depending upon where you hail from).

Now, of course, that we have paid for the extended warranty, I've figured out how to fix the problem.

My hair dryer.

Nothing like taking a hair dryer to the ice maker and shortly thereafter hearing the satisfying sound of ice cubes dropping into the appropriate receptacle.

I may be the last auto-ice-maker-owner on the planet that doesn't know this -- but for goodness sake, why isn't it written out in the troubleshooting portion of the booklet that comes with the refrigerator?

Oh yeah. Money. I forgot.

Silly me.

...Here's Tim fixing the icemaker...