Make ice, not puddles

We recently had our first few days in the upper 90s. The air conditioners held up fine, but we really started to miss having an ice maker. Our refrigerator, which we got off Craiglsist for $100, had an ice maker, but we had never hooked it up.

Our first step was to run a water line through the kitchen floor, into the basement, and through the wall to the laundry room, where we could easily tap into an existing line. The line came as part of a kit from Home Depot that included all the proper fittings. Working with my father-in-law, we drilled a hole in the kitchen floor, popped a hole in the basement ceiling (which knocked out a little more drywall than we intended), and drilled another hole through the wall.

The kit included a neat method of connecting to the existing water line. We simply had to clamp this device onto the old line and attach the new line. By spinning the handle, a needle punctures the old line. Spinning the handle the other way removes the the needle and allows the water to flow into the new line.  No splicing or anything--very simple.

We turned the water on and quickly realized there was a problem. A large puddle formed on the floor immediately, and continued to grow as I ran downstairs to cut the water off. I determined  that the leak was not from the ice maker itself, but rather from a small unit located at the lower back of the fridge. Clearly, it was time to open the back of the fridge. It had clearly not been opened in a while. The dust was thick. You can see the offending unit at the right of this picture.

The offending unit was some type of valve. I disconnected the old piece and found a part number. We tracked down the right piece at D&L Parts, a great appliance store off Hillsborough Street. It was only $17 or so.

The new one (below) didn't look much like the old one, and it took a little time to figure out which end was the inlet and which was the outlet. Still, we got it hooked up pretty quickly, and turned the water back on to test it...

...and it did not go well. As you can see above, I made yet another large puddle on the kitchen floor. I quickly turned the water off again. We decided that the culprit was probably just a lack of thread sealing tape, so we pulled all the tape off and redid it--much thicker this time. It was difficult to get the fittings to bite, but once they did, I cranked down on them as hard as I could, using two wrenches to get a good grip. Finally, it worked. No leaks.

After an hour, though, we still had no ice. We figured out that I hadn't opened the valve enough. Water was flowing, but it wasn't actually filling the trays. Once we got that right, the trays filled up immediately, and by the next morning, we were well on our way to a full bin of ice.