Problem with fridge?

We have the GE Profile side-by-side refridgerater that comes standard in Van Metre's homes. Within the past 6-8 weeks, the water supply line that brings water to the in-door dispenser has frozen (twice just in this week). We've had to empty the freezer for 2-3 hours to thaw the water line. Has anyone else had this kind of problem? Any ideas?

 

Kinda interesting what GE says could be the problem. I did a search on water dispenser freezing and got this as a possible problem:

The condition of the dispenser tank behind your vegetable drawers is important. If it is frozen, you may be getting water in the icemaker, but not the dispenser. To rid the tank of the ice, increase air circulation by increasing the run time on the refrigerator. This can be done by turning the thermostat up, or by adding more food to the refrigerator.

Its worth a shot !!

 

Thanks, Neilz! I'll give it a try

Heaven knows, my coolers don't add much to the decor in my kitchen!

 

We have the exact same problem!

The water line froze and built up ice and as it did so, sprayed water all over the inside of the freezer (when it was time for the ice maker to get more water) creating a nice block of ice at the back of the freezer and all along the walls.

I've tried numerous things. Dethawed it. It would work for a few cycles and do it again. Everything seems fine so I have no idea what the problem could be.

Until we can get someone out to look at it we have just turned the ice maker off and have gone back to the ancient days of ice cube trays.

 

Sounds like a similar problem, but not quite the same...our ice maker works just fine. The part of the water line that freezes in ours is the part that goes to the water dispenser in the door. We tried replacing the filter, then shifted to defrosting the freezer. We have a neighbor that paid a repairman a ridiculous fee to defrost theirs, so we haven't called for service yet. Making it a little warmer in the fridge as suggested above seems to have worked so far, but it's only been a day or two. Hope you come up with something soon - your sitch sounds worse than ours - we just have to buy bottled water!

 

We are experiencing problems as well as our neighbors. Both with the ice maker on our GE Profiles (Van Metre). We get water to the dispenser but not to the ice maker. Has anyone found a good fix to the problem or can recommend a good repairman?

 

My mum had a similar freezing/leaking problem (bot not exactly frozen water line) with her GE Side by Side -- symptoms were poor cooling, and temperatures that were way too high -- it was the defrost heater element... it was about $20-30 on ebay. It fixed her up right away.....

so, to diagnose, I took off the back panel (inside the freezer section) so you can see the coils -- if they are a solid block of ice, it is either the thermostat or the defrost heater element. Look for the heater element(s) and if the glass tube is all black and nasty looking, it has burned out.

There are a lot of resources out there like doityourself.com forums or also http://applianceguru.com/

Check normal stuff too, like make sure the coils under the fridge are free of dust, make sure the seals around your doors are ok, make sure the compressor isn't too hot, etc. (check the above sites)

Basically I learned that GE fridges are krapp and are to be avoided like the plague! =) Sure beats a $300+ repair call

 

I have this exact same problem. Our water comes out the door dispenser fine, but it does not make ice at all. My husband was able to fill the ice cube tray and it dumped the cubes, so that part works. We just don't have any water coming into the ice cube tray from the water line. No idea why, but if you figure it out please post or let me know so I can fix ours too. We are buying bags of ice and still dispensing through the door. Silly but it works for now.

Suzanne

 

Do what I did. Sell your GE side by side to Lee, then buy yourself a nice Maytag Ice2O french door beauty.

 

That is way too funny, and even tho you have been over here you still have not see your old beautiful ref. color coordinated with the carpet in me garage. I guess I will have to have a ref. party soon ha ha ha ha I have been dying to show you how well we have taken care of your beautiful ref.

 

Yeah, but it'd be nice if you kept some beer in it!!!!!

 

You just come over at the wrong times

Lee j

 

I was reading through the old posts re: fridge problems and I came about this post (quoted above). It was exactly our problem -- Our GE side-by-side refrigerator is 4-yrs old. On it's 15th month, the water dispenser stopped working. After I defrost it overnight, the water dispenser works again. Except, after a while, it froze up again every other day. I was worried about a hefty repair bill (since it's after the one-year warranty), so we lived with "brita" for almost three years. Then, this month, the freezer/fridge stopped cooling. The water dispenser was working!!! But. I had to throw everything out after a day because they were spoiled. I finally called GE, and when the (nice) service guy came, he replaced the W5R1X5101 (heater/defroster). He said it happens a lot, and so GE just charges a standard $100 to replace this for units less than 5 years.

Now, the howling sounds are back. I'm kinda expecting the water dispenser to stop working again. Oh, well.... :rolleyes3:

 

When they replaced the bad board for us, apparently under warranty, the howling went away. But keeping the temp at the lowest so as not to freeze the waterline caused the freezer to fluctuate greatly (by 20 degrees!) so I had them come out and look at the board again. He said it wasn't the board, but my thermometer was crappy. I still am not sold on that idea since the food would get crystals on it at times (indication of thawing some imo).

He ended up putting a "heater" in the water line.......... something they specifically make so it doesn't freeze. Now our freezer can be on #5 and our ice cream doesn't get soft. Small price to pay is that the water melts the ice faster, but I can live with it. We also got the work "done under warranty" related to the bad board.

 

We have water to the dispenser, our fridge and freezer work fine BUT our ice maker is not making ice. Any suggestions out there?

backtothewoo, what number did you call to schedule the repair?

 

I scheduled online at http://www.geappliances.com/service_and_support/service/
It's best if you have the model and serial number handy, so they can check if it's under warranty, too.

They also have this number for GE appliance service:
1-800-848-7620
Monday - Friday: 7 a.m. - 10 p.m. ET
Saturday - Sunday: 8 a.m. - 6 p.m. ET

 

Backtothewooo - FWIW - we had the howling sounds a few months ago, it was pretty loud high pitched howl and kept waking the baby up (his bedroom is over our kitchen).

At anyrate , we went through the GE service site and it turned out to be the compressor fan & mother board both of which needed to be replaced.

Our fridge is about 4 years old and it did not cost us a penny to have it fixed - they also replaced the ice dispenser as it had several cracks in the clear plastic.

Hope this helps.

 

It would have been nice if I didn't have the pay the $100, but I'm not complaining. I didn't call when it was just a howling problem (maybe I should have). I called for service because it was not cooling. We suffered through it over the weekend. The kids were comparing it to the olden times when there was no refrigeration - I had to tell them that even during my childhood, there were already refrigerators

thepea2001, did they tell you outright that it would not cost you anything? If the howling gets worse, I'll call them if it's for free service!

 

Backtothewooo - in our experience the howling problem related to the lack of cooling in the upper portion of our fridge & lack of defrost in the freezer. (thats what the tech told us)

If I remember correctly - it took GE 4 attempts to fix the issue, which turned out to be compressor fan. GE indicated it was covered and there was no cost to us, but this took several calls with the CS center and tracking of our various trouble tickets.

Hope this helps.