Most Common Causes for Your Ice Machine Not Working

When you want some cold, refreshing ice to clink into your glass, nothing is more frustrating than finding out the hard way that your ice maker is not working. Before you Google “How to fix ice maker,” you need to find out the answer to the question, “why is my ice machine not working?” Once you know the root of the problem, you can proceed with a solution bound to work. The article below lists the most common reasons why your ice machine isn’t doing its job.

Why is my ice machine not working?

While there are plenty of different causes for ineffective or broken ice machines, there are some causes that are more common than others. If you have an ice machine, the first order of business when it isn’t working properly is to investigate a few key parts to see if they are broken or clogged. To start, you can look at the water-fill tubes to see if they have been clogged. If you don’t see anything in the water-fill tubes, you can move on to checking the water inlet valve.

If the inlet valve appears to be iced through, it won’t work since frozen valves cannot function properly. If the water inlet valve has something blocking the water coming through it, it also will not work. This could be the culprit of your faulty ice machine. 

When an ice maker refuses to budge, the main cause can also be a water filter that hasn’t been cleaned in a while. If the water filter needs changing because it is saturated with dirt and filth or past its prime, this is one of the easiest fixes. Once you replace the filter, it should be good to go. Beyond a dirty filter, a clogged filter can also be an issue. Because of this, it is important to regularly inspect the water filter for dirt or debris and change it on a regular schedule according to the ice maker’s instructions.

When an ice machine isn’t working, it can also result from a faulty heating element. Ironically, when the ice machine is having a hard time, a heating element can cause problems and prevent it from producing frigid cubes or frosty shavings. 

The simplest cause of an ice maker that doesn’t want to make ice is someone bumping the pause command by accident. Before you feel silly for thinking your ice machine is broken because of a basic mistake, know that we’ve all been there before! Once you undo the pause command, if your ice machine starts producing ice, it is safe to say that it wasn’t broken, and you don’t need to do any further inspections.

Other common causes of struggling or non-functional ice machines include low thermostats that drop the temperature too much for the ice maker to do its job and an incorrectly positioned control arm. 

Categorised in: Ice Machine Repair

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