A Kenmore Ice Maker That Has Stopped, and the Five Things It Needs

Kenmore ice maker not working: five conditions, all of them silent

This is the one complaint on the site where the model prefix changes almost nothing. An ice maker in a Whirlpool-built 106, an LG-built 795 and a Frigidaire-built 253 works in the same way and stops for the same reasons, because it is a small mechanical device doing a sequence of simple things.

That sequence has five links. Every one of them has to be true on every cycle, and breaking any one produces exactly the same result: no ice, no sound, nothing on the display. None of these manufacturers publishes a code for it. The machine has no way to tell you which link is broken, which is why guessing is expensive and working in order is not.

One: the arm, or the sensor

The oldest and best check. Ice makers with a wire shut-off arm stop when the arm is held up — by a full bin, by a bag of frozen peas, or by an ice cube wedged behind it. Ice makers with an optical sensor stop when the beam is blocked, and a splash of frozen water on the lens does that perfectly well.

Look before anything else. It costs nothing and it is right often enough to be embarrassing.

Two: water arriving

The supply comes through a valve at the back of the appliance, from a line under the sink or behind the wall. Three things stop it: a closed or half-closed shut-off valve, a kinked or crushed supply line where the appliance was pushed back, and a filter so old it has become a restriction.

If the door dispenser gives water normally, this link is fine and you can move on. If it gives nothing, the problem is here rather than in the ice maker.

Three: the freezer is not actually cold enough

This is the one that catches people, because the freezer is clearly working — everything in it is frozen.

An ice maker does not harvest on "below freezing". It waits for the mold to reach a temperature well down toward zero degrees Fahrenheit before it will turn out a batch. A freezer sitting at fifteen degrees keeps your food frozen and never makes ice, and it looks like an ice maker problem right up until somebody measures.

Put a thermometer in a small container of cooking oil, leave it overnight, and read it in the morning.

Four: the fill tube has frozen closed

The short tube that delivers the fill into the mold sits in freezing air, and a slow leak past a tired valve lets a little water sit in it between cycles. It freezes, the next fill hits the plug, and water backs up and spills — which is why this one often presents as a sheet of ice under the ice maker rather than as no ice at all.

Melting the plug fixes it for a fortnight. The valve that let the water dribble is the actual repair.

Five: the mold cannot let go

The last link. A small heater warms the mold just enough for the ice to release before the ejector sweeps it out. If it fails, the cycle stalls with a full mold and the machine quietly stops.

This is the point at which it stops being a homeowner job, and it is also the only link on the list where the answer is usually a new ice maker assembly rather than a repair to one.

Why the order is the whole method

Because there is no code and no symptom to sort by, the only defense is sequence. Check the free links first, measure the temperature before assuming the mechanism, and treat the assembly as the last answer rather than the first.

We work the same list in the same order on the visit, which is why the useful things to tell us on the phone are the freezer temperature, whether the dispenser gives water, and whether there is ice building anywhere it should not be.