Ice Maker Concepts

[applianceguy47]

I've heard that like 90% of the jobs in Houston are related to the oil industry???

 

He's an Engineer and he couldn't fix his own icemaker ??    Don't you feel a little used now? 

I mean,  you haven't been doing this guys homework for him, have you?

 

And, um,  just because he's an 'engineer', doesn't preclude him from also being a drag queen.   I mean really, who better to manage all that girly make-up, shaving, the sequins, the perfect dress, the glitter, and where to tuck certain things. 

I know I wouldn't be able to do all that.

 

Lets think about this, Allen.  Is refrigerator guy married?  Ever been married?  Ever gone on mysterious weekend trips to Austin with friends you've never met, and came back with the smell of perfume, the subtle hint of cherry red on his lips, and a satisfied grin on his face?    hmmm.

 

As for "They didn't tell me..." ,  This is the problem with the coils on the bottom of the refrigerator.  People don't see them, and their difficult to reach.  Even the cleanest persons don't do it.  Its a bad design and it, in my opinion comes down to energy use and politics.  In other words it was designed to be bad so it would use more energy.  Thats what is does when it can't breath.

 

As for the Ice Bin.  Is it just too tall on the edges now?   If that is the case, and it were me,  I would take a jig saw and carefully cut the top edge off (using a straight line to get a clean edge)  No one is ever going to see it or even have to use it.   I wonder if GE purposely designed the new maker to be bigger so that people, who aren't creative,  would then have to go and buy another part that cost as much as the icemaker.

I can just see it.

 

Thanks for listening to my snark and politics and stuff...

 

 

 

[whirlcool]

Oh no problems with your comments, I actually laughed a little bit.

No, this guy has been married twice. He's an aeronautical engineer. Not much common sense either. If you ever have known any engineers they are in a world of their own, usually. I first met this guy when I was involved with an aviation museum here in town a number of years ago.

And besides the dirt& debris under the refrigerator he used the small space between the kitchen cabinets and the refrigerator to store brooms, mops, dustpans, etc and no air could get under the refrigerator that way, on the other side he stored a ton of paper grocery bags in there so air could only get to the coils from the front and back of the refrigerator. That has now been rectified.

The replacement ice maker is the exact same size as the original. It's the way the new power cord connects into the ice maker electrical socket that's the problem. The cable on the new ice maker is 180 degrees off from the original as far as the power cable is oriented in the refrigerator. It's just one corner that's about two inches too tall. I think a Dremel with a plastic cutting tool will do the job in just a few minutes.

That is why this ice maker wouldn't go into forced harvest mode, the bin had pulled the power plug out of the socket. Without the bin installed the forced harvest works just fine. So we just put a plastic bowl in there and I just heard from the guy and he said the freezer is now -5F and the refrigerator is +35F so I told him to adjust the control downwards one notch. But the ice maker is making a lot of ice now.

What a difference a cleaning can make! I wonder how many pro appliance repair guys run into the same situation I did today?

Thank God....

 

[whirlcool]

And no, I didn't feel used at all. I just hung in there because I started the repair job and I always finish what I start. The owner honestly doesn't know anything about appliances. Remember his dryer? Just clogged up with lint until I took it apart and cleaned it and replaced the belt.

But this total repair only cost him $75.00 whereas it probably would have cost over $200 is a GE Repair Guy came a calling.

And besides, having one drag queen in the family is one too many.

 

[applianceguy47]

Dremil tool ! See, this is why you could do this stuff. Your already on top of this.

The mess... service people run into it all the time. Thats another reason why I said your qualified. You've just done the typical service call.

I remember, when I was 12, helping an Uncle in his Appliance service business. One call we went on, the people lived in a typical suburban ranch house of moderate cleanliness. Well they had been cleaning off the top of the frig and after that the frig soon stopped cooling. They called for service, all panicky.

When we pulled out the white Amana, bottom-mount frig, he found a plastic bread bag had simply been sucked into the exhaust fan, covering the recirculation. Removal is all that was needed.

I, and probably everyone else, would love to see pictures, if your friend agrees to the modification you suggested.

Now, now, Back the important stuff-
Your friend <span style="text-decoration: underline;">WAS</span> married ?  So he's single now?  And he doesn't have a lot of common sense...  hmmm. 

So if this guy, shall we say, chose the wrong team to play on.... 

oh, just my thinking out loud.  I'm sure its nothing.

Maybe just ask him about the feathers again.

 

 

 

 

[whirlcool]

When I deal with people I usually don't think about if they are straight or gay. It doesn't really enter my mind until someone does something that makes me think that.
I've known this guy for several years and he definitely does not hang out with "the girls". What he does on his own time is really none of my business. And I don't really care either way.

I'll take some photos when I get around to doing the modification to the ice bin.
But that will be after Christmas. If this thread hangs around that long. I just want to get this ice maker stress out of my mind for the time being.

Another thing about repair work. Down here we have all kinds of creepy crawlies.
I would hate to have to work on an appliance that is infested with roaches, or mice or anything of that ilk. So far I haven't encountered any like that. So for the time being until someone comes begging, and I do mean begging, my days of repairing appliances for others are over!

I still remember the Whirlpool repairman who had to replace the fan in our Whirlpool refrigerator. It was about 1/2 in under the back of the refrigerator on the bottom. It was in a tight place. He had to lay one the floor with his legs up the wall and then while laying on his back with his hands over his head reach in there and without being able to see anything at all, unscrew the fan motor and disconnect the power cable and install a new one the same way. If there had been any bugs in there they would have been crawling all over his hair. When he was done with the repair I told him he earned every penny of the rather high labor charge.

 

[arbilab]

I had located a mechanical GE icemaker for free but it probably wouldn't fit, older.

Cats will glom up computers too, laptops even faster. Just looked under my fridge and it's pretty fuzzy and inaccessable unless someone else held it tilted.

 

[applianceguy47]

"Down here we have all kinds of creepy crawlies. "   I don't blame you.  I've seen some things that....

 

I once bought a used frig. that came from a Chicago apartment complex for an apartment I owned.  I had it outside and was planning to do a complete clean out with the hose, soap, scrub brush, etc.

 

I cleaned it, brought it in the house and had to reverse the door swing.  I'm thinking this is all cleaned and ready to go.  I popped the cover off the screw/hinge cover on the top of the frig. and off and running a couple of roaches go.  Quickly I smashed them so they didn't get away, but no one needs that surprise.

 

Snakes, fleas, roaches, mice, ants, dust mites, in addition to dust, rust, dirt, spiders, splatters, spills, webs, mouse nests, dampness, apparently feathers.... these all migrate to the bottom portions of a refrig. 

The heat from the poorly placed compressor (that should be on the top of the frig) along with insulation, the condensate pan, free flowing air are what attracts it.  

That really is disgusting, the more I do the math.  Refrigs with compressors underneath, coils underneath, and fiber glas insulation are aweful!

 

Anyway,  good for you for completing your project.  I hope to see your pictures of the ice bucket modification.

 

 

 

[whirlcool]

Down here it's pretty easy to keep vermin and insects out of your house. But apartment complexes are usually notorious roach castles. Years ago the owners of apt complexes used to spray them down every other month to keep the roach population down. But too many people started complaining that they were allergic to the sprays that were being used and most of them stopped the roach control.

I won't say anymore but you can use your imagination about what the appliances were probably like.

Here is a question for you all. Would installing an inline water filter on the water line going into the refrigerator help with extending the life of the new ice maker? When we took the old ice maker out and after it dried there was all kinds of reddish powdery residue in each of the pockets where the ice was made. Remember this is a 1994 GE refrigerator.

And I did use a can of compressed air to blow out the line leading from the water inlet solenoid to the ice maker before I installed it to make sure there wasn't any debris in the line.

 

[DADoES]

 
<blockquote>He's an Engineer and he couldn't fix his own icemaker ?? Don't you feel a little used now?</blockquote> I once helped a NASA rocket engineer fix his dryer via contact through another message board.  His e-mail addy referenced a research base and search of his name confirmed it.

 

[whirlcool]

Cats will glom up computers too, laptops even faster. Just looked under my fridge and it's pretty fuzzy and inaccessable unless someone else held it tilted.


We used a hand dolly to hold the refrigerator up on one side. Just about a foot of tilt on one side gave us access to all the coils underneath. I agree, it really is a bad design. We also removed the back cardboard/fiberglass backing that was on the lower 1/4 of the refrigerator because it was disintegrating. I think we gave this refrigerator a few more years of life.

A few years ago my sister had a Dell desktop PC. When she tried to run her hard drive backup program just before it ended the computer would shut down. Her & her husband couldn't figure out what was wrong. I did, I had them open the case and sure enough the case fan wasn't even plugged in anywhere. Plugged it in where it was supposed to go and cleaned out all of the cat hair that had totally encased the case interior and the problem was resolved.

I've taken apart a few laptops before and was surprised at how dusty/dirty they were. They seem to catch everything.

 

[whirlcool]

I've heard that like 90% of the jobs in Houston are related to the oil industry???

It used to be that about 60% of the well paying jobs here were in the oil industry.
But around 1985 when the industry crashed, Houston had some very hard times right after that.

So the city became more diversified in what kind of businesses are based here.
Now there is a lot of transportation, film making, corporate headquarter type of jobs here. I came here to retire as the cost of living and what you get for your money goes a lot further than anywhere else!

 

[DADoES]

 
Allen, depending on the design of the unit, the cardboard backing may be needed to properly route condensor airflow.  My 2004 Arctica has a "jellyroll" condensor with the fan mounted inside it at one end to pull air directly through, so it doesn't really need the rear panel.  My grandmother's 28-years-old Whirly, however, does need the rear panel.  It was deteriorated and tore when I changed the compressor relay a couple years ago, so I made a new panel.

A friend gave a laptop to me several years ago.  She said it was overheating frequently, although she did have a dual-fan cooling platform for it.  I don't much care for laptops so I tossed it in a closet.  Found a use for it about 1.5 years later.  Blew all the cat hair out of the fan and vents and it hasn't overheated even once.

 

[whirlcool]

How do I tell if this refrigerator needs a backing installed? Are there any symptoms I should watch for?

 

[whirlcool]

I finally finished this ice maker replacement.

In order for the original bin to fit I had to cut the left rear side of the ice collection bin two inches down and three inches across to accommodate the longer power cord of the replacement ice maker.

I used a Dremel with a high speed cutter bit and cut the section out. Then I used a sanding bit to buff the sharp edges on the plastic bin down. The result is that the bin looks like it came from GE this way. The entire bin cutting job took less than 5 minutes.

So this job has been completed and closed. And hopefully this refrigerator will last many more years.