How frustrating, especially in the heat of summer, to have a refrigerator that should be making ice and supplying cold water, but doesn’t. For some unknown reason, repairing the water line to the refrigerator is just one of those nuisance kind of things that we neglect until we no longer remember that the refrigerator is supposed to make ice. Correcting a leak or changing a water line is a simple project that you can do for yourself. You can purchase a new refrigerator water line in plastic, braided steel or copper. You’ll want to measure the distance from your refrigerator to the water line to make sure that you have enough length.
Pull the refrigerator out from the wall and find the water valve shutoff, which should be directly behind or close to the refrigerator. Turn off the water supply to the refrigerator. If you cannot easily locate the water valve, you may have to trace the existing line coming from the refrigerator, as it is possible that when your home was built a refrigerator water line wasn’t in the plan at that time. With the proper sized wrench, disconnect the old water line from the refrigerator and the water source. Connect the new line back to the refrigerator and the water source.
If you have just purchased a new refrigerator with water and ice dispensing features, and your old refrigerator did not have those amenities, you may discover that your home was not plumbed for a refrigerator water line. If this is the case, you will want to call your local plumbing professional to have a water line to your refrigerator installed.
