Replace a Fridge's Plastic Ice Maker Line With Braided Stainless Before It Splits

The Problem

The water line to a fridge's ice maker is often a thin plastic tube, usually quarter-inch poly, run from a valve under the sink or a saddle tap on a nearby supply. Plastic that thin goes brittle. It cracks at the bends, splits where a compression ferrule bit into it years ago, and it does all of that in the one place in the kitchen nobody looks.

A split there drips down the back of the cabinet kickboard and under the floor rather than out into the room. The first symptom is usually cupped flooring or a stain on a basement ceiling, months after the leak started.

The Technique

The check takes five minutes and the fix takes about the same.

1. Pull the fridge out far enough to see the connection at the wall and the inlet at the back of the appliance.
2. Look at the line itself. If it's a thin plastic tube, replace it. Grey or clear poly that's gone stiff and yellowed is at the end of its life whether or not it's leaking today.
3. Shut off the water at the valve feeding the line, then open the fridge's dispenser or run the ice maker to bleed the pressure off.
4. Undo the compression nut at each end and pull the old line out. Keep a towel under it — the line stays full.
5. Fit a braided stainless steel ice maker line in its place. They come in standard lengths with the right fittings on both ends, so it's usually hand-tight plus a quarter turn with a wrench, no cutting.
6. Turn the water back on and watch both fittings for a couple of minutes before you push the fridge back. Then check again the next day.

Braided stainless is the same construction as the supply lines already feeding your toilet and taps: a flexible inner tube inside a woven steel sleeve that takes the stress instead of the tube.