A house up from Tracyton Beach Road with a top-freezer fridge of a certain age and an ice maker running a magic trick: defrost the freezer, get ice for a week, lose it again. The owner had performed this ritual three times before deciding the fourth act should involve a professional. Ten minutes from our shop — the shortest case call of this whole collection.
The heal-and-relapse pattern names its own culprit. We pulled the fill tube and found it frozen solid — again — which is the symptom, not the disease. The disease sat upstream: a fill valve that no longer sealed crisply after closing, weeping a thread of water into the tube between cycles. Each defrost cleared the ice plug; each week of weeping rebuilt it. The ritual would have continued indefinitely.
A full watched cycle confirmed the rest of the chain healthy — mold thermostat cycling, ejector strong, shut-off arm honest, bin sensor sane. On municipal Tracyton water the valve screen was clean, ruling out the scale story we'd chase on a well. One weeping valve, one clean diagnosis, one modest parts line.
An ice maker that recovers after every defrost and relapses on schedule is telling you exactly what's wrong — the freeze is downstream of a slow leak. Clearing ice treats the symptom; the valve is the cure. It's a light parts line when caught, and a permanent mystery when treated with rituals instead of a meter.
Because it melted the plug the weeping valve had built. With the tube briefly clear, fills resumed — until a week of drips froze a new plug in the same cold spot.
The pattern matches, but wells add a second suspect: mineral scale holding the valve open. Same repair either way — the diagnosis just checks one extra box first.
Meters first, opinions second. Two frames of the crew doing what the from-price actually pays for — measured diagnosis at the machine.
The diagnosis that cracked this case is the same one inside every from-price. Call (360) 717-8985 or send the form.