Ice ice baby!

We have a side by side fridge with and water and ice dispenser in the freezer door.  It looks something like this.

Sometime last year, at which point the fridge was only a couple of years old, the ice maker stopped working.  We intended to have someone come look at it, and somehow never did.  At some point, Jared looked online and discovered the problem could be that the water line could be frozen.  That could be something we could fix ourselves, woohoo!  I finally emptied the freezer out yesterday.  I wanted to defrost it and assumed that we could turn the freezer off separately from the fridge, but I was wrong.  We didn't want to turn the whole thing off if possible just so we wouldn't have a lot of spoiled food on our hands, so tonight Jared tried using a hair dryer to heat up the water line to the ice maker.  We hoped that after a few hours the freezer would cool back down and perhaps actually start making some ice again.  That was a few hours ago...and a few minutes ago I heard a THUNK...could it be???  I ran downstairs (well, hobbled is more like it) and this is what I found...

YEAH BABY!!!  I hope it continues working overnight and by morning the bin is at least half full.  Apparently this is a common problem with ice makers.  Yes, we could have just put ice cube trays in the freezer and made ice the 'old fashioned' way.  But an ice maker rocks!  No filling of trays, ice bin is always full...yes, I am that lazy! lol  Jared makes awesome home made iced cappuccinos, and I used to make home made slurpees with ice, fruit and juice.  I have also found that I definitely don't drink as much water when I don't have ice to put in it.  Even though the water from the dispenser is cold, I like it to be really really cold...ice cold, as one might say!  So, as I sit upstairs with my laptop, I'm keeping an ear open for the next thump!  YAY!

Update on Friday, August 14, 2009 at 10:01PM by Charlotte

Wouldn't you know it, that was all the ice we got.  I can see a drop of frozen water dangling out of the filler tube, so it obviously froze up again.  It seems that would be an inherent problem in a freezer, how do you keep the water in the tube from freezing??