Home Improvement- The Icemaker

I finally installed a water line to the fridge, and therein lays today’s tale, as it were.

The installation had been giving me fits. There seemed to be no satisfactory answer because the fridge is in a corner. In the basement, below the fridge, is the fuse box. Yes, fuse box is correct, it’s never been upgraded to breakers. You say “So what?” Well the “what” is that building code does not allow installation of a water line within three feet of a fuse or breaker box.

Measure out three feet from the edge of the fuse box and you wind up about a foot and a half to the side of the fridge. So I figured I could run some ½ inch PVC from the washing machine line up through the floor, cap it off, and tap into it for the line to the fridge. Sure, it would work, but it would be an ugly thing to have on the kitchen floor.

The wife wanted her icemaker. So we got everything we’d need from Home Depot to do the job. One of the things needed was a basic ice-maker connection kit. The choice was plastic or copper, each kit had a seven foot length of tubing. It’s not as much as I want. It’s a 4’1/2 foot drop to the washer line. There won’t be much slack for moving the fridge.

Copper is a hassle. I picked up the kit using plastic pipe. The friendly HD friendly person said, “No, don’t use that, use copper.” And he handed me a kit using copper tubing. Dear God. But being weak-willed I assented. Now we’re going to have copper tubing stretched across the floor. Crap. Damn me for being spineless, but spineless I am.

But I can’t bring myself to drill that ½ inch hole in the floor. It would be ugly. It would be final. Can’t do it, there has to be a better way.

Maybe… Tom would know a better way. Tom is the guy next door whose initials should be DIY. He does everything- tears down cars, welds, fabricates. His day job for the city seems to be just to get money for his projects. He has a work ethic to shame an ant. So why not ask Tom?

I step outside, and there’s Tom walking up our shared driveway. Could this be a sign? Indeed. I explain my predicament; he seems somewhat amused. “Why don’t you just go to Menards and get some plastic pipe, run that through the floor and hook that into the washer line?” But if I do that to come up behind the fridge, won’t I be violating code?
“Nah, that’s just for any joints in case they leak. You’ll just be running tubing from the washer line to the back of the fridge. You’ll be okay.”

There it was, simple, beautiful, easy. I coulda kissed him, but he’s not that kind of guy.

God forbid that I should run into the same guy at Home Depot, so to Menards I go. Their installation kit has 25 feet of tubing. It just keeps getting better. We be on a roll. This suddenly feels very good.

Well it felt good for a little bit. I drill a small hole in the kitchen floor behind the fridge to make sure it’ll be ok. I want the hole at the tile’s seam, so anybody who ever replaces the tile has an easier job of it. I leave the drill bit in the floor so I can find the hole easier. I check it downstairs, nothing. Apparently all the time spent watching Star Trek has not been wasted. No doubt about it, I’ve discovered a wormhole. The drill bit goes into the kitchen floor and comes out somewhere around Alpha Centauri. I hope the Alphas do not find me rude for arriving unannounced. Hopefully they will know I come in peace, but a drill bit coming through looks kind of serious.

The house is overbuilt in its 100 year-old way. Maybe a wider, longer bit would reach. It does not. Screw this, we can go the other way. Into the basement with the drill, put it up as far back as possible, hope and a prayer, and away it goes. And may I just say here, thank God and the inventor he inspired, for cordless drills. It definitely went through something. We have to go upstairs to see now. Oh, boy, oh, boy, it’s like Christmas, only maybe destructive.

The hole is about a foot in from the wall. Dear God. Stone foundation like a freaking castle. Of course the hole is nowhere near a tile seam. Someday some guy will curse me for giving him a crappy job, but I’ll probably be dead by then, or living on Alpha Centauri.

The tubing is ¼ inch. I go crazy and go to 17/64 for that extra 1/64 of play. Oh baby, it slips through so nicely, you’d almost think I knew what I was doing.

I figure, what if I get the freak one in a million bad saddle valve and it starts running as soon as I hook it up to the water supply? Better have the fridge end hooked up first.
So next up, do the compression fitting on the back of the fridge. Snug but not too tight, don’t want to ruin the fitting. Leave the wrench right there in case it’s needed.

Then it’s time for the saddle valve on the water line. This seems kind of rinky-dink to me. You clamp the valve onto the water line, screw it in, back it off, and like magic you’ve got a water connection. Okay, but it still seems kind of rinky-dink to me. Or did I already say that?

Being married to the Supernurse the union area must first be cleaned, scrubbed, sterilized, cauterized, and swabbed with baby wipes. This is health ya’ know, sterile procedure. Clamp, screw, unscrew, and the water flows like magic. No drips, good job for me. I follow the slow flow up the tubing. Oh baby, this could be so good. It reaches the ceiling; I run upstairs to watch. You can’t get this on cable.

Slowly, slowly it reaches the fridge. Then it’s there with a little bubbling. I’ve no problem with letting it clear air out of the line. Bubbling stops and a drip comes out. Grab the handy wrench, and a quarter turn later dry off the top, no more water, no problem.

Oh baby, this is good. Except there’s the little matter of “Does the icemaker work?” The Superwife flips the switch, nothing. It was accidentally tripped before and it made a grumbling sound, but this is nothing, not even a hum. There’s nothing to do but wait and hope it doesn’t mean a service call.

Two hours later, ice cubes! Or a reasonable facsimile thereof. They’re not really cubes. They’re more like half-slices of canned cranberry sauce. As if ice cube description is at all important. But it works. The Superwife is happy. I knowledgeably inform her that the first three loads must be discarded, system flush you know. You can read it in the manual, I did.

When I got home today she told me every once in a while she and the kids would open the freezer to see how many cubes we had. Sometimes it takes so little to make them happy. For a few days anyway, we’re living high on the hog. Tonight, at supper, to drink we had … ice water with non-cubic cubes.

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Whine at me: publicserf@yahoo.com
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