Common fault
Why has my ice maker stopped making ice?
Short answer
Take a cube out and look at it before you agree to any part.
What is actually going on
Hollow, undersized or cloudy means the mold is not filling as it should, and with San Diego's hard water that is usually an overdue filter, a scaled fill tube, or low pressure at the inlet valve. A machine producing nothing at all, sitting in a freezer that is perfectly cold, has a harvest problem instead: the module, its thermostat, or the motor that drives it. Those are different repairs, and a new module bolted onto a starved water line makes the same cubes the old one did.
What we check, and in what order
What we check, in order. Pressure at the inlet valve, because that reading separates the two repairs. Filter age and the condition of the housing. The fill tube, which scales up and then ices over. The mold heater and the harvest motor. On undercounter clear-ice machines, the condenser and the pump, both of which cut production roughly in half long before they stop altogether.
Water reaches these machines through whatever plumbing the last kitchen remodel left behind, which in Uptown is often a long, thin run with a shutoff nobody has turned in years. It is worth confirming that valve is fully open before you call anyone, and worth telling us how old the filter is when you do.
If that matches what yours is doing, say so when you call — it decides which parts come on the van.
Baking on the Wolf had been off for a while, everything coming out pale, though the oven read the right number the whole time. He tested the sensor cold and then again hot, where it went open. He also called ahead about the market closing Normal Street, which saved him circling.
The freezer column kept frosting up along the back wall no matter how often I cleared it out. Turned out to be the defrost heater. Fast, tidy, explained what he was doing, and left the panel sitting flush like nothing had been touched.
Called about the undercounter drawers in our island frosting over and the little ice machine in the bar run making about half what it used to. He asked on the phone about the garage off the alley, which nobody ever does, and turned up with time to do both.
Appliance down in Hillcrest?
Tell us the brand and what it is doing — we can usually name the likely repair before we arrive.
Questions
Answers before you call
Would I be better off putting the money toward a new unit?
Replacing is more disruptive up here. A built-in sits in an opening cut for it in a home never framed for a 48-inch box, and its door often carries a wood panel matched to cabinetry no longer produced; replacement becomes a cabinet job with an appliance attached. What fails is ordinary: an evaporator fan, a defrost heater or sensor, a seal, an ice maker module.
What actually happens during the visit?
Nothing is priced until the grille is off and the condenser checked, because a loaded coil explains most warm refrigerators up here. Temperatures come off a calibrated probe at the evaporator and at the grille discharge, not off the door setpoint, plus the airflow path. Then one figure covering parts and work goes to you, and tools stay down until you approve it.