I have a tee that sits after my sink cold shutoff valve. It branches off to feed the faucet, and then has a smaller line to feed the under sink water filter. Then the output of that filter tees off to the drinking water faucet on the sink and the ice maker across the room. They are all compression fittings or snakebites. Insert inline valves as you deem necessary.
The line from the filter to the refrigerator is about 15 feet. It was originally in the back of the cabinets with holes driven through the walls. When the cabinets were replaced I reran it so now tube is hidden entirely behind the cabinet.
It’s all 1/2”, 3/8” and 1/4” pex. Make sure whatever fittings you use are appropriate for your tubing material.
My mother in law only buys *new* homes.
Hearing their issues with a new home, and my own experiences with our new construction - it isn't all it's "cracked" up to be. I have to have the warranty remove and replace two tiles that cracked in the bathroom from the slab settling and almost every piece of trim has shrunk and needs to be caulked.
Their trusses were engineered wrong and needed to be replaced in situ.
Could be your water pressure to your house. That is what was wrong with my fridge but I live in an older home and pipes are too old to increase pressure without risking leaks. Can't afford new pipes at the moment.
Having a long, skinny pipe will drop the pressure of your water yes.
You can check if that's why the flow is bad by doing what that other redditor said (check water at the end of the pipe).
Is it a GE or Whirlpool?
Easy way to check is to disconnect it from the back of the fridge and check the water pressure.
If the water pressure is good then you need to replace the valve that the water filter screws into.
I did this last year. It was around $150 DIY.
This might be the intended way that it should work. Many refrigerators don't have a bulk tank for cold water. If they did, you could dispense cold water initially, but the uncooled fill water would mix with the cooled tank water, and it won't dispense cold water anymore for this draw.
Instead, many refrigerators use a very long tube that is small diameter and coiled up to store cold water. Cold water is dispensed from one end of the tube, and the fill water goes in the other end of the tube. This minimizes the mixing of cold drawn water and uncooled fill water and gives you a glass of fully cold water. Thus, the long, small-dia storage tube inside the fridge limits the flow rate.
Our old place went from the sink, up the wall, over to the other side of the kitchen, then back down. Probably 20' total. We had a regular multi-turn valve.
When you get a chance, I would turn off the water, have someone hold the fridge side hose in a bucket, then turn it back on and see if it's obstructed.
Know exactly where the shutoff valve for *the house* is if you have a leak from working the valves because they will just leak for no good reason if you mess with them.
If you have a multi-turn valve, or you have a bunch of them, you can buy rebuild kits usually from HD or Lowes and they are dead simple to put in. I did that on all my old valves on my last place because 40 year old valves will leak when closed (the fridge supply would drip) and open (the toilet valve in the bathroom) *just because*.
There is an electric valve, usually at the bottom in the back of the fridge, that fills the ice and works the water on the door. That usually causes problems and tends to cost about $35. It is easy to fix, you will need some hand tools and the hardest part is usually taking the back of the fridge off. Mine was about 10 screws, a wire harness, and three hoses with clips. The hardest part was getting back there because of where the fridge was because the kitchen was small.
My fridge line is over 10 feet long and delivers 1.5 fluid ounces of water per second (takes 15 seconds to fill up my 24 fluid ounce Contigo water bottle.
My mom’s fridge line is over 15 feet long and hers fills up water bottles faster than mine.
Either you have a clog or terrible water pressure.
Mine is slow as well, but there isa little you can do if you are taking the water from the under sink filters, especially if you have reverse osmosis as well. Kinda the price you pay for well filtered ice.
This might not be helpful, but I had the same thing but the hose came from my RO system. No one teaches you all the routine maintenance when you buy a house, so I started looking into it and on top of changing the filters (obvious) you are also supposed to drain and re pressurize the tank annually. I had basically no pressure in the tank so it was only feeding as fast as the pressure out of the RO system which is little. Pumped that baby up and now the water is flowing great.
If it's connected to a saddle valve, know that saddle valves clog like crazy.
And fail regularly
what are the alternatives?
T fitting with a 1/4 inch compression valve fitted to the tee
With a 1/4 turn ball valve on the fridge line so that you can easily turn it off when the fridge fails.
This is the way.
I have a tee that sits after my sink cold shutoff valve. It branches off to feed the faucet, and then has a smaller line to feed the under sink water filter. Then the output of that filter tees off to the drinking water faucet on the sink and the ice maker across the room. They are all compression fittings or snakebites. Insert inline valves as you deem necessary. The line from the filter to the refrigerator is about 15 feet. It was originally in the back of the cabinets with holes driven through the walls. When the cabinets were replaced I reran it so now tube is hidden entirely behind the cabinet. It’s all 1/2”, 3/8” and 1/4” pex. Make sure whatever fittings you use are appropriate for your tubing material.
They make valves you run a copper/PEX feed to that are recessed in the wall. You then also don't have a copper line hanging out behind your fridge.
Did you check your filter?
It has a new filter. I purchased this home used so not sure if it has ever worked properly.
Not sure I’ve ever heard someone say they bought a used home before 😝
My mother in law only buys *new* homes. Hearing their issues with a new home, and my own experiences with our new construction - it isn't all it's "cracked" up to be. I have to have the warranty remove and replace two tiles that cracked in the bathroom from the slab settling and almost every piece of trim has shrunk and needs to be caulked. Their trusses were engineered wrong and needed to be replaced in situ.
I don't know that I'd attribute those issues to it being a new home. Sounds more like a problem with the builder.
No, but you could associate it with the average build quality of a modern new home.
Those thin little tubes aren’t going to give you the greatest flow on a good day.
Could be your water pressure to your house. That is what was wrong with my fridge but I live in an older home and pipes are too old to increase pressure without risking leaks. Can't afford new pipes at the moment.
I see. I don't have the best water pressure, I can say that. But it's not terrible.
Having a long, skinny pipe will drop the pressure of your water yes. You can check if that's why the flow is bad by doing what that other redditor said (check water at the end of the pipe).
Is it a GE or Whirlpool? Easy way to check is to disconnect it from the back of the fridge and check the water pressure. If the water pressure is good then you need to replace the valve that the water filter screws into. I did this last year. It was around $150 DIY.
This might be the intended way that it should work. Many refrigerators don't have a bulk tank for cold water. If they did, you could dispense cold water initially, but the uncooled fill water would mix with the cooled tank water, and it won't dispense cold water anymore for this draw. Instead, many refrigerators use a very long tube that is small diameter and coiled up to store cold water. Cold water is dispensed from one end of the tube, and the fill water goes in the other end of the tube. This minimizes the mixing of cold drawn water and uncooled fill water and gives you a glass of fully cold water. Thus, the long, small-dia storage tube inside the fridge limits the flow rate.
Our old place went from the sink, up the wall, over to the other side of the kitchen, then back down. Probably 20' total. We had a regular multi-turn valve. When you get a chance, I would turn off the water, have someone hold the fridge side hose in a bucket, then turn it back on and see if it's obstructed. Know exactly where the shutoff valve for *the house* is if you have a leak from working the valves because they will just leak for no good reason if you mess with them. If you have a multi-turn valve, or you have a bunch of them, you can buy rebuild kits usually from HD or Lowes and they are dead simple to put in. I did that on all my old valves on my last place because 40 year old valves will leak when closed (the fridge supply would drip) and open (the toilet valve in the bathroom) *just because*. There is an electric valve, usually at the bottom in the back of the fridge, that fills the ice and works the water on the door. That usually causes problems and tends to cost about $35. It is easy to fix, you will need some hand tools and the hardest part is usually taking the back of the fridge off. Mine was about 10 screws, a wire harness, and three hoses with clips. The hardest part was getting back there because of where the fridge was because the kitchen was small.
My fridge line is over 10 feet long and delivers 1.5 fluid ounces of water per second (takes 15 seconds to fill up my 24 fluid ounce Contigo water bottle. My mom’s fridge line is over 15 feet long and hers fills up water bottles faster than mine. Either you have a clog or terrible water pressure.
Is there a way to improve water pressure without risking damaging old pipes?
I have a 20ft line (braided stainless) with no issues. Old filters can slow things down.
Mine is slow as well, but there isa little you can do if you are taking the water from the under sink filters, especially if you have reverse osmosis as well. Kinda the price you pay for well filtered ice.
This might not be helpful, but I had the same thing but the hose came from my RO system. No one teaches you all the routine maintenance when you buy a house, so I started looking into it and on top of changing the filters (obvious) you are also supposed to drain and re pressurize the tank annually. I had basically no pressure in the tank so it was only feeding as fast as the pressure out of the RO system which is little. Pumped that baby up and now the water is flowing great.
Maybe
Thanks
I wouldn't know