How can I prevent my ice maker from allowing water draining to back up into my pipes and flooding my kitchen?

Question

Problem

Our ice maker occasionally floods the area between the LVP and slab as well as the top of the floor with water. This is because water comes up from the PVC and floods the area just outside of the pipe.

Details

We have a KitchenAid Ice Maker. The rubber drain hose drops into a PVC pipe sticking out of the slab that runs into the rest of the plumbing system throughout the house. There's no pump so it relies on gravity for drainage.

On the other side of the wall is a full guest bathroom with a shower and a toilet.

We've disconnected the ice maker for two weeks and have no problem with any water coming out of the drain pipe (let alone flooding any part of the kitchen).

I'd like to buy whatever additional hardware is needed to create a better system to prevent any overflow from happening so I can reconnect our ice maker.

Questions

I'd obvious like all input from anyone on this Stack Exchange. Would it make sense to install a slightly taller piece of PVC that sits vertical and has a reducer cap on it?

Notes

I don't know what the plumber did when installing this but you'll notice a less than stellar job with the pipe coming out of the slab.

That said, these are all assumptions but based on what I can tell:

• The drain for the ice maker sits slightly higher than that of the toilet and the shower in the room opposite of the ice maker so water has backed up into the pipes and over flowed into the kitchen.

• The drain hose is run too deep into the pipe in the slab and water fills into the hose causing the back up.

• There appears to be a trap based on my being able to look down into the pipe, see clear water sitting near the bottom of the pipe, and running a hose from outside down into the pipe without the water level rising.

Edit

• Clarified drain hose and drain pipe; the hose being the black hose coming out of the ice maker, pipe being the PVC in the slab.
• Added notes about a trap and tests running water from a hose down into the pipe and running water.

Answer 1

Fire the guy who hacked up that pipe. That pipe cannot be replaced without concrete work, and there's already a fitting cemented to it. PVC cement is actually solvent welding so it's all one piece of PVC now. I don't know what you can do to try to recover that.

First, pour 5 gallons of water down that pipe. That's to find out if it even is a drain. Next, my question is: "Is there a Trap down in the concrete? Because if not, you really need a trap on a sewer line. Without it, sewer gas can and will fill the room, and aside from stinking and being unhealthy, it can contain significant amounts of methane. So having poured water down it, I'd look and see if there's a steady and stable "top of a trap" visible down the pipe. If there's not a clear trap, you need to plumb in a trap.

Why is water going all over the floor? If you've established that the drain is not plugged, then there's a problem with the piping from the ice maker to the drain. The #1 candidate there is installer foolishness, expecting water to go uphill instead of reading the instructions and labeling. See page 7. Making sure you have followed installation instructions is your first stop for troubleshooting such a problem.

Kitchenaid hasn't done you any favors with a drain located so close to the bottom of the ice maker. I think typically that model is installed on homes with basements, where they can go through the kitchen floor into studs and to a sump or outside.

I note that some models come with a drain pump, and this is available for retrofit. You may need that, if you are unable to install the unit according to the instructions and labeling.

Answer 2

It sounds like, despite your assertion that PVC isn't actually a working drain to anywhere (the damage makes me suspect it isn't, and the absence of a trap guarantees that it isn't connected to the sanitary drain), or it is clogged.

You could try sending a snake down it and see if that helps, or see if it's supposed to drain to outside somewhere and is blocked.

Personally I'd give up on it and create some other way for the icemaker to drain. That may involve having it drain into a pump which can send the water through a hose in the ceiling to somewhere appropriate.

Answer 3

Why would the Ice maker drain so much water ? Is it defective ? Check the ice maker fill valve for function.

Unless it is running some kind of defrosting cycle. Is it ?

NO.. you should not use that rubber hose. It will only elevate the drain from Ice maker so it will not drain at all.

The plumber did it right, inserting the ice maker drain as low it could.

Now what is going on in the drain pipe sticking out of the floor is another story.

Answer 4

So far as modifying the PVC pipe goes: yes it could be done, and there's a fair chance you can accomplish it without having to break out concrete. It's not easy or quick, but easier and quicker than the alternative!

If you search for "how to reuse PVC fittings" online you'll find a number of YouTube videos demonstrating the process. I would never recommend re-using fittings or pipe as a cost-saving measure, but in a scenario like this where rescuing a fitting or pipe saves a significant amount of work, it can be worthwhile.

In a nutshell, it goes like this:

• Use a heat gun to warm the existing fitting. Work so that it heats evenly all the way around. Normally there's a careful balance between softening the plastic without toasting (browning) it. In this case we actually want to discard the fitting and save the stub of pipe so it's ok if the fitting gets browned.
• "Massage" the fitting with a gloved hand or pliers. Push and twist the plastic. The goal is to break the chemical bond between the fitting and the pipe.

If you have access to cut most of the way through the fitting (slits along the axis of the pipe) this may help. The massaging will cause the thin remaining bit of plastic to tear, which gives you an edge to grab and then peel the fitting's socket off the stub of pipe.