In-fridge icemaker makes hollow ice cubes. How to fix?

Question

My freezer's icemaker is producting ice cubes that are pretty much hollow, with a thin 'shell' of ice in the shape of the mold. Instead of solid blocks, the ice is so thin they break up into tons of tiny little ice shards. The net result is the ice I gets melts virtually immediately and has little cooling power in our drinks. A few cubes produced are solid, but most are hollow.

How can I fix what is going on? There don't seem to be any obvious controls for the ice maker. The fridge is a Frigidaire FRT22IRSH.

Answer 1

I eventually fixed the problem, and it turned out to be insufficient water flow to the icemaker.

The ice maker was being fed via a clamp-on saddle valve. I closed that off, disconnected it, and soldered in a 1/4" brass line with a 'proper' shut off valve. That provided plenty of flow rate, and since then the icemaker has been working flawlessly.

Answer 2

The Frigidaire FRT22IRSH has a conventional ice maker. The only thing which could cause the described symptoms is if the ice freezing cycle terminates prematurely. That could be caused by poor refrigeration (like if the temperature is not set cold enough), but could also be caused by a defect in the ice maker's timer and/or sensing.

Start by checking the freezer and refrigerator temperatures and adjusting the thermostat so that the refrigerated portion is about 36 °F/2 °C (35–38 °F/1.5–3 °C is the ideal range).

The freezer temperature should be below 20 °F/-6 °C. Ideally it is between -10 and 0 °F (-23 and -18 °C).

If those are okay, then inspect the ice maker mechanism to see if anything seems broken, bent, munged, or missing. It's also worth a look to see if the door seal is in good shape or the cabinet is damaged or has a hole it shouldn't.