How to Defrost an Ice Maker

Author: nicO (and one other contributor)

Defrosting an ice maker should be done at the very least once a year. You may need to defrost more often than this if you use the ice maker frequently or live in a humid environment. Additionally, if your ice maker is frozen solid and not producing or dispensing ice, then defrosting may be helpful.

Start with resetting your ice maker as a means to initiate a defrost cycle. The defrost cycle turns on the defrost heater, and will begin to melt stuck ice, perhaps solving the problem or making further troubleshooting easier.

You may have to wait up to 24 hours after resetting before your appliance starts making ice again. Then, ice makers will produce 2 trays of ice every 3 hours.

When a reset does not work, move onto running a Forced Defrost (FD) of the freezer. This looks different for each machine, so refer to the link.

Once in forced defrost mode the heaters in the freezer will run a heating cycle for 20-30 minutes, and upwards to one hour.
Some refrigerator models will beep every second for the entire defrost cycle. It's best to leave the room and maintain sanity.
If you see water melting, try to remove chunks of ice from the ice maker before running another defrost cycle. This process may take 20-30 minutes each cycle.

After several Forced Defrost cycles with no melting ice, run a refrigerator defrost (RD) cycle. Your fridge automatically defrosts several times a day, but there are cases when manual defrosting is necessary, like when the ice maker is frozen over.

Enter diagnostic mode again as you did with the Forced Defrost, but this time select RD.
This cycle normally takes 20-30 minutes, and may take longer depending on ice buildup.

After a potentially time-intensive defrost, it’s worth taking preventative measures to prevent future freezing.

When convenient, check for frost buildup on the ice maker and wipe or scrape away the ice.
If the frost is excessive, run the defrost cycle again on your ice maker.
Disable or turn off the ice maker if it isn’t being used.
Inspect and clean the ice bucket’s rubber seals to keep cold air in.