Did our dog have an accident all over the kitchen floor? I wish. Apparently, ice got stuck in the freezer causing the valve for the automatic ice cube maker to get stuck and the water to go into overdrive. In the space of 15 minutes, there was a huge puddle on the kitchen floor the size of Lake Washington. OK, maybe it was just the size of Lake Sammamish, but it was a huge puddle of water and it happened fast. I shudder to think what would have happened if we weren’t home. Visions of buckling hardwood floors and ruined rugs danced in my head.
We had to take the whole freezer apart, which was probably a good thing since food tends to get lost in the freezer and never come out. The freezer had to be turned off so the leaking water didn’t freeze to the walls. All the shelving came out. Everything had to be washed, the freezer walls cleaned and dried off. Not exactly how we planned to spend Valentine’s Day afternoon.
While cleaning up, I happened to notice there’s an “on/off” switch for the automatic ice maker. Amazing how easy it would have been to keep it turned off, something I never really thought about. I think about so many other things, like turning the heat down and unplugging appliances when I go out of town, but the ice maker has never been on my list. My advice is to turn off your automatic ice maker if you aren’t using it, you’re not going to be home or, most importantly, if you’re going on vacation. Most of the time we never think about the ice maker. But this simple thing can cause big problems and damages if there’s ever a leak.
Can you think of other things people should turn off when they are heading out of town? At some point, I’ll tell you another water and disaster story. My story is pretty mild compared to how it could have been, but this other story was not.
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