I was just told by a plumber that the way my ice maker is hooked up is illegal. It is a plastic tube attached from the back of the refrigerator through a hole in the wall down to a water source in the basement. He told me that they now require some sort of a box in the wall behind the refrigerator. This is the first time I have heard of such a thing. What can anyone tell me about this? He quoted me $600 to install the box. Does this seem like a fair quote?
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My gut reaction is that he's trying to rip you off. However if you want to know for sure, call the building inspector--there is no single building code recognized everywhere in the world so it is concievable that you inhabit some locality in which there really is such a requirement.
All it could be is a flood preventer. Some kind of flow monitor that cuts off the water if it doesn't stop in a predetermined time. Just in case the fridge went bonkers or the line froze and burst. Check with your insurance company. This may be a requirement in rental housing but I doubt it for private dwellings.
Agreed, a scam, but I wish my house had a box like that in the kitchen. My 30-year old copper feed line is teakettled mostly closed, and I need to replace it. Unfortunately, the twits that replaced my furnace and installed a new duct run out to the addition, put that new duct right under the saddle tap that runs to the frig, so I have no good access without dropping a section of duct. I'm scared to even move the fridge straight out 3 feet to clean under it, for fear of cracking that old copper.
It's on the 'one of these days' list- for now, I just keep the icemaker switched off, and do without the water-in-door.
If I ever built a house, I'd put in a modified washer rough-in in the frig bay, with a quick disconnect right there, and a flex hose.
I need to get my outside spigots replaced with freeze-proof ones anyway- anybody care to make a SWAG what the plumber would charge to replace the saddle with a tee, and put a shutoff and filter connection somewhere where I can actually get to it? (Yeah, I know, none of that is rocket surgery, but I don't have a torch or the skill set to use it, and my eyesight ain't what it used to be....)
Even if there were some such requirement for NEW constuction, and I'm not at all saying there is, it's very unlikely it would apply to your house. Find out from him what this box is supposed to do, call the building inspector to verify that it's not required, and I agree, report him to plumbers licensing board.
BTW my neighbor called code enforcment on me, and the guy complained about wood on the ground, tarps, and gas storage. He didn't say on his form what was wrong with the gas storage so when I was in town, I went to the code enforcement office. They told me to ask the fire deapartment and the fire department said as long as the gas was in a container designed for gas, like one of those red plastic ones, I was fine and they had no power to regulate further anyhow. So what was the code enforcment complaining about?
Polyethlene hose is a disaster waiting to happen. Most codes now forbid it. If that's what he's talking about, he's right. In addition, the preferred way to plumb an ice maker line is to mount the shut off valve as close to the fridge as possible. That prevents just the sort of mess that aemeijers was talking about.
I hadn't heard of a shut off box behind the fridge, but it makes a lot of sense.
Way too many cases of flooded kitchens and mold caused by bursting plastic lines.
No, he's way overpriced. I don't know if it's code where I live, but all new homes do have the box in the wall with a valve where the tubing is connected. That said, it's not really necessary for proper operation. However, it is a very good idea to have a separate shutoff valve for the feed to your icemaker. It is nice to have the box because it has a recessed cutoff valve mounted inside. You could probably do the job yourself for just the cost of the box and perhaps an extra shutoff valve.
Just for kicks, I should relate the Rube Goldberg job I had to do to feed my icemaker in a condo I once owned. The only water source was the cold water line under the kitchen sink. It was a galley kitchen with the fridge located on the wall opposite the sink. The floor was concrete slab with ceramic tile, so no hope of going downunder.
I connected the plastic line to the cold water line with a saddle valve, then fed it horizontally through several banks of cabinets to the end wall which had a archway opening into the hall. I fed it up through the upper cabinets, then out the front corner of the end cabinet. to cross over the doorway, I covered the line with a hollow quarter-round, where it met with a pantry on the opposite wall. The line was then routed through the pantry which was adjacent to the fridge. I put an in-line shutoff valve at that end so that I could turn it off just before connecting to the fridge. I couldn't trust the saddle valve under the sink, as they are notorious for leaking if turned off once they're installed.
I'm sure I violated ever code they might have, but it worked like a charm for years without incident. Hope you can picture the installation. :-)
I just rolled out my fridge to see what was back there, and it is a shutoff valve just like what typically lives behind a toilet. Connecting from it to the water filter on the back of the fridge is a steel braided hose.
To go from what you have to what I have would involve running a new copper line to a shutoff valve in the wall, and then some nice flexible line to the fridge. About a two hour job for an incompetant like me including cutting and patching drywall and about $50 worth of materials. Certainly not the $600 ripoff envisioned by the OP's scumbag plumber.
The wall boxes for refrigerator hook-ups are available at home center stores. I've seen them in new construction. All they are is a convenience feature, so you have a box with a shutoff valve to easily connect the fridge to. Whether they are required by code for new work, I don't know. But I doubt very much that they are required if you are just replacing a refrigerator. If you were remodeling the kitchen, then it's possible code would require it to be updated, assuming there is a code reqt now for them.
Bottom line, if it were me, I'd just leave it as is and not even bother investigating any further.
It might not be code for a licenses plumber to do the installation in that way but it's your house and your fridge. If you want to add a box and a shutoff valve in the wall behind the fridge yourself you can probably do it for about 25$in materials with a compression fitting valve and a nice box to trim it out. Oh and find a better plumber , there are honest tradesmen out there and they keep customers for generations.
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