I have a 4 year old GE Profile side by side refrigerator with an indoor water and ice dispenser. My problem is that the water dispenser volume is so slow that it takes about a minute to fill a 16 oz glass. When ithe dispenser is first activated I get a good stream with plenty of volume but it disipates within a second or two and then reverts to the low volume flow. I have disconnected the line at the blue commector near the floor and the line is clear up into the door. I have also changed the filter but the problem still persists. Any suggestions would be appreciated

I have the answer to the same problem and it costs nothing to fix if your saddle valve is on copper pipe. I was getting 1/8 cup of water in 15 seconds... now it is 1 cup of water in 15 seconds. What you need to do is turn the water off and take the saddle valve apart. DO NOT REMOVE THE WHOLE VALVE. You just need to unscrew the "T" shut off then take the nut off that holds the "T" handle into the valve... do not remove the entire saddle valve, just the handle part. Once you get it out use a 3/32 drill bit. Use the smooth part, not the drilling part and insert it into the valve assembly by wiggling it a bit. You will eventually get it to the copper pipe you have the saddle valve on. Now you take the drill bit [hold it with a pair of pliers so you don't cut your hand] and try to "open up" the hole in the pipe. By making a "figure 8" or go "round and round" with the drill bit you will slowly open the hole in the pipe, which will now let much more water come to the water dispenser. Write me if you need more info... I am so pleased with the "8 times as much water flow" than I had before. Now I actually use it for water! John

John,

Thanks for the great response. I just completed surgery on the saddle valve and things have improved. The 3/32 was too easy to push in so I went up a drill size to see if it met with any resistance. It was harder to get into the valve but it did eventually go. The water definitely comes out faster. Thanks again. Dave

Thanks for the tip, I went a step further and with the valve out I turned the water on with a bucket under it to flush the pipe of any debris. Now were getting 2 cups of water in 15 seconds.

Thanks for the tip, I went a step further and with the valve out I turned the water on with a bucket under it to flush the pipe of any debris. Now were getting 2 cups of water in 15 seconds.

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Originally Posted by johnnyojeo

I have the answer to the same problem and it costs nothing to fix if your saddle valve is on copper pipe. I was getting 1/8 cup of water in 15 seconds...now it is 1 cup of water in 15 seconds. What you need to do is turn the water off and take the saddle valve apart. DO NOT REMOVE THE WHOLE VALVE. You just need to unscrew the "T" shut off then take the nut off that holds the "T" handle into the valve...do not remove the entire saddle valve, just the handle part. Once you get it out use a 3/32 drill bit. Use the smooth part, not the drilling part and insert it into the valve assembly by wiggling it a bit. You will eventually get it to the copper pipe you have the saddle valve on. Now you take the drill bit [hold it with a pair of pliers so you don't cut your hand] and try to "open up" the hole in the pipe. By making a "figure 8" or go "round and round" with the drill bit you will slowly open the hole in the pipe, which will now let much more water come to the water dispenser. Write me if you need more info...I am so pleased with the "8 times as much water flow" than I had before. Now I actually use it for water! John

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that is a fix john... but you have to be a plumber technically. Once that's done make sure your plastic lines can handle the extra pressure and don't blow out... I don't think the type of valve on the line can void warranty yet

GE really should get into making a better evaporator. Something with an expansion valve so proper meat temperatures can be reached. I would love to be on their design team... I got better ideas everyday people would be willing to pay for.

Thank You Johnnyojoe!! It worked 100%! No more buying $$$ bottled water.

I can attest to the fact that the 3/32" drill bit fix works! I just tried this on my GE Profile Refrigerator copper tubing saddle valve (and the real takeaway here is that this is a saddle valve fix, not something that's going to work for a particular brand of refrigerator!).

Let's just say that prior to this fix, it would take several minutes to fill up a glass of water out of the dispenser. Now, I can get two cups of water in about 20 seconds, an order of magnitude faster! That's with an MWF water filter inline in the fridge, too. Might be a little faster if I had the bypass valve in place, instead.

Thanks, JohnnyJoe. Before I ran across this tip, I was thinking it might be something amiss on the back of the refrigerator, and that would have been a real drag to get to. It's in a cabinet-type enclosure, and there's a wood saddle on the floor in front of it that would have to come up to get to pull the fridge out, etc. Not to mention that would have been all for naught, even if I did go that route!

Lesson: Try the simple and easy things, first.

Note: I'm going to guess this isn't unusual, but when I disconnected the T handle (by removing the first/closest nut to the T handle), I noticed the piercing point of the saddle valve was gone. I'm going to guess these are designed to break away after piercing the pipe the valve is attached to? In any event, it still works to open/shut the valve and there are no leaks.

This information was a GOD send! I have had a GE Stainless Steel Profile fridge for 7 years and have always had slow flowing water and just thought it would never get better. I had tried to clear the hoses and turn the water on and off again several times over the years but nothing seemed to make a difference until I read this blog.

I have EXTREMELY fast flowing water now, my kids (5,8 and 10) all did the happy dance this morning around the fridge when I demonstrated for them. We can now use the water fill on the door of the fridge instead of keeping a jug of water in the fridge to drink and buy expensive water bottles! I am so thrilled. I am a stay at home Mom and I consider myself to be very handy and not afraid to use tools and get dirty. So when I saw the instructions to remove the T shut off and nut and stick a 3/32" drill bit in there to clear the valve I was like "No Problem". Sure enough my problem was solved in 5 minutes!!

Just make sure you turn off you main water valve to your house or you will have a face full of water and have a bucket and rag handy to clean up drips. I love the DIY sites, you can save so much $$$$$$. You wonder how these service companys are surviving because more people are figuring out how to fix their own appliances. YouTube is also a big help! Good Luck, if I can do this anyone can!

Thank you SO much. I'm not much of a handy man but was able to do this and we've gone from unworkable water to a full 2 cup glass in 15 secs or so. I really appreciate the time that people take to answer these questions! I saved an expensive plummer visit and got the satisfaction of fixing it myself... with a little help from you guys :-)

I had the same issue, but found it to be a different problem. In my case the water pressure to the fridge was fine. I went a step further while verifying the water lines clear. I found that there is a cut out valve on the connector where you screw the filter on. The valve is supposed to stop water from flowing when you unscrew the filter during replacement. It is a mechanical valve that pushes in when you screw in the filter or the filter bypass. In my case, the water pressure to the fridge was fine, but very low when trying to fill water. It was also intermittent. It changed whenever I played with the filter. I also noticed little to no ice because very little water was going past the check valve. It was a 50 dollar part "(AP3855308 (WR17X11920) Filter asm and tube" ordered from appliancepartspros.com. In my case, the filter connecter and the supply and return lines are all one part. Two screws inside the fridge near the filter and two on the back allow easy disasembly. Hope this helps.

wkgilmore,

My problem sounds similar to yours. What GE Profiel model do you have?

Thanks

Hi! Thanks for the tip. My line doesn't seem to have a T valve. It has a T-juncture with no little T bar, that splits the main line, between the fridge and the cold water side of my bathroom. I unscrewed the copper tubing that goes to my fridge and worked my drill bit into the T junction opening. The bit went in and there was absolutely no resistance. What am supposed to feel there? Is this the right place?
There is a coupling between the fridges copper tubing and the plastic tubing. Should I be unscrewing that? Help! My water is so slow!

Have had problem with slow water dispenser in GE Profile refrigerator for two years. SOLUTION IS TO INSERT A THIN PLASTIC OR BRASS WASHER. The washer must have a hole large enough go over the center post / plug with the two O rings but not so large it interferes with the seating of the filter. The objective is to fully depress the little black valve piece. The little ramps on the new filters do not fully engage the valve and thus the water trickles out. Volume increased from one cup per 20 seconds to 1 cup per 10 seconds, double the flow. Washer 1 mm thick will do the trick (about a dime thickness). I used a thin brass washer which barely fit the center post, had to remove O rings to get it on. (Re-install O rings.) The outer diameter of the washer was just enough to touch the little black valve nub. If this works for you please repost and pass the word.

Saddle valves were a great answer to a "need water here " problem. However, they are not permitted in new construction. All new homes are plumbed with 1/2" supply and an angle stop set in a recessed wall box.

Since the water was a trickle and the replace filter light went on, I purchased a lower cost filter - HDX. That was the solution! Water is coming out great and I saved $15 on the filter over the GE MWF model.

My piping is poly pipe. This is a mobile home. Is it OK to drill on poly pipe?

Hello, I found the fix to the slow water flow on the water dispenser, GE side by side. I read all the threads and I found the real problem. I had the same low water flow problem. To get water flow back to normal, shut off water supply, remove water filter [mwf] . Get a toothbrush [ clean one ] and pour some rubbing alcohol on the brush. Look for the little button just to the right of the o rings on filter assembly. Brush the tiny button and push it in and out several times. Its just sticking. Turn water back on and reinstall filter. It worked for me. My GE is from 2009. I hope this easy fix works for you.

Where is the saddle valve?