Black mold in fridge water/ice dispenser???!!!

[jts_houston]

Originally Posted by maja

Oh Yuck! We moved into our home about a week ago and yesterday I looked under the opening for the water/ice dispenser and saw spots of black fuzzy mold! The house was quite dirty when we bought it but I hired professional cleaners to come in and thoroughly clean it (to the tune of $700, no less!) before we moved in and the fridge which is a new looking Kenmore Elite looked extremely clean after that. I had no idea that mold was there. How in the heck can mold grow on plastic parts and how in the heck can I clean it? I tried spraying up there with a bleach based spray cleaner but its still there and I don't think I can ever imagine drinking water from it again. Any ideas?

Over the past 14 - 16 weeks I have learned much about black mold and refrigerators. The refrigerator that I have is a counter depth Kenmore bottom freezer with French doors above the freezer. Icemaker resides inside the left hand door, model number 795.72043

Certainly this is not the only way that black mold may be generated but this is what caused my problem.
One day I noticed drips of water on the side of the water/ice dispenser. The water was not originating from the discharge chute but well off to the side. I thought that was a water leak in that area. After I had placed the service call to fix the "leak" I looked up inside the chute. I saw heavy black mold. The mold was on the water line and ice chute. I added to the service call the black mold I had. I have pictures supporting everything I am telling you, however I do not see a way to insert a picture into this post but I was able to upload.

The service tech came out a week or so later to look at the problem. He saw the mold, removed the control panel and dispensing area that is on the door of the refrigerator. There was black mold behind the panel, lots of black mold. He explained that there was no water leak but condensation that I was seeing and it was this condensation that was causing the mold. He continued to tell me that refrigerators with the icemaker in the door are prone to black mold. A number of weeks later I also discovered that black mold is NOT covered under the extended warranty.

This is the first (and last) refrigerator that I have ever owned that had a icemaker inside the door. All of my other refrigerators had the icemaker that resided within the refrigerator area proper. Up until this point I have never had a black mold problem with the icemaker in the former location. My question for everyone is where is your icemaker located?

JTS-Houston

[UltraMagnus]

Originally Posted by nybbler

What I've done in the past is gotten a filter housing with 1/4" connections, connected it between the fridge and the water supply, and used that to chlorine-shock (by adding diluted bleach to the filter housing) the plumbing inside the fridge. You'll have to search around for the amount of chlorine; I think I used a suggestion meant for water heaters and scaled it way down to the size of the filter housing, then guesstimated the amount of water inside the fridge itself.

Hi, thought this was one of the most ingenious solutions ive seen yet. Where did you find such a filter housing and what kind did you get?

[nybbler]

Originally Posted by UltraMagnus

Hi, thought this was one of the most ingenious solutions ive seen yet. Where did you find such a filter housing and what kind did you get?

The place I got mine is long gone, but it's a basic 10" filter housing (e.g. Pentek 158116), with 1/4" quick-connect fittings attached. Once you're done shocking the fridge, you can either do nothing, put a filter in the housing, or replace the housing with a splice and use the housing for something else.

That's assuming plastic tubing, if you've got copper tubing obviously you want different connectors.

There was also a coil of tubing inside the fridge (to cool the water); that I unrolled, measured, and replaced rather than try to clean.

[Occpdub]

Originally Posted by nybbler

What I've done in the past is gotten a filter housing with 1/4" connections, connected it between the fridge and the water supply, and used that to chlorine-shock (by adding diluted bleach to the filter housing) the plumbing inside the fridge. You'll have to search around for the amount of chlorine; I think I used a suggestion meant for water heaters and scaled it way down to the size of the filter housing, then guesstimated the amount of water inside the fridge itself.

Where do we get a filter housing with 1/4" connections???