Owners almost never call it an ice maker problem. They describe a damp patch at the edge of the kitchen slide, a cabinet base that stays tacky, or a musty smell that sharpens when the coach is shut up. The first job is deciding which of four paths under that cabinet is responsible, because the bay carries the ice maker branch, the fresh water main, the condensate drain tube, and on an absorption unit an LP supply that is not water at all. Isolation comes first and costs nothing. Our technicians close the manual stop valve on the ice maker branch, dry the cabinet base and the floor seam with paper towel, then repressurize the coach and leave it alone. A branch that is isolated cannot leak, so 48 dry hours points at one circuit before a single screw comes out. If it comes back wet with the branch shut, the ice maker is cleared and the search moves to the fresh water main and the drain.
The circuit is short and it is almost all small tubing. It starts as a tee off the half inch CTS PEX cold main, usually through a reducing stem such as the SeaTech 012414-1004, which steps half inch CTS down to quarter inch OD. Next comes a manual stop valve, then a long unsupported run of quarter inch outside diameter polyethylene tubing threaded behind cabinets to a water inlet solenoid valve bolted to the back of the refrigerator. Dometic's installation manual for the DM, RM and DMA range sets the requirements plainly: a quarter inch diameter line to the water valve at the rear, a supply holding at least 15 psi, and a manual shut off valve that is easily accessible. That solenoid adds 1.4 amps to the refrigerator's draw whenever it opens, which is the only electrical evidence the circuit leaves behind. Count the joints while you are back there: a typical run has three or four and every one is a candidate.
A push fit joint seals on the outside surface of the tube. An acetal collet and stainless grab ring hold the tube, and an O-ring further inside does the sealing, against that same outer surface. The joint is only as good as the tubing's skin. John Guest's technical specification holds quarter inch through half inch tube to plus 0.001 and minus 0.004 of an inch, and requires outside diameters be free from score marks and the tube deburred before it goes in. Tubing a grab ring has bitten, been pulled from, and been pushed back in at the same depth is sealing on a ring of scratches. Compression fittings fail the other way. The brass ferrule crushes permanently onto the tube, so it is a one time seal, and maximum torque on quarter inch plastic threads is only 1.0 foot pound, less than most apply with a wrench. Either way the honest repair is to cut back to clean, unmarked tube and start fresh.
The most common physical cause is the simplest. Somebody pulled the refrigerator for a board, a flue clean or a cooling unit, then pushed it back with the water line still lying where it fell, and the frame trapped the tubing against the cabinet wall. A kinked run of quarter inch poly goes oval, and once the outside diameter drops out of tolerance the O-ring has nothing round to seal. Road vibration finishes the job. John Guest is explicit that its fittings must not be subject to excessive side loads and must never be used as support brackets, and that tubing must be supported so it does not load the joint. A ten foot run swinging free behind a cabinet is doing exactly what the manufacturer says not to do, which is why a joint that is dry in the driveway weeps at speed. That same rebuild usually buries the stop valve, so the shutoff Dometic requires to be easily accessible ends up behind the refrigerator.
Seasonal use is what turns a small weep into a floor job. A coach that spends May through November parked with the pump switch on or the city water still connected holds pressure on that quarter inch branch for six months with nobody in it. A drip that would be obvious on a garage floor instead runs down the back of the cabinet into the seam where the subfloor meets the sidewall, and plywood that stays wet that long delaminates before anything upstairs looks wrong. That is the real reason this page matters more than a part swap: it is the same failure that ends up as subfloor replacement or sidewall delamination. Our service call covers the trip out and the first hour on site at the rate in the pricing table on this page; anything past that first hour is quoted and approved before we carry on. We will not quote a fixed figure on a leak nobody has looked at, because the finding decides everything.
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Call 888-759-1438Behind an absorption refrigerator there are two small lines and they are easily confused. The LP supply is rigid, copper or steel with flare nuts and its own shutoff, running low on the back of the unit to the burner. The ice maker line is flexible quarter inch polyethylene, usually white or blue, and it lands on a solenoid water valve. If you are not certain, disturb neither, and never reassemble an LP joint without a leak test. The water line is the one that gives when you squeeze it.
We can usually prove which circuit is leaking without pulling anything, by closing the ice maker stop valve and watching whether the area stays dry under pressure. Proving which joint is leaking is different. The tee, the valve and the solenoid connection sit behind and under the cabinet, so confirming the actual fitting means the refrigerator comes out. That is why a leak somewhere near the fridge is not a five minute call, and why anyone quoting one over the phone has not looked at the back of your refrigerator.
It is a legitimate fix if you never use the ice maker, and it removes a pressurized branch from behind a cabinet where you cannot see it. Do it properly, though. Cap at the tee on the main, not partway down the run, because a capped stub still holds pressure at every joint downstream of the shutoff. Leaving a dead line pressurized behind the refrigerator solves nothing, and it removes the one symptom that would have told you it was still there.
There is no fixed number, because it depends on how much water escapes and where it lands. The mechanism matters more than a timeline. Water at that tee goes straight down into the seam between subfloor and sidewall, wicks along the plywood laminations, and stays there because the underbelly holds it in. By the time a floor feels soft underfoot, the wet area is already wider than the soft area, and the repair has moved from a fitting to a section of subfloor.
Close the manual stop valve on the ice maker branch, then cycle the ice maker once so the solenoid opens and the line downstream drains what it can. Switch the ice maker off at the refrigerator so the solenoid is not being told to open against a closed valve. If the coach is winterized or sanitized, the ice maker line has to be flushed clear afterward before you make ice again, because antifreeze and sanitizer sit in that quarter inch run long after the rest of the coach runs clean.
Every figure on this page comes from a manufacturer document or a standards body, not from another repair site. Here is where each one comes from.
| Item | Price | What it covers |
|---|---|---|
| Service call | $299 | Includes the trip out to your RV and the first hour on site |
| Work past the first hour | Quoted after diagnosis | We tell you what it will take before we carry on |
| Parts | Quoted per job | Special-order parts may need a deposit before we order them |
| Written estimate | No charge | You approve the estimate before any work starts |
The service call covers the trip out to your RV and the first hour on site. Anything beyond that depends on what we find, and we quote it and get your approval before carrying on.
The price ranges on this page come from our own recent jobs across Florida, not from an industry average. What you pay depends on the rig, the parts it needs and what we find on site, so we give you a written estimate before any work begins and you approve it first.