# Having problems connecting water to fridge icemaker



## BlasteR (Jan 1, 2013)

Hi I am Chris, I live in Alaska and I'm new here.

First off, I bought a Samsung fridge from Lowes about 5 months ago.  When we installed it, I immediately saw that hooking up the icemaker was going to require special fittings because the pipe sizes were different.

It turns out that Samsung doesn't account for differing pipe sizes in any of their documentation or manuals.  The icemaker hook-up instructions say to put on a compression fitting, then thread on the 1/4" O.D. threaded fitting that comes installed on the product.  It's not exactly that straight-forward.

The water supply to the fridge is 3/8" copper.

Long story short, this is what is installed..

3/8" copper to 3/8" compression fitting (brass), then a 3/8" to 1/4" O.D. fitting, then a 1/4" to 1/4" icemaker flexible tube (came in one of those kits).  The 1/4" O.D. fitting that comes installed on the fridge is hooked up to the other end of the hose.

This was all that the folks at lowes could come up with for some reason.

The fitting leaked badly at first.  So I put a new compression fitting on over some Teflon tape.  The leak is extremely slow but still there.

Would it help to trim a couple inches off the copper pipe and then reinstall the compression fitting?

Then there's the supply connection I'm having trouble with.  The 3/8" copper water supply meets up the water supply at a T under my kitchen sink.  The copper T is old but looks in pretty good shape.  The 3/8" copper is flanged outward at the end.  A nut on the line threads onto the T.

I connected everything and am getting a leak (drips once every 8 seconds or so).  The only way to put on a new compression fitting here would be to cut the pipe, remove the nut and put the new compression fitting on.  I repeated the hook-up with that Teflon tape wrapped around the end of the line which results in the same kind of leak only on the opposite side of the fitting (the side opposite the T).  but is there a way to fix this without having to do that?

Should I do the work to put new compression fittings on the line and, if so, should I just replace the entire T even though it looks like it should work?  

Thank you!


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## nealtw (Jan 2, 2013)

Have you seen sharkbite fitting?
https://www.google.ca/search?hl=en&...urce=og&sa=N&tab=wi&ei=FsbjUPqABOaIiALRnICgBw


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