ESS25XGSDWW General Electric Refrigerator - Instructions

The very first symptom here is important! The door water dispenser is not working but the ice macine is working. You may only have a frozen water tube in the door so do the following before diagnosing that your solenoid valve is bad: 1) the tube usually runs under the front of the refrigerator and usually has a quick disconnect. Undo the connection and press the dispenser. If water comes out of the tube you have a frozen or blocked tube in the door. 2) Immediately adjust the temperature in the freezer and warm the freezer compartment as much as you can without destroying the freezer contents. Wait 24 hours. This will usually unfreeze the line. Do not waste your time with a hair dryer. NOW, if this doesn't work and you are convinced you need to order and replace the solenoid, follow these steps. Assemble your tools first. I needed a good ratchet set and a screwdriver. A shop towel is helpful for spilled water. A light is handy. Pull out the refreigerator to gain access to the rear of the unit. Unplug the power and close the water valve (older homes, you may need to actually shut the house water supply). Remove the screws which hold the cover over the lower half of the refrigerator. On the left you will see the solenoid. It's always good to see that your new part matches the one you feel needs replaced. They may not match perfectly due to changing design but they should be very similar. One screw holds this part in place and access is very simple. Now simply unplug the electrical connections. In my case, one blue "blade" type connection (powering the water) and one red "blade" type connection powering the ice maker. They are not the same size and this coupled with the coloring means you will not accidently switch them. pull the tubes clear of the solenoid. This is simple and needs no explantion. Grab your new solenoid and reattach both the electrical and water lines (two, remember, ice maker and drink dispencer). Replace the single screw. Re-attach the rear, lower refrigerator cover and go to the front of the unit to check the water. You can listen carefully and hear the power engage from the new part bringing you water. Clean up, replace the refrigerator back to its place and look really tired when your wife sees that you worked "so hard"! You probably saved at least $50-$80 from a service call which can now be used to take the family to dinner after your "exhausting" 15 minute workout of removing about 10 screws and wheeling the unit in and out of place. Writing this article took longer! My 4 year old worked harder holding the flash light!

After replacing the defrost heater, main board and thermistor I still had the same problem. Called a repair guy and he (with the help of GE on the phone) diagnosed that the temperature sensor was bad. So I ordered from partselect and installed it and it fixed the problem. Been good for a couple months (knocking on wood). To install I had to cut the 2 wires to the old sensor, crimp the 2 new wires on and snap the new sensor to the clip on the evaporator. Very easy. Make sure you seal the ends of the wire crimps so moisture doesn't get in and corrode the connection.

The freezer in my side-by-side kept warming up -- often 20 degrees or more, which of course caused the fresh food side to warm up also. I do a lot of jump-in-with-both-feet home repairs, but never on a large appliance. Not having an ohmmeter, which cost about $100 for a reliable one, I took the symptoms to the internet. Countless self-help sites and U-Tube videos later, I was positive it was one of two possible problems, either the defrost thermostat was broken and the defroster wasn't coming out of its cycle or the temperature sensor wasn't reading the correct temp and thus kicking in the fan motor when needed. Fortunately I found both parts easily on PartSelect.com and the total cost for both, including shipping, was $30, less than 1/3 of the cost of an ohmmeter. Not knowing for sure which part it was that was bad, I ordered both, figuring, since I had to pull out the panel anyway, I might just as well replace them both ... the price was right. (In retrospect I should have order 4 Temperature Sensors as my fridge has two in both the freezer side and the Fresh Food side. Any one of them being bad could have caused the same problem. Fortunately, I was lucky because it was either ONLY the Defrost Thermostat or I just happened to pick the right Sensor, but the repair worked.)

The repair was easy: Unplug the power. A Nut Driver removed the four screws holding on the panel in the back of the freezer. A screw driver removes the one screw holding the lamp cover in place. Remove the light bulbs, pull off the panel and right above the freezer coils you'll see both parts -- plain as day. (If your coils are clogged with ice, you will probably need de-ice first.) Cut the wires to both parts as close to the parts as you can to leave as much wire exposed as possible. Strip the ends of all four wires about 1/2 inch and also on the new parts. Match up the wires in the fridge to the wires on the parts and twist the ends together (Note: both wires on the Sensor are white so they match up either way, but the two wire on the thermostat will need to match up orange to orange and pink to pink.) I used silicone filled wire nuts, which you can buy at any hardware store or use your own wing nuts and fill them with silicone or shoe goo which works just as well ... anything to keep the moisture out and prevent the wires ends from corroding. Tuck the wires up and replace the panel, light bulbs and light cover That's it. Very easy. By far the hardest part was wedging my wide body into the narrow freezer compartment. Some one-handed work added a little extra time to the project.

In my case the freezer fan didn't kick in for about twenty minutes after I plugged it back in, but I assume that it either begins in the defrost mode or it takes that long for it to reset itself ... either way the repair worked great.

I went to a GE repair center to explain my problem, the service center reccomended that I have a techinician come out o look at it. $75.00 for the visit and what ever labor and materials wuld cost.

I went on line to see if there were others having this same problem and found that there were many with the same problem.

After reading some of the ways that people found out what was wrong ...it became a matter of three components, the timer, heater or thermostat.

I tried the most common component and the less expensive one first , the thermostat switch I installed it very easily snipping two wires and attaching the news using wire nuts I used the diagram on this website to pinpoint the component and there has not been a problem since.

Model includes filtered ice maker and water dispenser from front of unit. Water maker just suddenly stopped working but ice maker continued to work fine. After some phone calls to trouble shoot at a high level, I figured it was worth a try to buy the replacement part of the most likely culprit and see if it did the trick. Would have cost maybe $150 or more for service tech to make house call, provide the part and do the switch. Buying the part was only $40 and replacement was easy. Remove access panel from behind fridge and identify valve. It has intake water from the filter then has two outbound lines. One to ice maker, one to water dispenser. All function is in one part, but each outbound line has its own functioning valve. Unplug fridge, turn off water supply, disconnect all connections from old valve and reattach to new valve. When re-hooked, be patient in allowing water to re-fill line before coming out of dispenser in front. Likely to doubt it works, but surprised how long it took for water to fill line resevoir.

Unscrew old filter and remove(counterclockwise). Line up arrow on new filter with arrow on connection housing. Turn clockwise till resistance met. Do not overtighten. Follow directions. Simple.

My repair experience was a little more complicated than previous posts, but nothing major. And most importantly replacing the Fresh Food Air Inlet Cover did fix my problem. Here are the steps I followed:
1. You will need to remove a minimum of the top two shelves to get access to the Air Inlet Cover. It runs along the back of the fridge and connects to a hole to the freezer side. It has a little fan inside that sucks the cold air from the freezer and diverts to the top and bottom of the fridge.
2. As mentioned in other posts, there are four screws holding the Inlet Cover in place, 2 lower and 2 upper. To get access to the lower two screws,you simply pop off the lower duct assembly (squeeze the sides). Be careful when removing and installing these screws. If you drop one into the lower duct, you will add a few more steps to the installation to remove more shelves and take out the lower duct to get to where the screw fell. Obviously this happened to me. Not difficult to do, just adds more time.
3. To access the upper two screws I had to remove the top light cover (one screw) and then slide out the top duct/diffuser assy (my name, not GE's).
4. Finally to get clearance to pull out the Inlet Cover, I had to remove the water filter and cover. When you pull away the Inlet Cover, you will see the electrical connection that is simple to disconnect.
5. After I removed my Inlet Cover, it was obvious that it was broken because it rattled and I could peek inside to see that the plastic air diverter/flapper thingy was broken.
6. One final surprise was that the replacement Air Inlet Cover did not exactly match the one I removed. The replacement only had one upper air outlet, while my old one had three upper outlets, left, right and center. I noticed there was a plastic cover over one of the side outlets on the replacement, so I just popped that off and hoped for the best.
7. The replacement Air Inlet Cover Kit came with sticky back insulation that you attach to where the Inlet Cover meet the freezer access hole to make sure snug fit to limit extra cold air leaking into the fridge side.
8. Installation of the replacement Air Inlet Cover was fairly easy, just follow the above steps in reverse and make sure you don't drop any screws.
It's been a couple of weeks since I performed this installation and my fridge has been maintaining temperature perfectly. No more frozen milk or lettuce. The wife is very happy.

Unplugged the refrigerator, turned off the water supply, and then removed the back cover/access plate. Observed and made wiring notes to ensure I install the part correctly. Unscrewed the bracket holding the water valve assembly, and lifted it up to see and remove the three water lines (one input, two output). The input or supply line is a compression fitting...just use an adjustable wrench to loosen the nut and lift off the line. Then remove the two output lines by depressing or pushing in on the white plastic rings that surround those two holes ...the lines just slide out, but you have to push in on those rings. Remove the two electrical connectors...just wiggle them off One connector was very stubborn but it eventually came off. Try to be gentle, and pull on the connector heads...not on the electrical wires.
Assemble the lines and electrical connectors on to the new part. The two output water lines just slide in...you dont need to push in on the rings. You'l feel them seat into the valve. Don't worry.
Put it all back the way you found it, turn on the water supply, and plug in the power cord. Check for leaks. I had no leaks and was very pleased. This is so easy a chimp can do it, but let everyone think otherwise! No biggie.

My refrigerator began to overheat and the everything was thawing!! The condenser fan motor had seized and I thought this is something even I can replace.

I did a Google search on the refrigerator model number. The link to your site looked promising and I clicked on it. I was taken to your web page for my refrigerator and I clicked on the schematic for the condenser assembly.

The schematic had the parts I needed labeled clearly so this layman could be sure to get the right ones.

I ordered the parts at 12:45PM Monday and selected overnight shipping. The parts arrived at 8:35AM Tuesday (Thank you FedEx). I installed the parts and my refrigerator is up and running again.

To get to the condenser fan motor I took off the back panel on the fridge that covers the condenser, fan and coil. The fan/motor assembly is attached to a bracket I removed with two screws. Pulled the bracket assembly out of the back of the fridge, removed the fan blade and then the motor, and put the new motor on the bracket and stuck the new fan blade on the motor spindle. The trickiest part was getting the complete assembly back in. Just went slowly and took my time. Reconnected the wires, no problems. I took pictures of everything that I disassembled BEFORE I disassembled it in case I wasn't sure how something went back in but this job was so simple I didn't need the pictures.

I’m not sure how I could improve on this except maybe you could ship a refrigerator technician, too, to do the install.

Thank you PartSelect everything worked out better than I could have hoped and I saved $220.00 compared to what a repair service was quoting.

Since it was making ice I new there was water getting to the water valve on the fridge. I found the water valve on the back of the fridge, put a voltage tester on the water dispenser side of the valve, had someone push in the dispenser flap on the front of the fiidge and found there was 120v. That told me that the switch was good and pretty confident that the valve was bad.
Upon reeceiving the replacement valve I removed both electrical leads on the valve remembering witch side goes to which, turned the water line off, removed the water lines, matched them up to the new one, plugged the leads back in on the valve, turned water back on and tested. There will be a little air in the lines, but once that is out the water will flow at a steady stream.

I removed the old temperature sensor by cutting the wires. I attached the wires of the new sensor with wire nuts and mounted it in the same bracket.

one repair man said I needed freon. sears repair man said my evaporators leaked. and should buy a new fridge. I installed the parts for less than $30.
dried the freezer compartment removed back panel and asst parts. removed screws from evaporator assy and replaced def therm. soldered leads/wing nuts. removed cover from sensor temp and again connected leads. working fine.

A week earlier, we had frozen water all over the freezer section which obviously dripped from the icemaker. We turn off the icemaker and cleaned the freezer. Upon turning the icemaker back on, water continuously pours out of the ice tray. This time, even turning off the icemaker does not stop the water from flowing through. I checked and cleaned the water valve, reinstalled it and it still does not work. I had to crimp the water line and even remove the water filter to make sure there will be no water leaks.

When I got the new water valve, installation was a snap as I have already removed the old one. After installing the new valve and putting back the filter, everything is back to normal.

Procedure for removing/replacing the water valve:
(1) Unplug the refrigerator and move it so that you have some working space in the back. If there is a mechanical valve in the water line, close it so that when the hoses are unplugged, there will be no spills. If there is no mechanical water valve, you can simply crimp the hose with a rubber band or a cable tie.
(2) Use an adjustable wrench or a screw driver to remove the screws on the bottom panel. My refrigerator has 4 big screws and 1 small one that is used to anchor the water hose.
(3) Pull the panel up slightly to remove it. The water valve is mounted with one screw at the bottom-left corner.
(4) Use a screwdriver to dismount the water valve.
(5) Unplug the electrical connections to the water valve. My refrigerator has one Brown and one Blue connector. Remember which plug goes to which connector.
(6) Place a towel under the water valve and use the adjustable wrench to remove the main hose connection.
(7) Next, remove the hoses that to into the water valve outlets. On my refrigerator, these hoses are of different sizes and have quick-disconnects. I simply have to press on the collar at end of the hose, pushing it towards the valve to release the hose, then pull on the hose.
(8) Prepare the new water valve by removing the plastic cover that protects the connector for the main water line.
(9) Connect the main water line to the new valve using the adjustable wrench.
(10) Connect the two hoses of different sizes to the valve. You only have to push them all the way into each valve and slightly tug on them to make sure they are locked in place.
(11) Re-connect the Brown and Blue electrical connectors to their original location.
(12) Mount the new water valve into the back of the refrigerator (one screw).
(13) If possible, quickly check that the new valve is working properly: If you have a mechanical valve in the water line, open it and make sure there are no leaks near the valve or inside in the icemaker. You may have to plug in the refrigerator power to complete the initial test.
(14) Replace the back panel with the 4 screws and anchor the hose to the back with 1 screw.
(15) Once everything is back in its place and the refrigerator is on, cycle the water dispenser several times to run fresh water into the hoses and the new valve.

On the web site I explained the problem and the solution was immediate. I went to the installation video and was instructed how to install the double outlet valve. It took about 10 minutes to take out the old part and install the new one. I didn't have water immediately so I viewed comments by others and learned that I may have a frozen line in the door. I tried thawing out the line and in about 3 hours and I had water. I figure I saved about $200.00 by doing it myself. Thank you partselect.com

The Top Filter Housing on this refrigerator contains some sort of Excess Flow Check Valve to prevent water flow if there is no filter installed. When the spring on this valve weakens over time, the valve closes unnecessarily with normal flow and chatters. This sounds like a woodpecker hammering on the side of your house and water flow is almost non-existant. You may have heard the same thing after you changed the filter if there was air in the system. The noise stops and you have normal water flow once the air is vented out of the filter. If you start hearing this noise unprovoked (filter has not been recently changed), the Top Filter Housing needs to be replaced. To replace this part, you will need a 1/4" and 5/16" nut drivers or sockets and two 1/2" open ended wrenches. You might also need plumber's putty. Shut off the water and have a bucket ready to drain the water into. Remove the lower cover from the back of the refrigerator. Disconnect the two hoses going to/from the top filter housing. One is connected to the main water line, the other is connected to the Water Fill Valve located in back of the refrigerator on the bottom left corner. Un-screw the cover plate from the back of the refrigerator and pull the plumbers putty out (can be re-used if still pliable). On the inside of the refrigerator, pull the plastic cap off the Top Filter Housing to expose the two screws holding it in place. Remove the two screws and pull out the Top Filter Housing with Tubing. Replacement is the reverse of what you just did. If the tubing is a little short, you will want to unbolt the Water Fill Valve from the refrigerator prior to re-connecting it to ensure a water tight connection.