Why has this crept up on us instead of simply breaking?

Because the usual cause builds rather than fails. Mineral leaves a little more of itself at the narrowest point on every fill, so each batch comes out slightly smaller than the last and nobody notices until a year has gone by. It is also why descaling often does more than a new part would.

Ice makers

Ice Maker Cubes Hollow, Small or Stuck Together

Cubes that have been getting smaller and lighter for months on end.

(213) 799-7879 Pick a time

Viking Repair Service Los Angeleson site 8am to 8pm, every day of the weekcalls picked up 24/7

Open undercounter refrigerator set into a run of dark shaker drawers, its liner bare and a vent grille along the top

Start with the row that matches what you can see
What you see	Likely cause	Safe check	When to call
Cubes smaller every month, none of them ever full	A fill throttled by mineral in the line, the valve or the inlet	Set a cube from today beside one from the bottom of the bin	Once the change is plain rather than suspected
Cubes hollow and thin, full of water when broken	The batch is being harvested before it has frozen through	Watch one drop and see whether the tray empties cleanly	This week
Cubes welded into clumps in the bin	Surface melt refreezing, from a machine running warmer than it should	Feel whether frozen food beside it is genuinely hard	This week, with the cooling mentioned first
Production down and nothing else out of place	A restriction upstream of the machine rather than a fault inside it	Note the filter history and whether nearby taps run slowly	If a filter change makes no difference at all

The table above is ordered by how the cube itself has changed, because the shape of the ice says where the fault sits. Row one is the usual answer on hard water. Call Viking Repair Service Los Angeles at (213) 799-7879 once cleaning has stopped helping.

A fault that arrives by inches

Row one is the slow one and the common one. Water that reaches the tray through a narrowing passage still fills, just less of it each season, and the machine has no way of knowing it has been short-changed: it freezes what it was given and drops it on time. That is why nobody calls on the day it starts. They ring when a glass takes twice the cubes it used to.

Two faster failures that look the same

Rows two and three are quicker to arrive and quicker to prove. A batch released early comes out thin-walled and wet, which is a timing fault rather than a water one. Clumping is the cabinet telling you it is not holding its cold well enough to keep the surface of the ice frozen. That third row is the only one on this page worth treating as a refrigeration call, and it is the one to say out loud first.

Normal, not normal, and the line between them

Normal

Cubes that vary a little in size across one batch.

Not normal

Every cube in every batch smaller than it was last year.

Time to call

Once you can see the difference side by side.
Normal

A hollow or two after a day of heavy demand.

Not normal

Hollow cubes every time, collapsing as they are picked up.

Time to call

This week.
Normal

Older cubes lightly frosted together at the bottom.

Not normal

A solid block the scoop cannot break.

Time to call

This week.

Ice changes shape slowly, so compare it against the batch at the bottom of the bin. Call Viking Repair Service Los Angeles at (213) 799-7879 and describe the row you are on — that sentence is worth more than a guess at the part.

Safe checks before the visit

Fish a cube out of the very bottom of the bin and set it beside one made today. Old ice is the record of how this machine used to work, and the comparison is most of the diagnosis in one look.
Change the filter if the cabinet takes one, then give it a week of ordinary use. Mineral closes a fill down gradually, and fresh filtration sometimes buys back a good part of what was lost.
Check that nothing leans on the bin or fouls the arm inside it, and run the bin empty once. A machine cycling against an obstruction makes poor ice long before it makes none.
Stop there. Nothing further is an owner job on a built-in: the sealed circuit, the wiring behind the grille and anything that needs a panel off belong to the visit. Call Viking Repair Service Los Angeles at (213) 799-7879 and say which of the checks above changed anything.

Asked about this one

Why has this crept up on us instead of simply breaking?: Because the usual cause builds rather than fails. Mineral leaves a little more of itself at the narrowest point on every fill, so each batch comes out slightly smaller than the last and nobody notices until a year has gone by. It is also why descaling often does more than a new part would.

Written by: Ambrose Fitzwilliam
Role: Service technician — refrigeration and sealed systems
In the trade: 25 years in the trade

September 2026