We just had a bad copper pipe slab leak and have been dealing with on and off problems with the ice maker leaking. It is a long, sad story; to sum it up: we had to repipe the whole house, and ended up with a pressure gauge on the house plumbing. It was then I noticed that the water pressure was sometimes spiking to 100 psi. At first I thought we got a bad pressure regulator from the repipe company. They put a new one in, but the random high pressures continued. I finally figured out that when the hot water heater was heating the water, the pressure would rapidly rise. Makes sense, heating up water causes it to expand, and now that the plumbing system has no leaks, the water has no where to go and the pressure climbs. The solution, install an expansion tank where the water feeds the hot water heater. I also put a pressure gauge in so if I ever look up and see the pressure is not at 50 psi, I know something is not working correctly.
I get the feeling that if I had installed the expansion tank years ago, the copper pipes would have lasted many more years. Live and learn. Below is a pic of what the install looks like. Parts cost about $100. Repipe: $8,000 plus the cost to repaint the walls that got cut open.
