It’s still stupid. How many ice trays would it take to equal the amount of ice we use each day? Four? How much space do those take up? And yes - they probably do require repairs more often than most other features in a refrigerator. But, so what? Maybe we should go back to ice boxes, which have no moving parts and never need repairs.
I’m just telling you what they said. I use refrigerator ice only rarely and as for chilled water, I just keep a pitcher in the refrigerator. (Plus there are really nice countertop ice makers now, like this pebble ice maker from General Electric.)
While those are nice, they get disgusting and need to be cleaned regularly. Depending on where you keep it, it can be a PITA to clean.
We have one at work up on a shelf and from time to time I’m the one that gets tasked with taking it down, lugging it over to a sink and spending a few hours cleaning it. 99% of it is just mineral/scale, but I’ve seen mildew in there as well.
I understand, but this is why I stopped trusting CR. They sometimes rate things very, very differently than I do. We live in the desert. Ice isn’t just nice to have - it’s a necessity, and lots of it.
My son has had one of these for the past several years. Not only do they need to be cleaned regularly, but they also fail regularly. His 3rd one just died, all in the last 5 years or so.
The one we have at work, we’ve had for probably 4 or 5 years and it’s been cleaned, at most, 3 or 4 times and it’s still holding up. FWIW, the last time I cleaned it, I used citric acid. It works just as well as vinegar and you don’t need to spend forever trying to get the vinegar smell out of it. Also, citric acid is perfectly safe to consume.
If/when it breaks, if it’s fixable (ie repair parts are available and reasonably priced), I’ll do that. If there’s one thing I’m good at, it’s fixing stuff.
That’s a heck of a lot of ice.
Surely, the ones built into a refrigerator get just as disgusting, except that you can’t lug it over to the sink to clean it.
Where and how do I buy citric acid? Not disputing you, just curious where to get some ?
Buit in-fridge ice makers get gross too. Not hard to remove, but a bitch to get the stale stink out.
Scottsdale. 110°+F for 3-4 months. Two people, 3-4 glasses of ice water each every day, plus filling my gym thermos. Yes, we use a lot of ice.
Whereas I can’t remember the last time I used ice for anything.
Habits differ. I live in a hot climate. I drink a gallon of fridge-chilled water every day.
I dump my icemaker’s supply of ice every IIRC 6 weeks when my task reminder pops up. Usually I’ve used a couple cubes in that time and the rest of the ice is stale and nasty.
Takes all kinds to make a messageboard.
You use a lot of ice every day. I often don’t use any. I expect that a lot of people are somewhere inbetween.
Why is it stupid to point out the accurate downsides of icemakers, just because some people use so much ice that they find the advantages outweigh the disadvantages?
Interestingly I learned about it from the aquarium hobby. Most people clean aquarium equipment with vinegar, but many of us eventually learn that the vinegar eats through some types of plastics/rubbers and causes a whole bunch of other problems. Citric acid doesn’t do that. Also, I looked online for “ice maker cleaners” and some of them were based on citric acid as well.
In any case, this is what I’ve been using for my aquarium equipment for years and used it on the ice maker last week.
I would venture to guess that you use more ice than 95% of the US population. It’s not stupid to recommend against buying a feature that has marginal usefulness for the vast majority of buyers and has significant downsides. Of course, if your lifestyle involves using tons of ice, then you should ignore that advice, just as someone who uses a car only for single-person transportation and never carries cargo might ignore car buying advice tailored for the general public. That doesn’t make such advice stupid.
As I mentioned upthread, I had two major house floods caused by faulty icemakers. I never hook up a water supply to a refrigerator. I keep two trays of ice in the freezer and very rarely use them. Most of my interactions with them is to refill them because the ice has evaporated before I used it.
I agree with @Dewey_Finn . We have one of those ice makers that dispense out of the door. Doesn’t work. Appliance repair guy says it would cost $830 to fix it. I’d much rather have the space in the door for the refrigerator, and an ice maker in the freezer. Not trays, just an ice maker. I’ve no problem opening the door to grab a handful of ice. That’s what we used to have, never caused a problem.
Businesses that carry supplies for home winemakers carry straight citric acid without additives. (Also ascorbic acid.)
Any place carrying supplies for people who do home canning (which around here includes groceries and hardware stores) also carries citric acid, to prevent browning in peaches etc.; but theirs is likely to be mixed with sugar and possibly other things.
Thank you both.
Ref my earlier post about dumping aged unused ice, it happens that today’s the day my 6-week 1-month task reminder popped up. So the ice container is dumped, and washed as best I can easily do, and is out in the sunshine to de-stink. I know I made 1 cocktail w ice in that month. But probably not 2, and definitely not 3.
FYI, serious swimmers use citric acid to neutralize the chlorine in their swimsuits, which eats away the elastic.
You can also find small containers of citric acid based solution at the store by the Keurig machines.
I’ve had to send back water at restaurants when I could taste mold/mildew in it - several times.
IME sometimes the smell coming off hotel icemakers is pretty appalling.