# Time for a new fridge. Unsure of ice/water feature



## Userkare (Nov 17, 2014)

We're looking at getting a new fridge. I've done a lot of on-line research WRT price and features; I'm pretty sure that we want a bottom freezer, french doors, and it should be Energy Star rated. It seems to me that anything above a certain price has a built-in water dispenser and ice maker. I'm wondering if those things are worth spending the extra $$$ to get. 

On the + side...
Not having to remember to refill the water jug when you take the last glass - marital harmony.
Not having to carry an ice tray full of water from the sink to the freezer, spilling some along the way or having the door close on your hand while you're trying to put the tray in the freezer and spilling it all.

On the - side...
Needs plumbing. Maybe can do myself, but if not means extra installation cost.
Filter needs to be periodically replaced. Most say 6 months and cost $40 or more.
We have hard water ( CaCO3 ). It might build up scale and need to be periodically serviced.

Does anybody have any thoughts on the benefits/problems with these features? The Internet is full of horror stories, but if I didn't ever buy anything that got a bad review, I'd be living in a cave with no appliances.


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## Spudd (Oct 11, 2011)

Another con: less space in the fridge because space is taken up by the mechanics of the ice maker/water dispenser. Personally, I do find them convenient, but I would not buy a fridge that has them, because the effort savings is extremely low and I value the fridge space & lack of mechanical things to break more.


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## like_to_retire (Oct 9, 2016)

Probably the silliest feature added to appliances in the last few years has been to add a water supply to a refrigerator. It's the number one failure point.

Without exception, it will be the feature that breaks down first. Filtered water, ice cubes, whatever, this is the number one failure in today's fridges. There is simply no reason to feed water to a refrigerator. Why would anyone want that?

Ice and water dispensers located in a refrigerators door take up valuable door real estate. 

If you want a drink of water - use the tap. If you want cold water, put a water container in the fridge. If you want ice - put a plastic ice container in the freezer.

The only reason manufacturers continue to offer this feature is to keep up with other manufacturers - a shame.

ltr


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## nobleea (Oct 11, 2013)

We got a fridge with a water and ice dispenser in our new house. My wife was adamant we get one.
After a few months of use, I find we barely use it. It could be we've been so conditioned to use the tap that we forget we have filtered water on the fridge. Either way, I likely wouldn't get one again. The water leakage point is definitely an issue - you can address somewhat with these safety connect hoses that have the built in auto valves that sense a leak.


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## twa2w (Mar 5, 2016)

Agree with previous posters. Unreliable, takes away storage space, leakage, cost to plumb water line,and like most kitchen appliances will be used a lot at first then usage will fall off.
The ice maker can also be very noisy at times and if ice not used frequently, can take on odors from food. The ice container will have to be completely emptied periodically to prevent this. -( people tend to take a few cubes off the top of the bin but never empty it. Have to be more careful when moving fridge to clean under and behind.
Have we convinced you yet :-D


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## carverman (Nov 8, 2010)

like_to_retire said:


> Probably the silliest feature added to appliances in the last few years has been to add a water supply to a refrigerator. It's the number one failure point.
> 
> Without exception, it will be the feature that breaks down first. Filtered water, ice cubes, whatever, this is the number one failure in today's fridges. There is simply no reason to feed water to a refrigerator. Why would anyone want that?
> 
> ...


 ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
Best advice for buying fridges with features that cause the most problems. 

Now they have smart fridges that can be operated from a smart phone...technology is becoming ridiculous
with these add-on features that invariably cost you a lot more in the end.

12 yrs ago, my son bought one of those fancy microprocessor operated smart GE fridges. While the chilled water/indoor ice dispenser seemed great for a while, i*t failed just after the manufacturer's warranty expired *and he didn't buy the extended warranty. 

The ice cube maker didn't freeze because the fridge didn't freeze properly or keep the food cold enough when the failure occured. 

THREE visits from the Sears repairman (where he bought) it, and substitution of pretty much all the electronic/electrical components except the compressor, and it still wouldn't work reliably. 

Two or three days after the repair man left, it would fail to freeze again. The microprocessor board was changed a couple times along with some sensors..with no reliable operation. Sears had to give him a loaner fridge while they took his fridge back to the shop for more investigation into what was causing this problem. In the end, Sears repair depot could not diagnose the intermittent failure properly, and after the THIRD intermittent failure (no cooling), the shop wasn't going to come to his place again, so they agreed to take the fridge back to their shop for further investigation.

After several weeks, Sears agreed that this particular fridge was "not repairable" to be reliable enough, and their service shop had spent far too much time on it. They decided to give up on it. My son was in a dilemma, but at least he had a loaner fridge in the meantime from Sears to keep his food from spoiling (summer).

After some deliberation and threatening to call the newspaper consumer advocates, my son and Sears agreed to a completely new fridge as a replacement with Sears offering a substantial discount allowing for some of the cost of the unserviceable fridge on the new one, (even though the manufacturer's warranty had expire) as a goodwill gesture. 

He was lucky to get that kind of deal, and only got it because he had bought the rest of the appliances from the same Sears store. 
I advised him *not to get another fancy fridge that could cause more problems down the road...*
..*just a regular fridge without the fancy water chiller or ice cube maker in the door.*

The replacement fridge has worked reliably for over 10 years now , but my son also bought a extended warranty with the replacement fridge. He wasn't taking chances again.


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## Nerd Investor (Nov 3, 2015)

Well, I guess I'll take the opposite view. Our current home came with the fridge when it was purchased a few years ago. It has the water and ice feature and we use it all the time. Basically sounds a lot like what you're contemplating: french doors, freezer at the bottom. You basically lose a few of the racks on the left door, but if you would otherwise keep a water jug in the fridge and ice in the freezer anyway than the space loss is probably a wash, you may even come out ahead. 

We've had zero issues with it in almost the 4 years since we've had it, I'd probably be singing a different tune otherwise but so far so good.


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## kcowan (Jul 1, 2010)

We have never had a water dispenser but have had an icemaker, just not through the door. We use a lot of ice, particularly in the hot weather and when entertaining. It is definitely a luxury but I suppose the freezer drawer would make manual ice trays less convenient.


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## NorthKC (Apr 1, 2013)

I've had many family and friends buy the ice/water combo in the fridge and raved over it. That changed shortly with all the issues as described above. Ice not freezing, water leaks, odor, extra cleaning, etc. The big thing was that they kept breaking down.

Sure, it was nice for a while but seeing all these complaints have convinced me not to buy a fridge with that feature. Sometimes, simple is best! Case in point, my parents' refrigerator died after 27 years. It was a simple fridge with none of the bells and whistles and one day, it just died and it was too expensive to fix. Meanwhile, many of my family members had to replace the fridge (with the ice/water) within 5 years while those without those features are still going strong.


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## Mukhang pera (Feb 26, 2016)

kcowan said:


> We have never had a water dispenser but have had an icemaker, just not through the door. We use a lot of ice, particularly in the hot weather and when entertaining. It is definitely a luxury but I suppose the freezer drawer would make manual ice trays less convenient.


Me too. Never had the water dispenser, but the icemaker was nice when we had that. It was in a Sub Zero fridge we put in a house we built in 1984. A fairly expensive fridge in its day - $2,850. Had it plumbed in as part of the construction. No water filter in it that I was ever aware of. Worked fine for the 14 years we kept the place. 

As Userkare is seeking, our fridge with icemaker had the freezer in the bottom. On opening the freezer door, there was a bin on the left to collect the ice that would drop down from the icemaker above. It made smallish cubes shaped like a half circle. It had a drop down wire arm that sensed how much ice was in the bin and it would shut off when full. We usually did not allow it to fill up, to avoid "stale ice" problem. The arm could be lifted, turning off the icemaker, so production would not exceed demand. When the bin was near empty and the icemaker allowed to run, the ice falling into the bin below would make a pretty good "crash", quite audible in the middle of the night in the bedroom above. The unit certainly did not consume an undue amount of space.

Our present fridge on our off-the-grid home has a top freezer with a couple of racks to accept ice cube trays. It's easy to slide them in at eye level. Putting trays with water into a bottom freezer might result in more spills, making an icemaker more attractive in that application.


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## MrsPartridge (May 15, 2016)

I'm the only one who likes our ice/water dispenser? We bought a Whirlpool side by side with the dispenser and it's trouble free. It's not a luxury but a necessity. Before this, I had a filter mounted on our kitchen tap or I used a Brita water pitcher. Now I can have filtered water anytime and I use it for coffee, tea, cooking etc. 

If it's not causing trouble and you can access filtered water anytime, I'd say go for it.


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## olivaw (Nov 21, 2010)

They're great but the water filter needs to be regularly replaced. Filters cost up to $70.


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## Userkare (Nov 17, 2014)

Well, we just came home from fridge shopping. We bought one with a french door, bottom freezer, but no ice or water; I agree that it may be a convenience, but can also be a source of difficulty in the future - not to mention the cost of replacement filters for the life of the fridge.

Thanks for all the advice.


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## new dog (Jun 21, 2016)

I have found Sears competitive lately for appliances and I like their warranty option. When you get the extended warranty you get all of the warranty money back to use in Sears if you haven't used it.


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## Nerd Investor (Nov 3, 2015)

MrsPartridge said:


> I'm the only one who likes our ice/water dispenser? We bought a Whirlpool side by side with the dispenser and it's trouble free. It's not a luxury but a necessity. Before this, I had a filter mounted on our kitchen tap or I used a Brita water pitcher. Now I can have filtered water anytime and I use it for coffee, tea, cooking etc.
> 
> If it's not causing trouble and you can access filtered water anytime, I'd say go for it.


I'm with you, we love ours!


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## Userkare (Nov 17, 2014)

new dog said:


> I have found Sears competitive lately for appliances and I like their warranty option. When you get the extended warranty you get all of the warranty money back to use in Sears if you haven't used it.


Actually, that's where we bought our new fridge. Given our cabinet height, there weren't many bottom freezer, French door fridges that would fit. We narrowed it down to just a few, but wanted to actually see it rather than order on-line. Both Sears and Canadian Appliance Source had the fridges in stock, at the same price, lower than anywhere else; but CAS showroom was closed Monday and Tuesday (???). We went to the large ( by Ottawa standards ) Sears store at Pinecrest/417 and had a look at the fridges. The salesman told us that delivery was on special - free, and the extended warranty was 20% discounted. He told us about the rebate on unused warranty plans; I asked him to repeat it because I wasn't sure I heard him right. I thought it worked like car insurance - the 'many' pay for the 'few'. 

I've had some bad experiences in the past with ordering things from Sears, and getting the wrong item shipped. These were small items like slippers the wrong size, etc. I hope they can get a fridge right!


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## awesomeame (Nov 15, 2011)

I had one in my previous house. Bosch fridge. I loved always having the cold water available through the fridge, but as a single person I was going through two filters per year. At $65 each, that adds up. I personally wouldn't get another fridge with filter...I now have a large Brita "Ultramax" that I keep in the fridge, which I bought off kijiji "like new" for $10. Filters are cheap and last a long time

Matt


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