I hooked up the icemaker into my reverse osmosis water supply under the sink. Since reading the reviews I replaced the plastic nut on the water line input with a brass nut and compression fitting. Nice and tight, no leaks.
Plugged the unit in and turned it on. Nice and quiet operation compared to our old counter top icemaker. After ten minuets of operation there was a puddle of water under the icemaker. The water came from the water shutoff solenoid inside the icemaker. I had to remove the back grate, and push the palstic tubing into the plastic fitting tighter than when it was originally assembled. Obviously this icemaker was not tested at the factory or this defect would have presented itself.
After I repared the icemakers water system, i let it run overnight. The yield was less than impressive. With the icemaker running for about 12 hours, it produced ice that filled the bin by about 1/3. Enough for three soda drinks in large tumblers. I expect that we will out use the available ice each day this summer.
If we use the icemaker to its yield capacity each day, it will be running constantly. At 350 watts of power while running, that's some pretty expensive ice. That power consumption is the equivalent of my refrigerator / freezer running 24 hours a day.
So in summary, It's better than the countertop icemaker that I was previously using because I don't have to manually fill it with water. It produces about 1/3 the ice yield as the countertop icemaker. It uses 100 watts more power than the countertop icemaker. It runs much quieter, and the ice remains in a freezer compartment, so it doesn't melt like the ice in a countertop icemaker. Overall, it's nothing to write home about. The customer should not have to repair a brand new item to get it working the first time. The only reason that I repaired it was because I did not want to pay to ship it back for a simple repair.
Read More ...
I received the NewAir Icemaker in Red for Christmas. Once it was unwrapped, I wiped it down, plugged it in, added the water and let it do its thing. It works great! Within 15 minutes, I heard a "popcorn popping" sound and realized it was the first batch of ice cubes falling into the "ice tray" (and this is the only noise I've heard from the machine). I was pleased with how quickly it produced the ice and how within an hour or so I had to remove the ice from the tray and move it to my freezer so that it could continue to make ice. I was expecting approximately 10 people for Christmas dinner that evening and thought that I was going to have to run out to buy ice for the party, but this little machine produced more than enough ice to get us through the day with our regular drinking and through the dinner party.
I should note that I have only been using the machine for about a week now. I do not keep it on constantly as the "freezing unit" turns off once the tray is full, so the ice on the bottom will begin melting. The upside is that the ice tray has holes in the botton and the water from the melted ice will drain back down into the water tank (which is probably why the manufacturer recommends draining it daily). Because of this, I run the unit long enough to fill up my ice tray in the freezer (a large one that came with the automatic ice make that no longer works) and then I turn off the machine. Because we typically use a lot of ice, I have only drained the machine once as I tend to use the full water tank full of water when refilling my tray.
The ice machine does have 3 ice cube size settings, but I have only used the Large setting based on reviews from users of this and other ice makers. I actually love the large ice cubes as they are similar in size to those cubes in bagged ice, and easily go into my metal water bottle.
It's red color is perfect for my kitchen. It blends well with my other red small kitchen appliances which include Kenmore, KitchenAid, Cuisinart, Keurig, and Oster reds. They're not all the same shade of red, but they all compliment one another as does this machine. It's compact size is also a bonus as it does not require much counter space. While it is a solid machine, it is not so heavy as to make it too difficult to move from the counter to the sink to drain the water tank.
Overall, I'm in love. The pros (function, production, color, size, quiet) are much greater than it's con (ice melts when tray is full). I would recommend this unit to a friend looking for a compact ice maker.
Read More ...
I recently moved into a small but wonderful apartment. The refridgerator with freezer is sufficient but quite small. Buying that 10 lb bag of ice at the supermarket as usual is no longer viable. It takes up too much space in the freezer.
I use a lot of ice in a huge mug for water and such and it must be filtered as is my water. Well, I must say that this particular Ice Maker continues to be a pleasant surprise.
It's sturdy and attractive and makes ice continually. It doesn't have to be connected to anything other than one electric socket. I pour in a gallon of fresh filtered water and within minutes ice is formed.
It's quite ingenious. As the stored ice very slowly melts in the basket the water goes right back into the system to be made into ice again.
It makes a basket full of ice then stops until the ice is taken and the basket needs to be topped off keeping the basket full to the brim with ice.
The freezing compressor only runs for a few minutes to freeze the ice than turns itself off until needed. It's so quiet that we don't even know that it's there at all.
I followed the instructions on set up and ran vinegar and lemon juice through to clean any machine taste out, and it truly is as advertised.
Go ahead and feel good about this purchase. Few things we buy in this world will serve us as long or as well as this Sunpentown Ice Maker.
Read More...
The ice maker in our fridge is SMALL. With family living close, we were always running out of ice quickly. This meant a trip just for ice. When we had family & friends we needed 2 coolers just to hold ice! I read so many reviews on several different ice makers & decided to try this particular one.
Wow! This thing is absolutely GREAT. Took it out of the box, plugged it in, ran 3 cycles of vinegar water, then just plain water to remove the plastic smell. Then, let it run. It has run almost 24 hrs a day since the day after arrival & puts out ice like crazy. In fact, we have extra ice in the freezer now, & have not run out of ice the NewAir makes & no need to use the extra ice we had bagged from it.
At first it seems like a large footprint on the counter, but I would not give it up for the small area it takes from the counter. If I need the counter space for holidays, I would simply put it on a small wood "tv tray style" table.
No one is taking my ice maker! One of the best, most convenient, 24 hr useful, worth-it-for-the-money purchases I have made.
Read More...
