We are replacing our 13 year old GE refrigerator. We currently have a French door model with the freezer on the bottom. Our only real complaint has been the ice maker. It works, and has always worked but if we have family over, there is never enough ice. We are sticking with GE, model GFE28GYNFS. Still French door, but with the ice maker on the door, giving us more room in the fridge. Our concern with the quantity of ice still remains, but we can get a second ice maker that goes in the freezer. It runs roughly $150 but is automatic and can be controlled on the pad on front of the unit. Has anyone added a second ice maker to their fridge? My other 2 options are a counter top unit (similar pricing but it has to be stored somewhere… we don’t have room to keep it out and running all the time) or just grabbing a bag of ice when we think we’ll need it. Any advice on the built in second unit? Here is a link to the extra icemaker.

Have family bring a bag of ice along. Have a clean ice chest ready. Rotate who does it. Simple.

How often do you have family over?

$150 (plus shipping and install, or at least the time value of the install) would buy you a lot of bags of ice, or a bunch of extra ice cube trays to fill when you have family coming over. The new generation of lidded silicone ice cube trays even eliminate the hassle of that awkward slow-motion carry from the sink to the freezer.

I have a GE side-by-side with door mounted ice maker.

Even on "fast ice" it struggles to keep up with summertime guests. I debated on a counter-top ice maker as the wife REALLY enjoys her iced coffees, but realized that buying the bagged ice for parties is still much more cost effective in the long run for us.

We declined the 2nd ice maker & am glad we did so. The bottom freezer on a french door fridge is almost smaller than the top freezer it replaced - with a significant cu ft increase.
I use the old fridge as a beer fridge in my shop, it's ice maker easily keeps up with ~10 people unless you need to fill a cooler.

We just picked up a deep freezer and will simply make ice cubes in that freezer the old school way … Or if there’s a party we can always buy a bag or two of ice and toss it in the second freezer. Nice to finally have the extra room. (Recently replaced the refrigerator as well.)

quote:

Originally posted by snidera:
We declined the 2nd ice maker & am glad we did so. The bottom freezer on a french door fridge is almost smaller than the top freezer it replaced

Yep. I have that same style of fridge as the OP, and the bottom freezer is pretty cramped as it is. I certainly wouldn't want to give up any more of the limited space for a second ice maker.

Same thing with us. When we got the bottom freezer refrigerator, its icemaker only makes around half of what the old refrigerator did.

I opted for the counter model as I didn't want to permanently take up room in the refrigerator for something that only gets used one day a week.

I got this one:
https://www.amazon.com/gp/prod..._title?ie=UTF8&psc=1

Works great and turns out a lot of ice pretty quickly.

quote:

Originally posted by snidera:
We declined the 2nd ice maker & am glad we did so. The bottom freezer on a french door fridge is almost smaller than the top freezer it replaced - with a significant cu ft increase.

That's odd. Our french door bottom freezer is easily 2 to 3 times the capacity of the old one it replaced that was up top.

First off the in door ice makers on French door models do often have issues. So I’d love to have one also in my freezer.

We discussed buying an ice maker for our basement bar, a stand alone model for parties. What we found was they don’t hold enough and while fast, they wouldn’t keep up with a party. Ultimately we decided it was storage space for ice, rather than ice making ability that hindered us.

So we bought a chest freezer and keep many bags of ice on hand. This hasn’t failed us and I have the extra space for briskets and pork butts.

Have to agree with others, bags-o-ice for parties are the way to go unless you have a large ice maker, friend had two fridges and an external under counter Ice Maker in the pool bar, they still picked up a few bags of ice for coolers etc and kept beer and cold drinks in the coolers for parties.

Do you have a garage, if so then put the old fridge out there and hook up a water line for that ice maker, for small gatherings both ice makers will keep up and you can put bags in the outside garage fridge with other beverages needing to be kept cool.

I'll agree that is the simplest solution.... what I did when my wife and I were into sailing over the summers: We have a kenmore with the freezer on the bottom and the ice maker top left... I cut out the bottom of the ice collector tray and made a stainless steel one 5 times as big that fit in the left bottom of the freezer. The only issue was watching that it did not get too full. Got the idea from my father who had a spare upright frig in his shop and he just put a board across the front of the freezer part and let the whole freezer fill with ice.

We have two ice makers. For our family of five in Florida, it works fantastic. We use stainless steel vacuum insulated tumblers, water bottles, and we never run out of ice. It won’t fill coolers with ice for parties though if that’s your goal.

A neighbor has the countertop unit and loves it. Feeds it the filtered fridge water when needed. Quick, clear ice.

Our French door Frigidaire Pro has an ice maker in the freezer and one in the door. We use them both. We drink a lot of water over ice - especially when it gets 100°.

Thanks all for the input.

I know I’m my original post I stated when family comes over, but honestly, we run out of ice when there’s an extra person or 2 joining us. This does happen rather frequently when our teenagers have friends over with us for dinner or my in laws come for dinner. I’m not too worried about losing freezer space as we have a fridge w/ freezer in the garage, an upright freezer in the basement and our current fridge will go downstairs also. I don’t want to run a water line into the garage. It is insulated, but we’ve had some pretty cold days and I’d be concerned with it freezing. We already keep a bag or two of ice for coolers in the upright. We just don’t use bags for filling up drinking cups.

With regards to the counter top unit, we are kind of leaning that way, but how long does it take for the first bit of ice to be made?

Still going back and forth in my head. But I do like the fact that with the second unit, I don’t have to get anything extra out, it’s already there. We may see how it goes with the one for a few weeks and go from there. It looks pretty straightforward to install so other than unloading whatever may be in the freezer, I could install pretty quickly and easily.

quote:

Originally posted by Erick85:
With regards to the counter top unit, we are kind of leaning that way, but how long does it take for the first bit of ice to be made?

10 minutes, then more every 10 minutes for as long as it's turned on and has water in the reservoir.

I go through a lot of ice. When shopping for a new fridge my first requirement was the ice maker(s) be able to keep up.

I bought one with french doors that has the smaller ice maker in the door, and the 2nd in the bottom pull out freezer. Between the two they do a good job.

I've now been eyeballing one of those "pellet" ice makers. I just like that kind of ice.

I use a cooler daily M-F, and one ice maker has never totally kept up. I bought a french door Whirlpool with dual ice makers, and love it. If you go through a lot of ice, it's the way to go. Also if I want to stock up ice for the cooler before a fishing trip it works great for that too and I bag some of it and it will keep making more than we're using daily.........

The counter top ones start making ice fast, once they start producing, but it's wet ice, and then if you freeze it, it all sticks together.....

I have the double ice maker. I turn it on when I know people are coming over. The door icemaker can't keep up otherwise. To me it's convenient.

I went ahead and bought the second ice maker this morning. While I liked the countertop option, this wasn’t that much more and it’s one less thing I have to store in the pantry when not being used. I like the fact the ice is there whenever I need it without having to do anything. Thanks again for all your input. I appreciate it.