- Stainless steel door with black cabinet
- For built-in or free standing application
- Makes up to 12 -Pounds of ice daily
- Stores up to 6 -Pounds of ice
- Reversible door
I had this ice machine installed by a licensed plumber. The water line to this machine connects with a cheap plastic nut that came loose after a couple hours of connection. This resulted in a substantial water leak that caused damage to wood floors, along with the ceiling and insulation below. In all, several thousand dollars damage caused by the poor design. The plumber reconnected the water line with a tighter metal nut and the machine still left puddles of water all over the floor.
Buy Sunpentown IM-150US Undercounter Ice Maker with Stainless Steel Door Now
After about a week with this product I am ready to write this review. Because of reading these reviews on Amazon before ordering, I requested the replacement of the plastic nut for the water valve to a brass compression nut and ferrule from the installer. The water valve is the type that is in my GE side by side fridge. I have not had an issue. As for ice production, I am not getting the full 12lbs. per day. The working environment of the freezer is its in a kitchen with external temperatures of 70-75 degrees and 75 PSI of water pressure. The internal freezer temperature is about 4 degree's Fahrenheit. Under these external and internal perimeters, I get about 6lbs. per day. That is enough to keep up with our ice demands so I am satisfied. Another thing I found out by weighing the ice is that it was dispensing only 3 ounces of ice per tray. The instructions said it should put out 5 ounces per tray so the ice maker cover was removed and adjusted to 5 ounces. The ice maker dispenses 12 cubes per tray. The type of ice maker is a manual ice maker with the bar that rises up and down and not an electronic type. The older analog ice makers that I have had are durable and the one I have in the GE has been going for 15 years. I like this type of ice maker.
I called Sunpentown and the customer service is in the USA and my call was answered right away and questions answered with no accent barriers leading to frustration.
Read Best Reviews of Sunpentown IM-150US Undercounter Ice Maker with Stainless Steel Door Here
Wish we did a bit more research on this before spending over 300 dollars for an disappointing item that was well below expectations. Item arrived quickly as expected. Amazon does a great job on shipping. Excitedly opened up pacakage to find a squat small machine that was half the height of the counter.
Finally hooked it up after ignoring the confusing user manual. WARNING, the water line connector is flimsy to say the least. It does not connect well under high water pressure. It will come loose. Fortunately the failure happened twice when I was fumbling around with it. Very minor flooding occurred which prompted me to completely seal the connection with silicon and plumbing tape. I called the manufacturer about this part failure and was promptly told that literature clearly caveats that it has to be connected by a professional plumber. Pay another 150 dollars to connect this? I guess I'll live with the risk of flooding the kitchen.
All that being said and after all the effort I would have been willing to live with a unit that managed to produce a reasonable amount of ice. First 3 hours, it produced approximately 20 ice pieces. Ran it over night and by the next morning we got 5 cups of ice! Ran it 24 hours and we got the same disappointing result. It makes ice but at this level of output, getting ice from the store is still cheaper. Guess it is what it is. It's just not for me.
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First of all Amazon is the greatest. Returning this item tomorrow. Installed by a licensed master plumber.
After 4 hours it dropped only one tray of cubes. After almost 24 hours just half a load or about 3 lbs of ice.
At this rate it will take four days to fill the container for the 12 lbs as advertised. The temp in the unit
is close to zero so it is cold enough. If this is enough for you this will be a great machine.
For a little more you can buy a refrigerator with a maker in it. If you need an under counter ice machine
for serious use I would recommend forking over the $1200 for a Kitchenaid or Whirlpool.
Thanks from Alabama
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The people I work for are ice freaks. From the time they hired me, they began hounding me to arrange for them to be able to make ice in the office, because at that time they were they forced to get their fix by making periodic visits to the cafe on the next block to buy large beverages loaded with ice.
At first, because of our office set-up, it just wasn't possible, but in the winter of 2009 we moved to new offices on campus, and I was able to select a refrigerator with an ice maker for the pantry at our new space. Unfortunately, the ice-making capacity of the refrigerator was not sufficient to meet the demand, and eventually we decided to supplement it with an under-counter dedicated ice maker. The SPT IM-150US seemed as though it would meet our needs. We purchased this in July 2010, and it worked very well for us initially. It began making ice quickly, in sufficient quantities to keep the cold-beverage-lovers happy throughout the day and to provide the hot-yoga-goers with ice for their multiple Camelbaks for after-work classes.
However, after just about a year of service (around the time the warranty ran out what are the odds?) the unit developed serious frosting issues, and leaks. There's a water leak somewhere in the ice-making mechanism that was making icebergs of the cubes that landed in one corner of the bin. For a while we were able to contain this problem by placing a plastic cup under the leak to catch the dripping, but lately the rate of the leak has accelerated to the point where the cup overflows if we don't empty it daily.
Given that the ice maker cost ~$350, it doesn't make a lot of financial sense to get the thing repaired, so we're looking at replacing it after owning it for all of 19 months. I'm writing this review as I mull over whether to just get another SPT 150US (knowing that this will be, for all intents and purposes, a "throwaway" appliance) or shopping around for something that's higher-quality and will meet our needs form-factor-wise. Honestly, I don't feel that this ice maker has been a good value overall. I would only recommend it for someone who knows they're not going to be using it for a long time and who has money to waste.
