"Our ice maker in our fridge failed for the second time. The second unit only lasted a few years before it quit. I didn't feel like spending all that money again. We decided to try a different approach and ordered the Avalon ice maker from Amazon. When we first got the machine I was not sure it would make enough ice to keep our tray full in the freezer. I was wrong. We had our tray filled in short order and had to shut off the machine. So far, we are very happy with the Avalon ice maker. We run it once a day in the evening when we are preparing dinner. It makes plenty of ice that will get us through the next day. Pros: Makes ice really fast Easy to set up and use One fill of the reservoir makes a lot of ice Very quiet, only noise is when the cubes dump into the tray. Cons: It is not a freezer, so cubes left in the tray will melt if you do not remove them. Overall, we are very happy. I would definitely recommend the Avalon Bay ice maker. UPDATE June 12, 2015 Our ice maker quit working after 10 months. We shipped it back to Avalon Bay on April 24. They could not repair it and sent us a new machine that arrived the first week of June. Service from Avalon was courteous, but really slow. The new machine works much better than the old one ever did. The cubes are much bigger and thicker. Leading us to think the first machine was faulty to begin with. Luckily the machine quit during the 10th month of the 12 month warranty. Two more months and it would have been a total loss. Bottom line: I wouldn't buy this machine again."
Avalon Bay AB-ICE26S Portable Ice Maker (Compare Deals from $149.95 )
"Got the ice maker in today. Arrived very well packed..a box in a box in a box surrounded by packing blocks! Haha I didn't wait to let anything settle like some buyers suggested, i plugged it in, added water and it started working with zero problems! It was pushing out ice like crazy! The first batch was kinda small but after batch three, in larger ice cube setting, it was making ice like every 8min or so! I put the cubes in a freezer bag and into my freezer. Some buyers report the cubes stucking together. All you have to do is after say 5 min or maby 8 min later after putting in a freezer bag like i did, go back and shake the bag up and keep the cubes seperated before they freeze hard and Its no problem! After two hrs frozen in the freezer, they are still not froze together in one lump. For me, it was common sense. ....dont let them freeze while still kinda wet. Just go back once and shake the bag so they seperate. By then, they're frozen enough they won't stick. The Ice maker is awesome so far! I bought an extra two year warantee..or another year bedsides the one year that comes with it. Its quiet, efficient, works better with cold water vs warm tap water. Gonna use it in our RV. I love it so far! Works great! The cubes are small but thats no problem if its cranking out cubes every 8 min or so. Very soon, you'll have a gallon sized bag of cubes like i had after a few hrs and wonderin if you need to buy another freezer to store those cubes! ( which i did buy and for other reasons as well)Thanks! Really love it so far!! Reccomend additional warrantee."
"Our new refrigerator is great except for the ridiculously tiny icemaker. I do wish it would give a little audible indication when the tray is full other than the light turning red to let us know it's ready. It makes two sizes of ice cubes fairly quickly, one of the sizes fits great in our refrigerator icemaker bucket. It's a teeny bit drippy trying to transfer the freshly made ice into the freezer. Usually the ice being made is chilled in the icemaker until you put it into your freezer, but they are not as cold as the freezer of course. When I transfer the cubes to the freezer and the cubes get colder they stick together so that I have to use a very sturdy cup or hammer to loosen them. So all I do now is make my ice, transfer it into a large ziploc bag then into my freezer. When the next batch of ice is ready I take my ziplocked one and give it a good smack on the counter to loosen all the cubes and pour those into the freezer bucket, then put the next batch into the ziploc into the freezer. I'm betting other ice makers have the same coldness issue but in all I like it and it's been working great for months."
"So far, works great. Very happy with this. We only use the Large cube setting. The Large isn't that big but certainly adequate. Our high-end fridge has lousy ice production. This more than covers the gap for a family of five, and we use a lot of ice every day. I wouldn't count on this for a real party; it won't put out that much ice. But for normal family use, it's great. Looks good. Makes a bit of noise but nothing major. I only use the filtered water from our fridge because I figure the mineral buildup from unfiltered water can't be great for its long-term wear. Good purchase, would recommend. UPDATE APRIL 8, 2015: Impressive customer service. I've just learned the hard way how important it is to deep clean the machine regularly. The instructions don't say how often it needs deep cleaning. Turns out it's about twice a month, if you use filtered water as we do. I wasn't doing that consistently. The machine gets heavy daily use. Suddenly a few days ago, it started making a very loud grinding sound and the fan on the side stopped turning. I called customer service and got Cecelia, who was very helpful. She said I should just run vinegar through it as instructed in the manual. I was skeptical and thought it was more likely something caught in the motor, but sure enough, it really was that simple. It's working just fine again. Love this machine! Note: she asked if it was the "self-cleaning model". (No, it's not.) If we replace it down the road, I would definitely prefer a self-cleaning model. Not sure why they don't offer that on Amazon."
"After two ice makers died in our refrigerator in one year, we resigned ourselves to buying ice. Finally decided to quit spending money on bagged ice and purchase this item. We have only used it twice, but so far so good. It made a huge amount of ice in only a few hours and it is very easy to use and operate. It was also very quiet, and it was sitting on a counter about 3 feet away from me the whole time we were using it, the loudest part was when the cubes dropped into the basket. We hope to use this when we use our camper during the summer months as this ice maker is pretty small and would make camping a lot more convenient rather than buying bags of ice every day at $5+ a pop at a campground."
"wish I could give it 0 stars! Worked great for 90 days and then it just quit - amazon will not accept returns after 30 days on this product and after multiple requests to the manufacturer for a label to return item for repair or replacement, we have waited over a month and still no label or address. DO NOT purchase this item! It works GREAT for awhile and then it quits... was SO pleased and hoping to write a really nice review, however now all I can do is encourage anyone in the market to find another machine. UPDATE1 - finally rec'd label - after 4 calls. UPDATE - It cost us $68 to mail this back to Avalon and we were billed when they sent it back! That is the cost of another system! When returned we thought it was a new machine since the box was not the one we used, but a newly sealed box. However we are now positive this was a re-issue on another machine returned because it didn't work, and after less than two weeks, this one quit working too! We cannot afford to send it back again - so are 'stuck' with a 2nd broken ice maker and purchasing ice the rest of the summer - or longer - and it will still cost less to purchase ice than to send it back AGAIN!"
"Absoltely the best thing ever! I cannot believe i have never thought of this before for my RV. I love ICE, i was missing ice while i was a campground with no ice. My friend picked me up and later that day she said, why don't you get a portable ice maker? I am like, what??? I looked online and this was the best one. When it arrived i set it up at home and turned it on. Awesome. I was so excited to take the RV out and try it. We went to an RV park in town and stayed the weekend. This works great amd fast. We were dividing the ice ad it was falling out for our drinks. Ha ha. Just leave it on when you go out and it will keep ice in it for you when you get back. During the day the ice will melt and it will make fresh ice. I love it. I will not live without another one. My freezer is too small to store ice and this is sooo perfect. Thanks."
Avalon Bay AB-ICE26S Portable Ice Maker (Compare Deals from $149.95 )
