Stand alone ice makers?

Going to do an update to the kitchen. I have never had much luck with ice makers that come with the kitchen fridge. I have room to put in a stand alone under the counter ice maker. Does anyone have experience with these appliances? Are they more reliable than the standard refrigerator/freezer versions? Suggestions on what to look for (e.g. clear ice, cube size etc.) would be most welcome. Thanks.

[Jenise]

Greg, I have no suggestions/experience to offer on brand names, but if I lived in a hot dry climate where I was pumping iced tea around the clock and mixing a lot of cocktails, I'd consider this a must-have appliance and I'd be looking for clear ice. That is, cubed ice with the least amount of air in it, making it harder and slower to melt. During our remodel and what was a warm long summer for us here in Washington, we had no ice source in the house and lived on bagged ice. Up until then, to me honestly ice was ice. But it didn't take long for us to notice the differences and become loyal buyers of one brand because it had the qualities I just mentioned. It was the clearest ice, and though in that brand we had a choice of crushed vs. cubed, we found that crushed was more inclined to clump so we stayed with cubed.

All that said, we have a new Kitchen Aid refrigerator that we're delighted with: the quality's good and it can fill up it's extra large hopper in a day. (My old Sub Zero would have taken three days.)

Greg, we have had several and can definitely recommend Scotsman. They are very reliable and make nice big round indented orbs, that last a long time in a drink. The only problem we had with one of them was when we let the vent get clogged with dog hair (oops) and had to have someone come out to see why it was making the ice so slowly. We asked the appliance repair guy which type of ice-maker he would recommend and he said, "Hands-down, this one."
If you get one, and you have a dog, use your vaccum hose attachment to clean underneath it (frequently).

Our ice maker (as built into our freezer side of the refrigerator) is pretty non-functional as well. Ice will come out of it but it might take you 60-90 seconds to get a few cubes!

It does that thing where it churns and makes crunching noises but the cubes don't easily fall out. I'm sure it's a rather simple thing to fix or is just a clogging issue of some sort but we use it infrequently enough that we just pretend it's no big deal, which it really isn't. It's not that I don't enjoy ice with drinks now and then but I've just grown accustomed now to doing the "chilling routine" with drinks instead. For instance if I'm having a bottle of coca cola or something, I simply put the whole thing in the freezer and when it gets to that perfect near-freezing point, I just pop the cap and enjoy it straight from the bottle - pure and chillingly cold (as long as you don't linger over it for an hour or something)

The same with water. I love water. And also prefer bottled waters because our faucet water is kinda minerally. But we keep them constantly chilled in the refrigerator so that no ice is even really needed for them. So in other words, while I like ice, thanks to our faulty dispenser I've learned to adapt to chilling drinks without having to ice them. Besides, if someone needs a few cubes, it will work... eventually... so it's really not a big deal here.

I know none of that helps answer your actual question though! I wish I could be of more help but don't have any experience with stand-alone ice makers unfortunately.

Jeff

I don't have a lot of direct experience but I've heard that a lot of these can be extremely noisy and unreliable. Given Carrie's recommendation, I'd definitely look into the Scotsman.

Thanks all for your helpful responses.