FRIGIDAIRE EFIC452-SS 40 Lbs Extra Large Clear Maker, Stainless Steel, Makes Square Ice

Review is for the frigidaire efic452-ssred xl maker, makes 40 lbs. Of clear square ice cubes a day
so i just received this today….we have been using a frigidaire brand ‘bullet’ style ice maker and it just can’t keep up with our ice consumption, this….despite a fridge/freezer with two ice makers….go figure. Got this, red one….rinsed it out, cleaned everything, and filled all the way with water. I figured, since i had to wait at least one hour for the oil in the compressor to settle, i would give it a good cleaning, and run water through it. Put the end over the sink, removed the drain plug and … Nothing. No water is draining. Nothing at all, despite the reservoir being completely full of water. Must be clogged, or the tube from the reservoir must be blocked or pinched. Checked the manual. Nothing to do except take out the drain plug. (there is a screw on cap, then a silicone ‘plug’…yep i removed it) so, what to do. I figured it must be a twisted or blocked tube, so i took the whole back metal cover off, so i could take a look at the tubes and see if there was a block. Its not hard to take off the metal cover….10 screws and then shimmy it off. Be careful. The metal is thin and sharp. Looked around….no water in any of the tubes, despite it being full. Checked the drain ‘filter’ in the reservoir and took it out, just in case. Nope, no water coming out. Checked all the tubes. Not blocked. Guess what it was?? I plugged in the ice maker, just in case….nothing is said in the manual. The pump started working right away, and voila! Water started running out the back drain, which was still open. Apparently to fully drain this, you must have it plugged in…(i didn’t turn it on, just plugged it in) i believe the pump will close the lines so it can’t drain, once it is shut off. Nothing in the manual tells you this!!..so if this happens to you, don’t return it because it won’t drain. Just plug it in, and it will start draining after the plug is taken out. Hope this little trick helps you. Now onto the ice. First batch set on +4 took like over 20 minutes, and it makes pretty think ice at this setting. Changed it to 0 and it took about 15 minutes. We use chilled, filtered water in our fridge, since using cold water makes ice faster, so the machine doesn’t need to chill it down. The way this ice machine works is the water from the reservoir is constantly dripped over the square metal grid, which is chilled by the ice maker. This means that the all the water in the machine is constantly ‘cycled’ over this grid, bringing the temp down on all the water. Might as well start with chilled water to help the process. Even on a setting of 0 the ice coming out of this machine is thick and clear for the most part. Love it so far. Its not ‘loud’ but its constant ‘on’ like a mini fridge, until it cycles when the ice is ready. Because of the thickness of the sheet of ice that dumps out, its quite loud when it dumps. I love that it dumps in a sheet. This makes it super easy to bag it up in sheets for storage to use later. This ice is solid, and since its clear, it doesn’t have hardly any air in it, unlike the bullet style ice makers. This thing is going to get a lot of use, so will see how long it lasts. The price is about double what you would pay for the bullet ones, but so far i think its worth it. Time will tell.
*update* 10/6/22 – well…its been a few days of almost constant use. The ice that this makes is almost clear….for the most part it is, and its solid ice, not full of air and cloudy. The bullet style ice makers, make ice with a lot of air in the ice, so that ice doesn’t last too long, melts fast. This ice makers ice lasts a good long time, probably double the amount of time for the same ‘amount’ of ice than the bullet ones. The only down sides i can see with this ice maker is…1. That loud noise when the ice ‘drops’ out of the grids. Its pretty loud when it lands in the ‘bucket’ when there is little to no ice in there. Once you get a couple of drops of ice in there, then its almost silent when it drops. 2. You could view this as a negative and or positive. The ice drops most times in a sheet, that you then need to break up. I don’t mind this….makes for easy storage. To break it up, we put it in a zip lock bag and then just bash it. It breaks right away, and i don’t mind doing this extra step, since the ice lasts so long, and you can get long strands of ice too that fit nicely in your flask or large cup etc. This machine is a little larger than the bullet type, so keep that in mind. I tried +4, 0 and -4 for ice settings, and didn’t notice any difference in the ice made, so now just leave it on a default setting of 0. Plug it in, fill with chilled water, and hit the power button and thats it. You don’t need to use chilled water, and often times i will put some ice in the water, just to keep it colder in the beginning, to speed up the first batch, which seems to take the longest. Recommended. We have lots of ice now, and with this running, can stock up.

I searched for a counter-top ice machine when my refrigerator ice maker failed and i really didn’t like the ice it made anyways – half moon, cloudy, sediment filled soft ice. The choice became chewable nuggets, more half moons or cubes. Since i use ice primarily for iced tea, lemonade and cocktails, i wanted clear cubes. Hence, this was my choice and i picked frigidaire for the brand.
My choice was also influenced by the ratings. However, i read all the negative reviews as well.
Unboxing: mine arrived undamaged with no signs of prior delivery, unpacking or use. It was new. Unpacking was easy. It’s good looking.
Manual: poorly written, confusing, and only makes sense after playing with the machine.
Plastic ice scoop: awkward to use when retrieving ice and can’t break up the sheets of cubes. I replaced it with stainless steel ice tongs.
Set-up: i waited the recommend hour of upright standing before i plugged it in. I filled the top tank with bottled drinking water – not distilled. I positioned it on my counter with plenty of breathing space behind it. It does put out warm air in the back when making ice.
Sound level: surprisingly very quiet. Also, the machine only runs when it is in the producing cycle.
Ice product: it makes clear sheets of 24 ice cubes, each cube 7/8” square. The dimension of each cube remains constant, but you can change how full each cube is with a setting from -6 to +6. The +6 fills the cube completely but is a very solid sheet. The -6 you can poke your finger in the exposed, indented side (the only side that is not touching a cooling element). I chose +4 and like the result.
Ice making is fast, about 15 minutes a sheet on +4.
When the cycle completes, the sheets fall out of the freezing element into the bin (called harvesting) and generally remain intact, i.e., the cubes do not separate. The sheet of cubes, however, is easily broken with a small ice pick, knife handle or your ice tongs.
The ice is clear and cold and does not rapidly melt. It looks great in your drinks. It lasts.
Some people apparently just run the machine to make sheets of ice which they put in bags and put in their freezer and break up in the bag when they are going to be used. My intent is to keep the machine on and for it to constantly supply ice on demand. But i have also stored some sheets in my freezer in pint ziplocks.
Issues: sometimes the ice sheet does not fall all the way down if the bin is full or will trigger the “full bin” mechanism (stop making ice) even if the bin is not full. The mechanism is a lever the ice sheet is supposed to depress when it falls if the bin is full. This is easily rectified by just rearranging the ice in the bin. However, you do have to check the machine occasionally for this. I had one occurrence when the frozen sheet did not completely separate from the freezing element yet triggered the full bin lever. The machine stopped making ice and the ice in the bin melted overnight, leaving water in the bottom of the ice bin. Solution: move the partially melted sheet to the bin and the ice making resumes, quickly using all the water in the bin for fresh ice.
Icons: there are 2 icons, one telling you the ice bin is full and that ice making has stopped and the other telling you to add water. The add water icon only goes on when there is no water in the back reservoir where you add water nor in the bottom tank. Melted ice water is recycled from the bottom tank to make new ice.
Timer: there is a timer function, but i have no idea why anyone would use it.
Ambient temperature: the displayed temperature is warmest when making ice and coldest when not. It has nothing to do with room temperature. Not sure what it is for.
Useful life: i don’t see any indication of the machine being short-lived. But i bought the $20 four year warranty just in case.
Bottom line: it makes cold, clear, cubed ice. The small inconveniences of having to break up the ice sheets or monitor the machine are worth it. Next best alternative: bagged crystal ice from the grocery store.

Pros

frigidaire’s efic452 xl maker is the perfect way to make large quantities of ice quickly and easily. Its 2.3 liter reservoir can produce up to 40 lbs. Of clear squared ice cubes per day, making it ideal for parties or other events where you need a lot of ice. The high-efficiency design means that it can make 24 perfectly squared ice cubes in less than 15 minutes and stores up to 2.4 lbs. At a time. The first batch of ice will take longer because the ice maker refrigerant needs time to cool the water, but after that it will be much faster. The electric ice maker is also designed to be quiet and runs on just 120 watts, making it both energy efficient and unobtrusive. The user-friendly electronic controls make it easy to use, and the modern design with its large through-window lets you watch your ice being made at all times.

Cons

while 2.4 pounds of ice in one hour may seem like a lot, it can easily be depleted if there is a large demand for ice. The room’s ambient temperature is important for the ice maker because it helps regulate how quickly it can produce ice. If the room is too hot, the ice maker will work slower. A consistent ambient temperature in the room will help ensure that the ice maker produces as much ice as possible in a timely manner. As we learned the hard way, running the icemaker on the countertop over a dishwasher is a bad idea because it will heat up the ambient temperature, making it difficult for the ice maker to produce ice. The dishwasher produces a lot of heat, making it more difficult for the icemaker to cool down and produce ice. Even though it can produce up to 40 lbs. Of ice cubes per day, the efic452-ssred xl maker’s reservoir only holds 2. 3 liters, so it fills up quickly. This means that you’ll have to constantly monitor the ice maker to ensure that there is always a fresh batch of ice cubes being made. If the reservoir is full and there is no more room for ice, the machine will stop producing ice until space becomes available.

What we find works for us is we start making ice a few days before a big party and fill up ziplock bags of ice. That way, we have plenty of ice on hand and don’t have to worry about running out. Plus, it’s really easy to just grab a bag of ice from the freezer when you need it. Overall, we think the frigidaire efic452-ssred xl maker is a great ice maker for those who need a lot of ice, but just make sure to plan ahead.

The ice maker is a quality build. Heavy, as it must be. Getting it off counter to clean it is a chore. I live in a dusty desert. This maker drops the dust to the bottom and leaves it there. Cubes are clear. And i’m talking about a lot of dust. It does not stir it up to ruin the cubes. Oddly enough, when left unattended there’s condensation build up inside the unit but it was never molded up on me. Some sort of anti-bacterial materials or nature needs more enclosed dark swarminess for mold. If i had to critique this, the water input cover is super cheesy and allows dust to enter. Would prefer a more sealed cover. It’s just a piece of plastic that sits on top. I cover the unit with clothe when not in use to address that. It does make ice fast when the water is cold. If the water is warm, hello desert off-grid life!, it takes at least 30 minutes to start making ice. The unit chills the entire reservoir of water and that can take time if the water is 90 degrees. Once the water is chilled, it cranks out the cubes like a beast. Cube sheets are easy to smash into separate cubes due to fault lines made by the tray. Recommendation, fill with pre-chilled water for best experience. You will not get 40 lbs of ice a day filling this with warm water. Perhaps if water is pre-chilled i can see that happening. Very happy with purchase. It’s not a cheap import made to last 1 week. It’s here for the long term.

This machine takes a bit of time to get started. I bought in summer and i think the ambient heat is a lot to do with why it takes awhile to get your first bars of ice. That said, once it’s going, it is really going and yes, you will be able to make a lot of great tasting, clear ice in just a short amount of time. I am not sure if it’s my imagination or not, but i swear that the ice also is much slower to melt. I know this is going to sound very weird, like i need to get a life, but i love watching this machine make the ice. It’s a great purchase for us as we have people over on a regular basis and buying ice gets very expensive. I highly recommend this.

It works better than i thought it would! I don’t use ice often so i’m glad it recycles the water, i like to fill my freezer with bags of ice now instead of buying, i break up the ice squares before putting in the freezer and they dont stick even though they come out alittle wet, if i could change anything it’d that the ice comes in sheets but it’s easy enough to break up even with the plastic scooper it came with. It is really quiet i keep it in my room and i only hear it when the ice drops which i’ve gotten used to. It’s been a few months and i’m still loving it! 🙂

Our water is at time dirty and yellow. We use a distiller to distill all our drinking water. So we could not use ice in our fridge. I ordered this ice maker and we love it. First i would like to say we only use distilled water and one bottle of bottled water in ours. You can also use distilled water and a pinch of salt. This makes the best ice. It is so easy to use.

We bought this to put in our rv. While we have not used it for that purpose, i did read the manual and set it up in my house. The process is really cool to watch through the see-through window on the lid. Large holding tank! Because i like my ice harder (not as liquidy) i opted to freeze it 3 minutes longer but it is quick- producing 24 square cubes every 13ish minutes. Ice drops into a little plastic bin in the front of the macnhine. When the bin is full (about 5 loads of ice) i put it in the freezer. Each tank of water makes about 10- 24 cube cycles or 240 cubes with one tank of water. Recycles melted water into new ice. Indicator letting you know when ice needs dumped. Simple to use. Literally push 1 button for fresh ice in 13ish minutes!… I love it so far. If there’s any changes, i’ll amend my review

A little louder than the others with a moving tray but much faster and holds more water. Ice scoop could be thicker or metal as is harder to scoop square cubes.
Very satisfied with the product this is out 3rd counter top ice maker, others lasted less than 2 years hope this does better.

Still early days, but initial experience is superb. I was very hesitant after reading some of the negative reviews, but i liked the description and appearance of the product so i took the chance. Working exactly as promised. At +3 timer setting it’s making perfect ice. Using ro filtered water, the modest sized cubes make my evening adult beverage totally enjoyable…

I will update this review if reliability problems arise. But, for now, i couldn’t be happier.

My wife was getting hip surgery and was told that she needed to use ice on her hip for at least 3 weeks following her operation. My fridge icemaker was just not going to be able to keep up with the demand, so i started reviewing ice makers. This fridgidaire icemaker was reviewed well on amazon, and advertised that it made clear ice. Most importantly, this unit advertised that it could make 40 lbs of clear ice in a day, which is much more than many of the cheaper ice makers. Since i figured it would be nice to use this to make ice in a home bar after she was done with it, i bought this unit.

This unit works by dribbling water over a vertical metal grid that looks like an ice cube tray. The metal is cooled and the water freezes as it pours over the grid. The longer you let the water flow, the more completely the ice cube forms within the grid. You can adjust the thickness of the ice within the grid by a setting on the touchscreen. I set mine to maximum to get solid, clear cubes. When the freezing is done, the water stops flowing and the ice cubes are pushed as a ‘block of cubes’ into a bin.

The good:
– if you use filtered water, the ice is indeed clear and doesn’t have those annoying hollow ‘holes’ in the ice that i associate with cheap ice makers
– the product looks great. I really like the red and black coloring, and it looks good, not cheap.
– it will make 40 lbs of ice in a day if you are diligent about emptying the ice cube bin frequently.
– the ice maker makes about the same amount of noise as a dorm fridge. There is certainly a fairly loud clunk each time a sheet of ice falls into the tray, but the overall ice-,making process was less loud than i expected.

The bad:
– the ice cube bin holds maybe 4 or 5 ‘sheets’ of ice before it fills up and the machine stops. Since the bin is not cooled, the ice starts to immediately melt unless it is taken out and placed in a freezer or cooler.
– that means about every hour or so, you must go into the machine and remove the ice and put it somewhere cold if you want to max out on the ice production. It would have been much nicer if the holding bin kept the ice cold.

The ugly
– if you fill the unit with water and let it run overnight, you will wake up to 4 or 5 sheets of mostly melted ice in the tray.
– the ice machine works well, but is a bit difficult to drain completely during cleaning. I worry that you could easily leave some water behind which might lead to mold.

Overall grade: i give this a b+ overall, i used the heck out of this thing for almost two months. I bought some ice machine descaler and cleaner, and cleaned it once during my ice-making marathon. Cleaning and descaling was a breeze. I would have given this a perfect a+ if the ice holding tray area could keep the ice from melting.

We’ve had small ice makers for years. They just didn’t produce enough ice and we don’t like fridge ice makers flavor. This one produces plenty of ice. It’s nice that you can choose the hardness so you can make it harder to last longer. It is definitely noisier than the others we’ve had. It makes a fairly loud humming noise. The main problem we don’t care for is the blocks of ice. The ice cones out in a large block of cubes. The cubes don’t break apart easily and the blocks are too large for a glass so you have to use an ice pick.

This counter top ice maker is ok but not great. The ice it makes is not rock hard and melts very quickly. The machine is extremely inconvenient to clean and heavy enough that you don’t want to move it on a regular basis. It also turns off every 24 hours so you have to remember to reset the timer on it or else all of the ice melts. I bought it for our bar area and it serves the purpose for drinks that are going to be consumed quickly and not ruined by getting watered down.

I have now had this for 7 months and found a more than a few pros and cons.

I’ll get the company, and not the machine, related stuff out of the way right now. First unit i was sent leaked water from some spot and at first i wasn’t sure if this was condensation or what. I returned the first unit because whether or not that was a defect i wasn’t going to use a machine that leaked all over the counter no matter what. Second machine arrived and no leaking at all. So the first unit was in fact defective. However, second unit was obviously a used machine! I kept the second machine (maybe a poor choice) because it at least did not leak, and the ‘used’ factor was only noticeable really due to the water spots and a bit of grime in the reservoir. Nothing major, just a good cleaning before any real use, was required.

Let’s start with the pros:
clear ice (keep that machine clean though)
sheets of ice that last (melting is slow)
adjustable time to make thicker sheets (cubes)
i run this a few hours every day. 7 months, every, single, day.

Cons:
most noticeable is the cleaning factor. I have smallish hands for a guy and i still can’t reach areas well enough to give this thing a deep clean.

That’s really it for cons i suppose. There are some things i can nit pick if anyone cares. Read on if that’s the case.

Included scoop is useless. This thing makes ‘sheets’ of ice that laugh in the face of this minuscule scoop thingy. (not a big deal, but if this kind of thing is important to you, maybe just buy one of those bullet ice machines)
other people seem to know how much ice this can make with x amount of water. I, however do not. So i would love an option to select x amount of sheets (this thing makes sheets of ice remember) to be made.
Description says it runs on 120watts. Really? I didn’t test this with a kill-o-watt yet, but i did try and use it with two different portable battery packs that could not handle the initial load. So this thing must spike well over 300watts (seriously, 120watts ??) and only consumes the stated 120 when it’s in the ‘hey, about to dump this sheet of ice out’ stage, or they simply meant it runs on 120v. I’ll need to test this for off grid use.

Overall this is a great machine. I’m listening to it in the ‘i’m about to dump this sheet of ice out’ stage right now as i type. I did encounter a defective initial machine, then the ‘here, have a used one’ after that, but i am still happy with my purchase. I don’t remember the exact reason i chose this over the ‘bullet’ style machines, but i think it was based on output(?). However, i think i would have been happy either way. Those bullet machines put out individual cubes, which would make the included scoop in this machine actually useful! This machine puts out ‘sheets’ of ice that you can break up if storing in your freezer or whatever. Personally, i use them in my tumblers. One sheet fits well when broken in half. Solid sheets seem to last longer when used in a cooler for other stuff. I think this all comes down to personal preference but honestly you could simply go with which ever unit was cheaper and be just as happy.

Hope this helps someone reach a decision. Once i get my solar set up in place and see how this machine fits in i’ll update my review.

Works great

This is a nice little ice maker. People have said it is noisy but i don’t find it that bad. It’s very handy for parties and for when my wife uses up all the ice in the fridge to make her smoothies. The only downside is that it makes these large racks of ice cubes that can be a pain to break up. The scoop that comes with machine sucks so buy a metal one.

Makes more ice than we expected. We have to bag some of it to pop in the freezer and store it. One downs is that it’s a bit noisy but i read that on other reviews and tried it anyway. Overall i’d still buy it. It makes ice very fast so even if you don’t need it all the time you could turn it on an hour before needing extra ice and you’d be fine.

Makes cubed ice cubes and they don’t melt fast like the bullet ones. Pretty fast too. Would recommend.

It took a bit of trial and error, but, i got the machine working well. Instructions could have been a lot clearer.
Water is poured into a reservoir that holds about 1 1/2 liters. The machine produces a ‘rack’ of ice about every 15 minutes. Four cycles will fill the catch box holding the ice. This needs to be emptied after 20 minutes or so since the ice will begin to melt as if it were in a refrigerator. The melt drains off and recycles through the machine so it is not a problem if one doesn’t mind smaller ice cubes; they are small to begin with.

The machine works by water flowing from a horizontal tube with many very small holes that allow water to flow over the ice-making rack. It is obvious that the water put into the reservoir must be scrupulously clean. I currently use only filtered water. I think this is essential to prevent a breakdown.

The size of the cubes does vary and can be adjusted. Some people put the fresh ice into bags before putting the ice in a freezer. This is helpful since the fresh ice will ‘clot’ and need to be separated somewhat. I use a wood mallet for the purpose. If the ice is placed into a plastic bag just dropping it on a counter should work to separate the ice.

The making of ice is quite noisy. If i am in the same room as the machine, it sounds like a truck going by.

I am impressed so far. Fridgedaire put a lot of thought into the machine. Cheaper versions of ice-makers have a high rate of negative reviews while fridigaire has good reviews overall. You will pay for that— it’s worth it.

The only reason that i did not give 5 stars is that the ice drops in a sheet and has to be broken apart. That is not a deal breaker for me. I exchanged the plastic scoop that came with it for stainless steel one that i already had in the same size.