expiredfreeskier98 posted Jan 07, 2022 05:56 AM
Item 1 of 4
Item 1 of 4
expiredfreeskier98 posted Jan 07, 2022 05:56 AM
Costco Members: GE Profile Opal 2.0 Nugget Ice Maker w/ 1 Gallon XL Side Tank
+ Free Shipping$550
$679
18% offCostco Wholesale
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Seems to be only an added military discount that brings it down that much
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I have the $300 Frigidaire nugget ice maker and my roommate told me "when you move out the FIRST THING I'M DOING IS BUYING ANOTHER ONE OF THESE"
Super awesome being able to use Reverse Osmosis water in the ice maker and have chewable ice.
I use it intermittently using only filtered water. It works great. I clean it once in a while with vinegar and flush before storing it. Makes great nugget ice if that is what you're into. Takes forever to make enough to fill up the ice bin in our freezer, but all ice machines are slow.
Easy to use once you do it a few times and remember what the spinning lights indicate. But honestly, I much prefer to just buy a bag of ice. Much quicker and no massive appliance taking up counter space.
I would never pay big bucks for this device even though it works as advertised. I should probably sell this thing before it dies, but it is convenient to make ice when I run out and don't feel like going out to buy it.
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A few things I will recommend...Clean them as often as it says to. I let mine go for 3 months before the first cleaning and that was a mistake.
If you have harder water Get some ice machine cleaner/descaler...It helps a ton.
The internal filters you can buy for them work great but aren't worth the money in my opinion. If you don't have filtered water from your fridge or a water dispenser I recommend one of those filters you can add to your kitchen faucet. That is what we use and it's perfect.
Also, if you let it sit for a while but you know you're going to be using a lot of ice later in the day open the drawer and break up the ice. It will melt to about half full before starting to make ice again if it stops from filling up.
For soda/carbonated drinks and basically any drink this ice is best if rinsed. Straight out of the machine it will make carbonated drinks flat and it's cold enough to have them freeze just a tiny bit on the edges...For optimal crispness since the ice and drain it and then pour cold soda over the ice. It almost hurts to drink it's so crisp. This is just my preference though.
They are harder to design. The cheap ones have metal parts that get super cold. the ones with the hole that are round just dips that cold part into water then once enough time has passed it warms up enough for the ice to slide off. It's a pretty simple mechanism. The other type does a similar thing but it's a grid sort of like a metal ice tray that water flows over. it's cold enough to freeze so ice builds up and after some time the water stops flowing and the thing warms up just enough to slide the ice out of the tray thing.
With the nugget machines, it is freezing ice in thin layers then pushing it through the nugget dyes. It's a more complicated process.
Another reason they are expensive is the lack of competition. There just aren't very many companies that want to make this type of machine so the ones that do can set whatever price they want.
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Overall, since this is exactly what happened to me, I'd say the device is poorly designed. Most appliances that work with water can be cleared with vinegar if you have hard water
Anyhow the reviews on this ice maker are not good, and on multiple sites (including GE's own site) of failure and noise early in its life. The other huge negative to me, you cannot install a water line and can only use the side tank to get continuous ice making. I hate tanks of water sitting out in the light...good way to get bacteria over time if you are not constantly using it.
Where I ended up is this unit: https://www.amazon.com/gp/product...UTF8&psc=1 [amazon.com]
As I write this it is $22 off at $397.
It has both a line to feed water from my RO system, and it also has drain lines when you run the automatic cleaning cycle. Starts making ice in 12 minutes, and it is the "sonic" ice as others have stated. My wife loves the thing, she goes and gets scoops of ice and munches on them through the day.
Finally is it noisy? Each one I read through posted the db noise of the motor, and this one is on the quieter side. Is it silent...no...a compressor is a compressor so they will always make noise, but this doesn't bug us when it is running and we are watching TV.
Hope that helps someone as I read so much on these things I feel I have a good machine.
Mine didn't even last 6 months and that was with following the rigorous weekly cleaning the booklet recommends. Admittedly I have hard water where I live but there are plenty of other appliances that use water that can be easily cleaned with vinegar and continue to work. This unit, it didn't matter what you did just decides to die. It reeks of poor design and I feel like a sucker for buying into one. Just go look up videos of people taking this thing apart who have had issues and are trying to fix it on their own - it isn't pretty.
Anyway, I was able to get a replacement unit but that took a good 4 months to wring it out of them, and the replacement was a refurbished unit. Thus, I don't have high hopes for its' longevity. I have yet to turn it on because I've lost faith in it and don't look forward to the cleaning regimen that didn't even work the first time.
Also, funny tidbit, even though this is branded as GE, they don't actually warranty it. GE Warranty services forwarded me to the "Opal" group which handled all of the customer service and refurbished replacement. That in and of itself raises a red flag to me, wish I had known before I bought.
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