How to Clean an Ice Maker: Complete Maintenance Guide

Your Ice Probably Tastes Weird and You’ve Gotten Used to It

Thats the thing about bad ice. You stop noticing it. You get used to the slight funk, the faint chemical taste, the cloudiness that you tell yourself is “just how ice looks.” Then you go to someone else’s house and their ice is clear and clean and you realize yours has been off for months.

Ice makers are one of those things people forget exist until something goes wrong. They’re tucked away in the freezer or built into the fridge door and they just make ice and you don’t think about them. But they need cleaning. More than you’d think.

How Often Are We Talking

Every six months. Just do it.

Some people will tell you once a year is fine. Those people have never seen what grows inside a neglected ice maker. I have. Its not good.

If your ice has started tasting weird, smelling weird, or looking cloudy, you’re already behind. Clean it now and then get on a schedule.

The Actual Cleaning Process

This is how to clean an ice maker the right way. Not the fast way, not the “good enough” way. The right way.

First thing, empty everything out. Dump all the ice. I know it feels wasteful. Dump it anyway. That ice has absorbed whatever’s been building up in there and you don’t want it.

Turn off the ice maker. Most fridges have a switch or arm that controls this. On some Frigidaire models its a button on the control panel. Check your manual if you can’t find it, or just unplug the whole fridge if youre not sure. Better safe than sorry.

Remove all the parts you can remove. The ice bin, the ice tray if there is one, any filters or covers. Take them all out.

The Ice Bin and Tray

Wash these in the sink with warm water and dish soap. Regular dish soap, nothing fancy. Scrub with a soft brush or cloth. Rinse thoroughly because soap residue will make your ice taste like soap and thats arguably worse than what you started with.

Dry everything completely before putting it back. Water droplets will freeze and create ice buildup in places you don’t want ice buildup.

Inside the Ice Maker Itself

This is where ice machine cleaner comes in. You can buy dedicated ice machine cleaner products, Affresh makes one, there are others. Or you can use a solution of white vinegar and water, about one part vinegar to one part water. Both work fine. The commercial cleaners are formulated specifically for ice makers and might do a slightly better job on mineral buildup, but vinegar is cheaper and you probably already have it.

Wipe down all the interior surfaces. Get into the corners. Get around the mechanism that actually makes the ice. Use a soft cloth or sponge, nothing abrasive that might scratch plastic parts.

For stubborn buildup, let the vinegar solution or ice machine cleaner sit for a few minutes before wiping. Patience helps.

Rinse everything with clean water. Then dry it. Then let it air out for a bit before turning the ice maker back on.

If You Have a Frigidaire

People ask me how to clean Frigidaire ice maker models specifically and honestly the process is basically the same. Frigidaire doesn’t require anything special. Empty it, clean the removable parts, wipe down the interior, use ice machine cleaner or vinegar, rinse, dry. The main difference is where the controls are located. On most Frigidaire French door models the ice maker on/off switch is inside the freezer compartment near the ice maker itself. On side-by-side models it might be on the control panel on the door.

Check your manual for your specific model. I’m not getting into every Frigidaire model here because there are dozens of them and they’re all slightly different. The cleaning process is the same.

The Water Filter Thing

Okay. This is the part I care too much about. But I’ve seen so many people clean their ice maker, do everything right, and then wonder why their ice still tastes weird. And the answer is almost always the water filter.

Your ice is only as good as the water that makes it. My dad used to say something about the factory, he’d say “the machine only knows what you give it.” He was talking about the assembly line, about how if you feed bad materials into the process you get bad results at the end, and he was right about a lot more than factory work. Your ice maker is a machine. You give it bad water, you get bad ice. Thats just how it works. The filter is supposed to clean the water before it becomes ice but filters don’t last forever and most people ignore them way longer than they should. The general recommendation is every six months but if you have hard water or well water or your municipal water is questionable, you might need to change it more often. I change mine every four months because the water in Palm Beach has stuff in it. Salt air gets into everything down here. And the thing is you can’t always taste the difference in the water itself but you can taste it in the ice because freezing concentrates whatever’s in there. A slight mineral taste in your water becomes a noticeable mineral taste in your ice. So change your filter.

That was a lot. Moving on.

The Part Where I Tell You About the Chicago Break Room

Years ago, I was working a commercial renovation job in Chicago. This was during my travel years, I was on the road a lot back then, project management for big jobs. The break room in this building had an ice maker built into the counter, one of those standalone units that businesses use. Nobody had cleaned it. Maybe ever.

The ice tasted like feet. Like old gym socks. And people just used it anyway. They’d fill their cups and drink their terrible iced drinks and nobody said anything. I finally opened up the machine to take a look and there was mold. Actual visible mold. And mineral buildup so thick it looked like the inside of a cave.

I don’t know why that memory sticks with me. It wasn’t my job to clean it. I mentioned it to the building manager and he kind of shrugged and said he’d get someone to look at it. I doubt he did. Anyway.

What About Commercial Ice Machines

I’m not getting into commercial equipment here. Thats a different animal. Commercial ice machines have different cleaning requirements, different chemicals, different frequencies. If you’re running a business with a commercial ice maker, call someone. This guide is for the ice maker in your house, in your fridge, the one making ice for your family.

Signs Your Ice Maker Needs Cleaning

Your ice tastes off. I already said this. But also:

Your ice smells weird when you open the freezer. Ice absorbs odors and if your ice maker is dirty those odors get concentrated.

Your ice is cloudy or has white flecks in it. Some cloudiness can come from air bubbles in the freezing process, thats normal. But consistent cloudiness or visible particles means mineral buildup or debris.

Your ice maker is making less ice than it used to. Buildup can interfere with the mechanism.

The ice cubes are the wrong shape or sticking together. Could be temperature issues but could also be buildup affecting the molds.

Any visible gunk. If you can see it, clean it. If you can’t see it but its been six months, clean it anyway.

The Janelle Situation

This has nothing to do with cleaning ice makers but it reminded me. My daughter Janelle, she’s nineteen now, but when she was younger she would take the last ice from the tray and put the empty tray back in the freezer. Not back under the water dispenser to refill. Just back in the freezer. Empty. And then she’d be shocked when there was no ice next time.

I don’t know why kids do this. All four of mine have done it at some point. Raquel says I do it too sometimes but I deny that.

Preventing Buildup Between Cleanings

Change your water filter on schedule. I already covered this but its worth saying again.

Don’t let ice sit for weeks without using it. Stale ice is a thing. Use your ice regularly or dump it and let fresh ice form.

Keep your freezer at the right temperature. Zero degrees Fahrenheit is ideal. Too warm and you get frost issues. Too cold and, well, actually too cold is fine for ice, but its wasteful energy-wise.

Every month or so, wipe down the ice bin even if youre not doing a full deep clean. Takes thirty seconds.

Products to Use

Ice machine cleaner, any brand really, Affresh makes a good one, Nu-Calgon is popular for standalone machines. You can also just use white vinegar diluted with water. Both are effective. Do not use bleach inside your ice maker. Do not use anything abrasive. Do not use heavily scented cleaning products unless you want lavender-scented ice.

Some people swear by running a few cycles with lemon juice in the water for a natural fresh smell. I’ve never tried it. My mom Shirley probably would have had opinions about it. She had opinions about everything cleaning-related. Saturday mornings smelled like Pine-Sol and whatever else she decided the house needed and she would have either loved the lemon juice idea or thought it was ridiculous. I genuinely don’t know which. She passed away a few years back and I still think about what she’d say about random stuff like this. Probably something about how I should have been cleaning it all along instead of looking for shortcuts. Probably that one.

The Homevisory Approach

Look, I know cleaning your ice maker isn’t exciting. Nobodys sitting around thinking “I can’t wait to clean my ice maker this weekend.” But its part of maintaining your home, which is part of maintaining your life, and the whole point of what we do at Homevisory is making this stuff manageable.

The free Homevisory home task manager will remind you when its time to clean your ice maker, when to change your water filter, when to do all the stuff that’s easy to forget. You set it up once and then you don’t have to remember. The app remembers for you.

Thats what we do here at Homevisory. We help you stay on top of the small stuff so the small stuff doesn’t become big stuff. Sign up for free and stop drinking weird ice.