Ice maker water and plumbing

There are two entirely different questions hiding under this heading. On a countertop machine the question is what you pour in and how often. On a fridge it is whether your kitchen has a water line behind it, because most Australian kitchens do not, and installing one is a trade job rather than an afternoon.

Water and plumbing specifications checked 9 September 2026

Countertop machines fill from a jug

This is the finding that matters most and it is unanimous in our data. Not one of the 58 countertop and portable machines we could source in Australia takes a water connection. You lift the lid, pour water into a reservoir, and press a button. There is no valve, no saddle clamp, no hole through a cabinet and no plumber.

For a renter that is the entire argument for a benchtop machine over a fridge with an ice maker. Nothing is modified, nothing needs a landlord's permission, and the machine leaves with you. The cost is the one you would expect: somebody has to keep refilling it, and the machine stops when the tank is empty.

The exception sits in the commercial tier, where 26 of the 28 machines in our commercial data are plumbed, drain continuously and are installed rather than unpacked. That is what buys the output figures in the ice output register, and it is also why those machines are not an option in a rented kitchen.

Fridges: the plumbing question in reverse

A fridge with a built-in ice maker is where plumbing actually becomes a decision. 16 of the 26 fridges in our data require a fixed cold water connection behind the appliance, and 10 work from a refillable internal tank instead. Most Australian kitchens built before ice-dispensing fridges became common have no water line to the fridge cavity at all, so for a plumbed model the real question is what it costs to get one there.

We are not going to publish an installation price, because not one of these listings does and a plumbing quote depends on where the nearest cold water line runs, whether the cabinetry has to come out, and what your state requires. What the listings do say is more useful than a number: 4 of them state in writing that the plumbed installation must be carried out by a licensed plumber. Get that quote before you choose the fridge, not after it is in the kitchen.

A trap worth naming: check the ice maker and the water dispenser separately, because they are not always the same answer on the same fridge. Our notes record models sold as non-plumbed where that describes the water dispenser, while the automatic ice maker still expects a mains connection. The fridges with ice makers page has the split model by model, with the price of each.

On price the two groups overlap almost completely, so avoiding the plumber does not cost you a premium and does not save you one either. The 9 non-plumbed fridges we could price run from $1,477 to $3,499, and the 16 plumbed ones from $1,899 to $4,999. Choose on whether you want to refill a tank, not on the sticker.

Tank sizes on non-plumbed fridges are barely published: 3 of 26 fridge listings give one. The figures we found are Hisense HRCD483TSW at 5 L, Hisense HRSBS633BW at 4.5 L, Bosch KFI96AXEAA at 4.5 L. A tank that size still has to be filled by hand, and the ice maker stops when it is empty.

Tank size decides how long it runs alone

The tank is the limit on unattended running, in the same way the basket is the limit on unattended production. 45 of the 58 countertop machines publish a tank volume, which is 78% of them. The published figures run from 0.9 L on the Cucinetta DBJ-20X 0.9L Ice Maker to 3.2 L on the Devanti Ice Maker Machine, 18KG 3.2L Stainless Steel Countertop Icemaker.

A litre of water weighs about a kilogram, so the tank sets a hard ceiling on how much ice a machine can make before somebody refills it, whatever the daily rating says. The last column below is simply the tank volume read as that ceiling. In practice you will get less, because ice melting in the basket drains back into the reservoir and is refrozen.

Read that against the rated output and the arithmetic is stark: a machine rated for double figures of kilograms a day is carrying one or two kilograms of water. The rating assumes somebody is topping it up, the same assumption that makes the daily rating misleading in the ice output register.

If what you want is ice and cold water from one benchtop appliance, that is a much smaller field than it looks: 1 of the 58 machines here mentions a water dispenser at all (Devanti Ice Maker Machine with Water Dispenser 2.5L). For most people the ice and water combination in Australia means a fridge, not a bench machine.

What water to put in it

Ordinary drinking water from the tap is what every one of these machines is designed to take, and in most Australian reticulated supplies that is the end of the discussion. Two things change the answer. The first is hardness: dissolved calcium and magnesium come out of solution on the freezing surfaces as scale, and scale is an insulator, so a scaled machine freezes more slowly, makes less ice per cycle and eventually fails to release the ice at all. Hardness varies enormously between Australian supplies, from very soft to genuinely hard, so this is a local question rather than a national one. The maintenance side of it is in cleaning and descaling.

The second is taste. Ice carries chlorine straight into the drink, and it picks up freezer smells if you store it. Filtered water fixes the first. Only a sealed container fixes the second.

On filters themselves, the register has an absence to report rather than a comparison. Not one of the 58 countertop listings we recorded mentions a water filter anywhere in the product information. There is no part number, replacement interval or replacement price to publish, because these machines have no filter at all: the filtering, if you want any, happens in the jug you fill them from. That makes the running cost of filtering a jug filter cartridge rather than a machine part, and it is the same cartridge you would buy anyway. Plumbed fridges are the opposite case: an in-line or internal cartridge is a consumable with a real recurring cost, and it is worth asking the retailer for the part number and the current price before you buy, because that figure is rarely on the product page.

Tank water, bore water and rainwater

This one deserves a careful answer rather than a confident one. The principle is not in doubt: an ice maker is a freezer, not a treatment system. It removes nothing, kills nothing and filters nothing, so ice made from water that is not safe to drink is not safe to eat, and chilling it does not change that. Freezing suspends micro-organisms rather than destroying them.

Whether a particular rainwater tank, bore or spring supply is safe to drink is a question about that supply, and it depends on the roof, the tank, the first-flush arrangement, the plumbing and, above all, on testing. That is not a ruling a comparison site can make for you. Every Australian state and territory health department publishes guidance on rainwater and private water supplies, and the national guidance sits with the Australian Drinking Water Guidelines. Those are the sources to use, and a local council or health unit will tell you where to have a sample tested.

The mechanical side we can be definite about. Sediment is hard on the pump and the water sensor, so a supply with visible particles should be filtered before it goes anywhere near a machine that costs more than the filter, and a machine on a non-reticulated supply will need cleaning more often than the manual says, which is set out in the cleaning guide.

Common questions

Do countertop ice makers need to be plumbed in?

No. Not one of the 58 countertop and portable machines we could source in Australia connects to a water line. You pour water into an internal reservoir, plug the machine into a normal power point, and that is the whole installation. It is the reason these machines suit rentals, apartments, caravans and anywhere a permanent alteration to the kitchen is not on the table.

Can I get a fridge with an ice maker without plumbing?

Yes, and it is a real segment rather than a workaround. Of the 26 fridges with ice makers in our data, 10 run without a water line from a refillable internal tank and 16 require a plumbed connection. The trade is that you refill the tank by hand and ice production stops when it runs dry. The model-by-model split is on the fridges page.

Should I use filtered water in an ice maker?

Filtered water is worth using where your supply is hard, for two reasons that are both real and neither of which is clarity. It slows the build-up of scale on the freezing surfaces, which is what gradually reduces output and eventually stops a machine, and it removes chlorine taste that ice carries straight into a drink. What filtering will not do is make the ice clear. Cloudiness comes from how fast the ice freezes, not from what is dissolved in the water, and a countertop machine freezes fast on purpose.

Can I use rainwater or tank water in an ice maker?

An ice maker is not a treatment device. It freezes what you give it and nothing in the process disinfects the water, so ice made from unsafe water is unsafe, and freezing does not make it otherwise. Whether a particular rainwater or bore supply is safe to drink depends on the catchment, the tank, the plumbing and the testing, which is not something a comparison site can rule on. Your state or territory health department publishes guidance on drinking rainwater and on private water supplies, and that is the source to use.