Give your new ice maker 24 hours

Give your new ice maker a full 24 hours before you worry—most start dropping ice within 8 to 12 hours. The “official” answer is generally 24 hours, but you’ll usually see that first harvest long before that.

Why the delay? The freezer has to get down to temperature first, then the water line has to purge the air out of it, and then the icemaker itself has to run through at least one full cycle. That’s usually a few hours of the thing just sitting there quietly. If you installed it yourself, double-check that the water line is actually connected and the icemaker’s arm or switch is set to “on.” Yes, people forget that one a lot.

One thing to know: the first batch is often small, misshapen, or cloudy. That’s normal—toss it. The ice maker is just flushing out the line and getting calibrated. If you still have nothing after 48 hours, you’ve got