Ice makers
Ice Tastes or Smells Off
Ice carrying the smell of whatever is sharing the cabinet with it.
Viking Repair Service Los Angeleson site 8am to 8pm, every day of the weekcalls picked up 24/7
| What you see | Likely cause | Safe check | When to call |
|---|---|---|---|
| Ice tasting flat, or faintly of plastic | A water filter that has been in place far longer than it should have been | Change the filter if this cabinet takes one, then throw the next two bins away | If fresh ice off a new filter tastes the same |
| Ice smelling of food from the fridge | Odors traveling through the air that compartment shares | Box or wrap anything strongly flavoured and empty the bin out | If it returns within a week of a clean bin |
| Old cubes at the bottom worse than fresh ones | Ice standing long enough to take up whatever is around it | Empty the bin fully and use the next batch quickly | Rarely a fault. Call if fresh cubes are bad too |
| A smell in the cabinet itself, not only the ice | A spill that reached the drain, the pan beneath, or the air path | Clean everything you can reach and see whether it comes back | This week |
The table above runs from the easiest cause to the least obvious, and taste is the one symptom an owner can often finish alone. Row one accounts for most of it. If rows one and two change nothing at all, call Viking Repair Service Los Angeles at (213) 799-7879.
The three things ice can taste of
Row one is the water, row two the air, row three the ice itself, and they sit in that order because that is the order worth ruling them out in. Filtered water that has stood in a line for months tastes of the line. A bin nobody has emptied since last summer tastes of everything the compartment has held since. Neither is a repair, and both are commoner than any fault.
When the cabinet is the problem
Row four is the one that brings somebody out. A spill that reached the drain, the pan underneath the cabinet or the path the air takes will keep announcing itself long after every shelf has been washed, because none of those places can be reached from inside. That is where taste stops being a cleaning question and becomes a visit, and the ice is only the part of the cabinet that told you.
Normal, not normal, and the line between them
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Normal
Ice a few days old tasting slightly of nothing in particular.
Not normal
Fresh cubes off a new filter with a taste of their own.
Time to call
Once a filter change and a clean bin have both failed.
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Normal
A faint chill smell as the bin is opened.
Not normal
A smell you notice from across the kitchen.
Time to call
This week.
-
Normal
Cubes clear in the middle and a little cloudy at the edges.
Not normal
Cubes gray, or carrying a film that will not rinse off.
Time to call
Call rather than keep using them.
Ice behaves like a sponge, so the cabinet around it is the first suspect. Call Viking Repair Service Los Angeles at (213) 799-7879 and describe the row you are on — that sentence is worth more than a guess at the part.
Safe checks before the visit
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Change the water filter if the cabinet has one, then throw away the next two bins. Filtered water standing in a stale line still tastes stale, so the first batches after a change prove nothing either way.
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Empty the bin completely, wash it in warm soapy water, dry it and set it back. Ice left standing for months is the single commonest cause here and costs nothing to rule out.
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Box or wrap anything strongly flavoured in the same compartment for a fortnight. If the taste fades over that time, the air is carrying it and no part has failed.
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Stop there. Nothing further is an owner job on a built-in: the sealed circuit, the wiring behind the grille and anything that needs a panel off belong to the visit. Call Viking Repair Service Los Angeles at (213) 799-7879 and say which of the checks above changed anything.
Asked about this one
- Is ice that tastes wrong a sign of anything serious?
- Almost never. It points at the water, the bin or the air around them, and the first two are owner work. What it can point at is a drain or a pan holding something that will smell far worse in warm weather, which is worth looking at while a technician is there anyway.
- Written by
- Ambrose Fitzwilliam
- Role
- Service technician — refrigeration and sealed systems
- In the trade
- 25 years in the trade