Chandler ice makers, and the water they drink.
The City of Chandler publishes it: hardness across the city runs from 5 to 20 grains per gallon, and the figure it leads with is an average of 16.5. That puts Chandler among the hardest of the five cities in our hard-water guide, and an ice machine is the appliance in a Chandler kitchen that meets all of that water, several times a day, by design.
The Figures Behind This Page
| What it is | Why it matters | |
|---|---|---|
| Chandler hardness | 5 to 20 grains per gallon | one house can get water four times as hard as another |
| The figure the city leads with | an average of 16.5 | among the hardest of the five cities in our hard-water guide |
| Cleaning interval | every six months | the maker’s figure for every city; hard water decides whether it holds |
| Filter, on the UC-15I | every six months, after a prolonged shutdown, or when the REPLACE FILTER light comes on | a new filter does not remove scale that has already formed |
| If six months will not hold | test and treat the water | cleaning more often is not the maker’s answer |
Sources: City of Chandler, water quality FAQs; Sub-Zero on undercounter ice maker cleaning and the UC-15I water filter; other cities’ figures in our hard-water guide.
Why the machine minds and the freezer does not
A freezer without an ice maker never meets your water. An ice machine meets all of it. A built-in machine makes clear ice by freezing water in thin layers on a chilled surface and washing away what it rejects, and in Chandler what it rejects is a great deal of mineral on every single cycle. That rejection is the reason the ice is clear rather than cloudy, so it is not a flaw to be engineered out.
From the kitchen it does not look like a fault at first, which is the problem. Nobody notices the week the cubes came out a little smaller. By the time anyone does, the ice may have gone hollow, the bin may take far longer to fill, and whoever pours a drink has started blaming the machine. Behind that, mineral can coat the one surface the harvest cycle needs to read accurately and narrow the one passage the fill cycle needs open.
What Sub-Zero asks for, and what Chandler makes of it
Sub-Zero asks for an undercounter ice maker to be cleaned and sanitized every six months whatever filtration is fitted, using the cleaner made for it, which is what removes limescale and calcium buildup from hard water. Not bleach. On the UC-15I, Sub-Zero asks for the filter to be replaced every six months, after a prolonged shutdown, or when the red REPLACE FILTER light comes on, and for the first batch of ice after a change to be thrown away.
Then the sentence that matters most at 16.5 grains: if six months will not hold, Sub-Zero’s own answer is to have the water tested and treated rather than to clean more often forever. In Ocotillo, Fulton Ranch and Clemente Ranch that is worth reading twice, because six months that holds easily in a softer city may not hold here.
When it is a repair rather than housekeeping
When cleaning does not bring it back. A fill valve passing too little water, a thickness sensor drifted out of adjustment, a bin switch stopping the machine with the bin empty, a drain that no longer clears between cycles: those are repairs, and none of them is inside the sealed refrigerant circuit.
One test separates most of it before anyone drives out. If the water dispenser still runs normally, the supply into the house is fine and the fault is inside the machine. Sub-Zero publishes a second: pour a cup of water behind the ice maker curtain, and if the spray changes, the unit is not getting enough water pressure.
Questions
Is Chandler water really that hard?
The city publishes the numbers itself: 5 to 20 grains per gallon across Chandler, with an average of 16.5 that it leads with. That puts Chandler among the hardest of the five cities in our hard-water guide.
My ice went small and cloudy. Is the machine broken?
In Chandler, start with the cleaner. The maker’s interval is six months whatever filter is fitted, and it is the cleaning solution rather than the filter that lifts limescale and calcium off the surfaces that matter. Run it properly, change the filter, give it a day, and look again: ice that comes back right was a water problem, and ice that does not was never one.
Would a water softener fix it?
It changes what arrives at the machine, with a trade-off the City of Mesa states plainly for its own supply: sodium in softened water rises by about 8 milligrams per liter for every grain of hardness removed. It does not change the maintenance either way, because Sub-Zero asks for the six-month clean regardless of the filtration fitted.
Do you come to Ocotillo and Fulton Ranch?
Yes. Chandler is within about 30 miles of downtown Phoenix, the area we work in, and it has a page of its own because the water here changes what an ice maker needs.
Your interval is not your neighbor’s
The city’s own range is the useful part: 5 to 20 grains per gallon means one house in Chandler can get water four times as hard as another. An average of 16.5 tells you what Chandler is like; it does not tell you what your kitchen gets. That is why a neighbor’s advice on how often to clean an ice maker is worth very little here.
The arithmetic against the softest city in our hard-water guide makes the point plainly. Gilbert publishes 8 to 10 grains per gallon. At an average of 16.5, a Chandler machine is handling nearly twice the mineral per gallon of the same machine a few miles away in Gilbert, and it builds scale sooner. Nothing about the appliance is different. The water going into it is.
Terms
$119 to diagnose, waived with the repair; one fixed price approved before any repair begins. Twelve months on parts and labor on Sub-Zero, Wolf, Viking and Monogram, with the genuine OEM parts we supply. What the visit consists of.
Read Next
- What hard water does to the ice makerHardness by city, and the cleaning the makers actually specify.
- Sub-Zero ice maker: no ice, or not enough?Sub-Zero’s own rates, and the seven checks before anyone is called.
- Chandler appliance repairEverything we service in Chandler, and the local angle on it.
- An undercounter ice machine that leaks, rattles or stopsWater that is normal inside, thin or clumped ice, the lights by model, and a bin that will not restart.
Something stopped.
Tell us the make, the model number and what happened. We answer every day, 7am–6pm.