Storing and draining
Ice bin and bucket
An unrefrigerated box that has to sit square, or the machine stops and the cubes weld together.
- What it does
- It holds finished cubes and nothing more. Sub-Zero states plainly that the ice bin is not refrigerated, so the box depends on the compartment around it. In an undercounter ice maker a thermostat inside the storage bin is what signals production to stop, which makes the bin a switch as well as a container.
- Where it sits
- Directly under the mould in a built-in column, where it slides out on rails; in an undercounter machine it is the drawer-like box filling the lower half of the cabinet, with the ice scoop beside it and the freezing assembly overhead.
- How it is tested
- Level first: Sub-Zero's own instruction is to make sure the bin is level and seated, and that rails are pushed all the way in. Then the bin comes out to see whether ice or water was being held where it should not be, and goes back with the machine watched through a full cycle rather than left to be reported later.
- What the work costs
- Ice maker, water valve or supply line: $300–$820, after the flat $89 diagnosis.
Pattern
What we usually find
- A bin pushed in only part of the way, so its rails never reach home and the machine reads a signal that has nothing to do with how much ice is in it.
- Cubes welded into a single mass because the household draws ice slowly and the same batch has sat in the box for weeks.
- A bin standing in warm air, in a cabinet that catches sun or a kitchen that runs hot, melting ice the box was never built to keep cold.
- Meltwater left in the bottom, refreezing into a sheet that lifts the next batch out of reach of the level sensor.
Most often first. Order comes from what the visits keep turning up, not from a count.
Most calls that begin with the ice maker just stopping end at this box rather than at anything electrical above it. It is the one part of the water path a household handles daily, and the only one that can be put back wrong.
Push it until it stops, then push once more. A bin nearly home behaves exactly like a bin that is full.
Repair or replace
What usually happens to it
Cleaned and reseated far more often than replaced. A bin is a moulding with rails and lugs, and it earns a new one only when a rail is cracked, a lug is snapped or the shell has crazed enough to trap dirt. What gets ordered with it is whatever was broken underneath, a rail set or the runner it rides on.
Two follow-ups
Why does the ice melt if the freezer is cold?
Because the storage bin is not refrigerated, and Sub-Zero says so in its own troubleshooting. In an undercounter machine the box sits in room air, so a sunny kitchen or a warm cabinet shortens how long a batch lasts. Denver Sub-Zero Repair Experts checks the ambient before touching the machine.
Can I wash the bin, and will that stop it smelling?
Yes, and it is the one repair on this page an owner can do. Empty it, wash it in mild soapy water, dry it completely and slide it back until the rails seat. If the smell returns within a week the source is the compartment or the water, not the box.