On this page, you will find out how many watts an ice maker draws.
Automatic ice makers are one of life’s luxuries but almost become essential when hosting a summer party. Even if you just have a large family, having plenty of ice to drop in the lemonade (or cocktails…) keeps everyone happy when it’s hot out. Along with water, it’ll also need electricity to run. If you’re trying to keep your bills down over the summer or want to run one in your RV then knowing the power consumption is critical.
Below we will discuss and test ice maker wattage, explain how to work it out for yourself, and calculate the total electricity required.
How Many Watts is an Ice Maker?
The average ice maker uses between 120 to 200 watts.
The exact number depends on the size and model of your ice maker. For example, a small portable machine uses 120W while a bigger countertop unit pulls 200W.
Like most appliances, the higher the capacity (the more ice it can make) the more watts it will draw. Although, most of these machines are fairly low powered devices so you never have to worry about the difference too much.
It’s important to note that your ice maker won’t always draw this maximum power consumption. It will be high during start up and ice making. The rest of the time it will sit idle or draw less than 10W to keep ice frozen.
How to Find Out Your Ice Maker Wattage
There’s 3 ways you can work out the wattage of an ice maker.
- Check Product Specification
The quickest way is to look at the ice maker’s specification. The watts (W) is usually written on a sticker on the base of the appliance. If not, you can check the user manual or the manufacturer’s website for technical details.
- Use a Wattmeter
A wattmeter is brilliant for getting a live wattage reading and tracking total energy usage of any appliance. You can simply plug it into your ice maker to get instant information.
I used one to test my ice maker which gave a live reading of 141.4W when generating ice cubes.
- Wattage Formula or Calculator
If you know the amperage and voltage of your ice maker you can use this to find the running watts. Simply use the formula Amps x Volts = Watts. Or you can head over to the ‘Watt Calculator’ to work this out.
Ice Maker Wattage Examples
Let’s take a look at specific examples of how many watts an ice maker draws. Below is a collection of modern ice makers with their listed power ratings.
| Ice Maker Model | Power Rating (Watts) |
| Silonn Ice Maker | 160 |
| FRIGIDAIRE EFIC189 | 200 |
| Newair Countertop Ice Maker | 200 |
| Euhomy Nugget Ice Maker | 170 |
| hOmeLabs Portable Ice Maker | 120 |
| Caterlite Countertop Ice Machine | 120 |
| Andrew James Ice Maker | 100 |
As you can see, the power ratings vary between different ice makers. So you should take the time to check your own appliance.
How Much Electricity Does An Ice Maker Use?
You can use ice maker wattage to work out how much electricity it uses. Plus this can be useful in understanding how much it costs to run your ice maker.
A watt (W) is a measurement of power at a single point in time. A watt-hour is the total amount of electricity used in an hour. For example, an ice maker drawing 200W would use 200Wh when running for an hour.
Happily, electricity bills are recorded in kilowatt-hours (kWh). A kilowatt is simply 1000 watts. So a 200W ice maker running for 1 hour uses 0.2kWh.
In reality, your machine draws high power to make ice for 10 minutes a day. This means an ice maker uses about 33Wh or 0.033kWh electricity a day. That’s 1kWh a month and 12kWh a year.
In the US, that’s a rough electricity cost of $2 a year to make ice every day!
Using an Ice Maker Off-Grid
Want to use an ice maker off-grid in an RV, van, or boat? The information above is important. It enables you to pick the right power equipment and learn how long it can run.
You can either use a power inverter, portable power station, or generator to generate electricity.
To make sure everything runs smoothly you should check two things on this equipment – wattage capacity and total energy capacity.
Your power source, like an inverter, should have a wattage capacity of at least 20% more than your ice maker. This ensures it will be able to deliver enough power as they are never 100% efficient. To make ice, you will need at least 300W of power capacity. This will be enough to run domestic ice machines without overworking your equipment.
Secondly, you need to ensure your energy source, like a battery, has enough energy to run the ice maker for the required amount of time. As we already know, it will use about 33Wh electricity for each usage. This is the equivalent to 2.75Ah on a 12V battery.
How Many Watts Does An Ice Maker Use Summary
You should now have a clear understanding of how many watts an ice maker uses.
As you can see, these are very low powered appliances. You can switch on the machine and have a bucket of ice in 10 minutes. During the creation of new ice, it will draw a higher wattage. After this, if you leave the machine running to maintain the ice it will be idle and draw minimum power. This makes it a low energy way to keep cool during the summer even if you are running off-grid!
