Water and ice dispensers are a common addition to refrigerators, but are they a useful one? They can be. They offer fresh, on-demand water and ice, usually freshly filtered. The convenience might encourage you to drink more ice water. However, they also take up space and cause problems.

Our pitcher-filling cousins down the hall at Consumer Reports test a lot of appliances, and they know a lot about what a water dispenser and ice maker add to or detract from a refrigerator.

They’re more useful than they used to be. Carbonated water, heated water, and even dispenser spaces tall enough to fit a whole pitcher, if you want to make anything from cucumber-mint water to Kool-Aid. Using filtered tap water is cheaper and easier than using bottled water or a home water cooler,

They need to be fixed more often. More features means more things that can go wrong. With a non-working dispenser…

You lose space for keeping food. The dispenser and ice maker take up valuable real estate that you could be using for ice cream, frozen pizzas, or ice cream. If they aren’t working and you don’t bother to get them fixed, then you lose that space and you don’t get on-demand crushed ice.

The hidden cost of refrigerator water dispensers [Consumer Reports]

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