Replace refrigerator icemaker?

[Dave Ketcham]

We supply a refrigerator with our rental property. It's a modest but nice 3BR 2BA SFR in a nice neighborhood in Lee's Summit, MO. The refrigerator is older and the icemaker stopped working. The tenant has asked us to repair it, and our property manager is recommending that we repair it in the interest of making the tenant happier long-term.

I'm interested to see what everyone thinks -- is spending $325 to replace the icemaker a "good" investment to keep the tenant happier? Is an icemaker a "normal" feature in an fairly nice home? Or should we just tell the tenant sorry, we won't fix it, because it is an older refrigerator that we will eventually need to replace?

Interested in your thoughts.

[Stephen Doyon]

I'm a facilities manager at my day job and I take every opportunity to remove and discontinue ice makers when possible and replace them with trays. The ice makers can definitely be a maintenance headache and people don't seem to mind keeping the ice trays full instead. However, I have a refrigerator with an icemaker in my SFR and I haven't had any trouble with it at all. When the refrigerator needs to be replaced, however, I will put in something without an ice maker just to avoid one more thing that could result in flood damage or a maintenance call in the future. :-)