Water Filter to ice maker

I was wondering if anyone has any suggestions on having a Filtrete water filter run to the cold water tap AND a refrigerator's ice maker...Filtrete doesn't have a part number to do this, but I'm open to alternative vendors for it, or if the recommendation is "don't" that is fine too. Thanks in advance!

I had an inline filter on our refrigerator in our last house. The filter had connections on it for standard plumbing hoses like you'd use for a faucet hook-up. I don't recall the brand or actual sizes. Our current fridge has a built-filter.

Ice maker filters typically have limited gallons which are less than what you would expect from a cold water tap, somewhere in the 200-300 gallons before replacement.

If I understand correctly what you are suggesting, Ninja, I've done it for years... in three different houses.
I started with my original installation because it was the first house in which I had easy, underfloor access to my kitchen plumbing by way of a full standup basement.
I bolted my (then it was a two-stage) filter assembly to a floor joist located between the kitchen sink and the refrigerator and adjacent to the half-inch copper cold water supply line.
I cut the supply line and soldered in a T fitting (more recently I've used a Sharkbite push-on). On that T I made sure to include an inline shut-off with an outlet properly sized for the (usually) smaller and bendable line that runs to the filter assembly. Coming out of the filters I installed another T and sent separate lines to the fridge and to the filtered water outlet at the kitchen sink. At first I was worried that the smaller lines downstream of the filter would reduce water flow even more than it already did when the filter served only the sink. But over time it became clear that the sink and the fridge were rarely calling for filtered water at the same time, and in fact we had control over that simultaneous demand by simply not drawing water through the fridge door at the same time we were filling the tea kettle at the sink. I guess there were times when the ice-maker demanded water at the same time the sink outlet was turned on, but in ten years I never noticed the conflict.
In one of our houses we had no basement access--just a crawlspace, and I did the manifold hookup in the cabinet under the sink. I do not recommend this arrangement; it's simply too cramped and crowded.
But in every installation, the results were excellent, and for years we bought far fewer filters, and we had to buy only one size and description to serve both outlets.
In our last house I switched over to the Aqua-Sana three-stage system, and subscribed to automatic filter deliveries. It was a significant upgrade... but it did cost a tad more.
Good luck with your project.

Assuming that the fridge already has a filter, what would be the advantage?

slownsteady said:

Assuming that the fridge already has a filter, what would be the advantage?

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As indicated, I had to change only ONE filter. And I had to shop for, buy, and store only ONE filter.
In addition, most refrigerator water filters are glorified cardboard. With my two-stage and then three-stage systems I got a much finer level of filtration... cysts, etc.
I likes them ice cubes clean an' sparkly.

That's fair enough. Did you bypass the fridge filter or just leave it inline? If you bypassed it, how did you do it?

slownsteady said:

That's fair enough. Did you bypass the fridge filter or just leave it inline? If you bypassed it, how did you do it?

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I thought about adding a pre-filter like that. I would leave the fridge filter in place it will last a long time if the water is clean coming to it.


In my case I guess our water is really good because we have went a really long time on the fridge filter.

How do you know when the refrigerator filter needs to be replaced? On mine, I thought that the refrigerator was keeping track of how many gallons went through the filter, and the indicator on the front panel would tell me when that number of gallons had passed through.

Therefore, having pre-filtered water feeding the refrigerator wouldn't change the indicator.

bud16415 said:

I thought about adding a pre-filter like that. I would leave the fridge filter in place it will last a long time if the water is clean coming to it.


In my case I guess our water is really good because we have went a really long time on the fridge filter.

Click to expand...

jeffmattero76 said:

How do you know when the refrigerator filter needs to be replaced? On mine, I thought that the refrigerator was keeping track of how many gallons went through the filter, and the indicator on the front panel would tell me when that number of gallons had passed through.

Therefore, having pre-filtered water feeding the refrigerator wouldn't change the indicator.

Click to expand...

I’m no expert on this subject. I have been told quite a few times by people selling filter systems that these fridge filters are mainly charcoal and mainly remove chlorine only. My little research I have done seems to prove that out. Our water is city water and I do test it sometimes as I use the water in our hot tub and I get a PPM reading on it when I fill the tub with fresh water. The chlorine goes up and down and sometimes we get a smell of it. when we do I notice the fridge filter is working dropping the PPM of chlorine. I also don’t see the flow rate slow down so based on that I’m assuming its working. Our fridge doesn’t have a timer reminder on the filter I think they say once a year change it.