its really a personal choice.

our old old kitchen didnt' have water in teh fridge, we had a pitcher, it was a PITA. we drink ice water a lot.

we replaced it with an in fridge filtered water dispenser and ice maker and life was great.

in our new house we are going full depth fridge with water and ice, and aren't looking back. I don't know if we need the filter really.

if you don't need the filter, probably ice is a bigger thing than water as far as "need"

in all honesty I'm not sure what you're looking for. if you haven't had it before, then you know what that is like, and whether you're happy with it.

the better question is if you have filtered water and ice is it sooo much better?

my answer is yes, i love drinking filter cold ice water and the pitcher we used to have, was never full, and the ice cube trays sucked.

I have one for the icemaker now (don't have the dispenser, so not for water), but I never missed having one before. We have good quality water here and I'm fine with our tap water. The difference I do notice is in not having air circulated between the fridge and freezer so you don't get a transfer or odors from the fridge. That was the only issue we occasionally had with the ice -- never an issue with the water dispenser.

I also purchased a CD fridge without water. Never had it before, don't miss it now. I had an undersink water filter installed for cold water and that works just fine. I would have added the filter anyway for cooking.

thanks, I guess what I was hoping to hear was that just getting a pitcher to filter water will be enough...

We have found that water and ice dispensers in the door and prone to failure. Our new refrigerator does not have one. We put a filtered water system under the sink. Go to the Appliance forum and see what most people complain about with their new refrigerators. I would have been happy with a carafe in fridge, but DH wanted instant hot/filtered water under the sink.

I am looking for one of those because I like fewer parts to break. Could you share which model you are considering? thanks :)

We drink tap water and I let my water run first thing in the AM for 3 min so that we are not drinking water that sits in the pipes overnight. You could save this water for mopping, flushing water out of the toilet before you scrub it, watering plants, or the garden.

I have a friend who has the filtered water inside the fridge. She feels sitting there with the door open to wait for the water to slowly fill the glass is maddening, plus it wastes a lot of energy to have the fridge open. Also she says it drips and damages the fridge.

In our former house we had a fridge with in the door water and ice dispenser. We found changing the filter a pain, to be honest :) In our new (to us) house, we just installed a french door fridge with only an ice maker in the bottom freezer. Works great, no more ice landing on the floor from the door dispenser and we have more room in the fridge. A pitcher of water in the fridge is all we need.

Hope this helps.

It's imperative where we live, because we have a well, and the groundwater is very rusty and hard. Even with a softener, if the salt runs low and the water softener doesn't do its job, then all the water turns orange and hard. It tastes very bad when that happens and turns tile and plastic (anything the hard water may touch) orange.

We will do the same as MCMesprit. Never had water or icemaker in fridg, but now it's actually hard to find a fridg without an icemaker!

If you have never had it before, I doubt you will miss it. In our previous house, the water/ice on the door feature broke about 3 years after we bought it. We never fixed it, because we thought we'd fix it either when 1. something else broke on the fridge or 2. (later) when we bought a new one because the whole fridge broke. It never broke so we lived for 11 years with no water or ice in the door (the internal ice maker did work, we'd probably have fixed it if THAT broke!)

We had the water and ice in our door in our last house and loved it (s x s LG). In our new kitchen, we are using a separate fridge and freezer with no water/ice in the door option (Whirlpool Sidekicks - love them!). We did get the icemaker for inside the freezer because that is so handy.

Because we want to encourage drinking water, or using it to make iced tea, we are going with a filter system with a drinking faucet at our sink. It cost about $100 and will do what the door dispenser would have. Our tap water is good, but after having one at the nozzle part of our sink for 4 years pre-reno, and changing/seeing that filter, we would not go without a filter for everyday use. When you see what collects, it is a turn off.
I also am opposed to buying bottled water because of the impact on the environment. It costs much more and takes up storage space and you can run out. Besides, bottled water has not been shown to be better than tap water in most cases. I think filtered tap water is the way to go.

As for pitchers, they are a PITA and take up valuable fridge space. The filters need changing more often and the water filters so slowly it is maddening if you are waiting for it.
HTH

We haven't had water piped into our refrig since we bought one in 1972 and detached the water vendor after tasting the concentrated minerals &c in old ice cubes. Cuts down on the potential problems for the floor and our local water is not considered bad tasting. Also cuts down on unexpected sounds in kitchen.

Peonyfan, yes, the water inside the fridge is awful, we have it at work, I can never fill my glass without spilling.
Do you mean model of refrigerator? I am going to go for a white bottom freezer Fisher and Paykel.

Trailgirl, how big is the undercounter filter? Thanks!

Sorry... not here to answer the question...

I would prefer a fridge without the ice maker and water dispenser, but they seem to be more expensive than their counterpart (that has one). We are tied to one brand due to hubby's employee purchase discount program, and the brand does not offer one without the dispenser anyway. So, I think we'll just get the fridge with the setup, but not hook a water line into it (also to avoid some potential leakage in the future). Feeling silly about it though...

Actually, I would strong recommend the OP to look into under the sink filtration system. If you are not into chilled water and ice (like us), I think that's the way to go.

Having water and ice in the door is an absolute must for our family. My kids primarily drink water and it is because it is so easy to get cold water (and I think they think it's fun too). We had never had it before, but when we moved to a house with it they immediately started drinking water more than anything else. They are now 11 and 14 (we've had it for 9 years now).

I also use it at least once a day to get crushed or cubed ice for one thing or another.

We have never had a problem with any of the mechanical parts. Sometimes my son will back the ice up into the dispenser so it doesn't close completely, and then it will melt and form a block of ice but I just take the ice container out (it is easily designed to do that) and pour warm water til the ice block slides out.

I do not have ice/water in the door of our FD Samsung. Do have water dispenser with filter inside the fridge. Works great here in FL, where water is lukewarm in the summer and demands ice. Cold water is a blessing!!

We do have the ice/water dispenser in the door, but a year ago we bought an alkaline water filter so now don't need it.
The next refrigerator will not have it.

The water filter in my KA fridge is a PITA to change, so I took it out and haven't used one in years. I don't miss it a bit. We do have good water around here.

We do not miss having one.

I just got one after never having had one before. It's great if you have kids and a busy kitchen. My kids can grab a drink of water without getting in the way of the cook, and the ice dispenser is great for not opening freezer door and letting out all the cold air just to grab a couple ice cubes.

But, if we didn't have kids, I don't think we'd need it as much.

I just wanted to put in a plug for having a comprehensive water test done, especially if you are on a well. In our area, we have a lot of naturally occurring arsenic, and we are on the borderline of high levels. So (after 15 years) we got the correct undersink filter to deal with it.

If you are on a public water system, it will be primarily a matter of taste.

As for the water and ice in the fridge, we didn't want either (not wanting to spend another grand to put an arsenic filter on a refrigerator water line) but like mudworm found it an almost impossible task to find a model without one or the other -- ours had the bottom freezer ice-maker, but we popped it out to gain more room in the freezer.

I had a water and ice dispenser with filter from the frig door on my last refrigerator. This was the first thing to break down. Eventually, we disconnected because it was not worth calling the repair man for repair. There was always ice and water on the wood floor from the kids not being so good at it. I nixed the entire contraception, and we don't miss it.

We have an ice maker which makes it easy to grab the ice from the freezer.

We installed a filtered water faucet at the sink. Much better system for us. We use that to drink and to make coffee and use the water for other "cooking" water, ie water for pasta etc. I much prefer it to the system we had.

We put a whole house water filter in. The water in our town tastes horrible! The filter is in the basement just after the water pipes come in from the outside. It is similar to the filters you see in refrigerators but just gigantic in comparison. There are two filters and they are about 18" tall by 6" around. Our plumber installed the system for us. Makes it nice for us to be able to drink water from any faucet in the house - even upstairs in the bathrooms.

Thanks all, we will test the water, where do you do that?

About 5 years ago, we got our first refrigerator with water in the door. Before that we purchased bottled water and kept it in the fridge. Now we have added 2 filters (one in fridge and one in line downstairs) and our water is amazing! I love it and would miss it now that I know what I'm missing. However, Since you have never had it, you may be fine not knowing what you are missing.

We purposely got a fridge that did not have external water/ice, only internal, because we didn't like the look of a water/ice dispenser. And then we chose not to hook the water up to the fridge--so there's no water or ice at all--and no, we don't regret it. We have a very nice water filter at the sink, way better than any fridge filter. We use that for drinking water and to fill ice cube trays.

If you want to filter your water, choosing the one that best fits your situation gives you way more flexibility and choice than just relying on whatever came with your fridge. The link below helps with that--it's the NSF site on water filters. The list of links above the article includes a "search" link you can use to search for NSF-certified filters of whatever kind you want (under the sink units, on-counter units, pitchers...). NSF certified means the filter has been third-party tested to verify what contaminants it removes and how much it removes.

Here is a link that might be useful: NSF Water Filter info

I think as everyone has pretty much said, it's a personal preference. Having an external water dispenser on our fridge was a "must-have" for us. I have four kids who drink pretty much nothing but water. We have well water and have both filtered water at the sink (but it's not cold cold) as well as through the fridge. I contemplated getting the internal dispenser b/c we don't really need the external ice (actually hate that feature!) but with four kids, didn't want them constantly opening my fridge to get drinking water.

My parents used a Brita pitcher at their house but it's just the two of them. They don't drink that much water so it's not a big deal for them. Their drinking water doesn't really need to be filtered but my mom prefers to filter it anyway.

I like having the additional filtered water at the sink b/c I use it for filling pots with pasta water and rinsing my fruit/veggies as well. We do have a water conditioning system in the garage as we have well water. We *could* drink from the tap, but I like having the external layer of protection.

Like mamadadapaige we just installed a GE whole house filter in the basement. We have municipal water. We have been using a brita pitcher but it is kept on the counter as I don't like ice cold water. The whole house filter is working great and I am about to ditch the pitcher.

I don't have a water dispenser in the fridge and don't regret it. You could use a pitcher for a while, but would recommend a whole house or something like it. As others have said pitchers are a pita. We use a ton of water and I contantly had to refill it.

We had in-door ice and water in our last house, which I missed when we first moved to the new house with its ancient fridge with no ice or water. We bought a Pur dispenser to keep in the fridge, and that has worked great. It has a spigot at the bottom, so you don't have to lift it out of the fridge to pour like a pitcher. Our 2-year-old loves to get her own glass of water from the dispenser now that she can reach it. The Pur is long and skinny, so it fits easily in a standard fridge, but is too deep for the integrated column fridge we plan to buy - we will miss it.

I am looking forward to having an internal ice maker in the columns, but do not want a door dispenser again because it will make the column look less sleek. DH wants the in-door dispenser, but I keep telling him it is the part most likely to break down and costs $400 extra (but my main complaint is really the appearance). I think we will get a filtered dispenser for the sink instead so we have filtered water for both drinking and cooking.

Here is a link that might be useful: Pur dispenser

Our ice maker in the fridge broke about a year ago but the water dispenser still works. We are waiting for the entire fridge to die before we replace it, so for now we are using ice cube trays. Our next fridge will have an ice maker b/c I am the only one to refill the trays. It drives me crazy!

We have a whole house water filter too and we really like it. We also keep a pitcher of water in the fridge b/c we have a house of very impatient people and it seems to take forever for the fridge dispenser to fill cups, and you cannot get a water bottle to fit in ours. So the pitcher does make things easier.

If you've never had it, I don't think you'll miss it. We definitely miss our ice maker.