ICE MACHINE SIZING · COMMERCIAL
Start with pounds of ice per day, not the machine. Work out your daily demand, add the bin you need to get through the busy hour, then pick the unit that covers both — and check the rating temperature, because the same machine makes far less ice in a hot room.
Tell us the size of the site and how it is used, and this will work out how many machines you need, which type belongs in each area, and why. No email required.
Ice demand is counted per person, per seat, per room or per bed depending on the setting. Hoshizaki America publishes these planning figures:
| Restaurant | 2 lbs of ice per customer, per day |
|---|---|
| Bar or cocktail lounge | 3 lbs per seat, per day |
| School or university cafeteria | 1.5 lbs per student, per day |
| Hospital cafeteria | 1 lb per person, per day |
| Hospital, patient care | 10 lbs per bed, per day |
| Hotel | 5 lbs per room, per day |
Source: Hoshizaki America, “Choosing the Right Ice Machine for Your Business”. Retrieved 2026-09-17.
The arithmetic is simply pounds per person × people served = pounds per day. A 40-seat café serving 120 covers needs roughly 240 lbs a day. A 60-room hotel, about 300.
For a breakroom, there is no credible per-employee figure, and we would rather say so than invent one. Ice use in an office depends on how many people fill a bottle or a cup with ice versus drinking water straight, and that varies enormously from one floor to the next. In our own installs across Ventura, Los Angeles, Orange, San Bernardino and Santa Barbara counties, the way to size a breakroom machine is to watch one for a week: if the bin is empty by mid-afternoon, the machine is too small, no matter what the daily rating says. That is one of the reasons we put machines in on a free one-week trial.
A machine rated at 165 lbs a day does not hold 165 lbs. It makes that much over 24 hours and stores far less at any one moment — so the number that decides whether you run out at 2pm is the bin, not the daily rating. If your demand arrives in a rush (a lunch service, a shift change, a gym at 6pm), size the storage for the rush and let the machine refill through the quiet hours.
Ice machine ratings are quoted at a stated air and water temperature, and the same unit produces meaningfully less in a hot back room. Our WTS-X30 is rated at 380 lbs a day at 70°F air and 50°F incoming water, and 289 lbs a day at 90°F air and 70°F water — the same machine, a 24% difference, decided entirely by where it is installed. If the machine is going in an unconditioned warehouse or a closed kitchen corner in a Southern California summer, size from the warmer figure.
| WTS-X14 | 44 lbs/day · 13.2 lb bin · hot, cold and ambient water · touchless — breakrooms, reception areas, clinics, studios |
|---|---|
| WTS-X15 | 125 lbs/day · 7 lb storage · hot and ambient water · 17.7″ countertop or freestanding — tight counters and shared floors |
| WTS-X16 | 165 lbs/day · 16.5 lb storage · hot and ambient water · 23.6″ countertop or freestanding — busy kitchens and customer-facing counters |
| WTS-X30 | 380 lbs/day at 70°F/50°F (289 at 90°F/70°F) · 30 lb stainless bin — restaurants, warehouses, gyms, large staff floors |
Every one of these is a combination ice and water machine plumbed into the line you already have, with multi-stage reverse osmosis filtration — see the full ice and water machines range, or the WTS-X14, WTS-X15, WTS-X16 and WTS-X30 pages for complete specifications.
Sometimes the unit is the right size and something is wrong with it — scale, a filter overdue, a harvest problem. Our troubleshooting guide covers what to check first, and we do commercial ice machine repair on every brand, including machines we did not install.
About 2 lbs per customer per day, per Hoshizaki’s published guideline — so 150 covers is roughly 300 lbs a day. Bars run higher, at about 3 lbs per seat.
There is no published per-employee figure. Size it by watching real use for a week; a 44 lbs/day unit with a 13.2 lb bin covers most breakrooms, and heavy-use floors move up to 125 or 165 lbs/day.
Because ratings are quoted at a fixed air and water temperature. Our X30 drops from 380 to 289 lbs a day between a 70°F room with 50°F water and a 90°F room with 70°F water.
Both — production covers the day, the bin covers the rush. Running out at the same hour every day is a storage problem, not a production one.
Yes — Ventura, Los Angeles, Orange, San Bernardino and Santa Barbara counties, installed and serviced by our own technicians. See our service areas and office water cooler service.
We install it, your team uses it, and we see what the bin actually does. Family-owned since 2007.