Don Klipstein writes:

A pound of ice per hour? 24 pounds of ice per day? How many people use
that much???

You consumption is not the issue, it's the rate at which the unit produces
when it's running flat out. The issue was what happens to the duty cycle
when the thing is making ice. My claim is that making ice is a bigger BTU
load than perfect "idling" (no doors, no contents, no icemaking).

I think part of the problem is that my side-by-side refrigerator is a
recent "efficient" type and not that old, but it is a big 25 cu ft unit
with a rather large icemaker in it. The freezer side is big but the
icemaker and bin take up about 1/4 of it. At the time when I was last
buying a refrigerator, it was clear that the big ones had the same heat
pumps in them as the smaller ones, they just ran them on a higher duty
cycle. Which makes sense.