Brief refrigerator rant

When I bought my house they told me how great the Sub-Zero fridg was.

Couple days later, I noticed that great fridge ran all the damn time. So we called a guy to look at it. Needed a list of crap a mile long. Guy said they're good for 30 years, and that one is about 30 years old.

No problem. We measure and head off to Sears. Well what do you know. They don't have anything that fits. It's a "built in" fridge, so we have to find the same size or re-do the whole kitchen. We look all over town. Finally a guy says, "ah, you have a Sub-Zero". Turns out they're the ONLY ONES who make a fridge that size. So we went to the ONLY PLACE in town that sells them and look at the ONLY ONE that fits.

Six thousand dollars later, we had a new Sub Zero fridge. Pft. More than I've ever spent on a car.

We had the old top freezer/bottom refridge version and my wife always wanted a side/side. That's all she talked about.

Her sister was forclosing on her house and gave us their side/side for free. My wife hates it.

You know that you can put a frozen pizza in on it's edge, it won't all mush down to the side. That doesn't help with the turkey issue, but that only comes up once a year for most people.

fromeast2west wrote: You know that you can put a frozen pizza in on it's edge, it won't all mush down to the side. That doesn't help with the turkey issue, but that only comes up once a year for most people.

Last thanksgiving, I drove across town and picked up a decent 15-year old fridge from a guy for a hundred bucks, just to have a place to keep that dang turkey. It's out in the attached garage. It stays about half full of stuff year round. The kids go through milk so fast, it's good to have a place to store some so I don't have to go to the store every other day. Two fridges solves a lot of problems.

You think 2 is good, we've got 4! And that doesn't count the 2 little shortie fridges for drinks

We can organize our stuff!

We've got 2 side by sides, 1 top freezer and 1 bottom.

Side by sides rock! When you've got them all you realize you can fit a lot more - and be able to find it- in a side by side. We like the top freezer much better than the bottom freezer just for ease of access.

Like Margie we did do some measuring to make sure we had side by sides that fit our lifestyle. It's amazing how much the dimensions and percentage of refrig/freezer variance you will find between brands. There are some door, shelf and oddball extra features that really help out in some models. We love the one with the small door thru the door that leads to a very wide interior door shelf. Great for drinks!

Very few are made in America anymore. We had to go out of our way to find one that was made in USA and not a subzero.

I have a GE Profile fridge that was given to me by an old Boss when she remodeled.

Mine is white, not wood grain

It will hold a 20" pizza box no problem. Frozen turkey as well.

My parents have a fridge and a standalone freezer. Being arthritic, I would think that their having a fridge with the freezer on the bottom would be hard to use....they are in the fridge's freezer at least 6 times a day. The "standalone" is something my Mom considers a necessity bordering on luxury...even though it's just her, my Dad, and a brother at home. When she shops, she bargain hunts, and that means buying in bulk or buying "extras" for later in the year.

My 'fridge rant, is with cheap / smaller fridges that have the controls for adjusting the coolness stuck in a "module" that hangs under one of the shelves. Why not put the control in the back? or the side? This underslung "module" wastes space/forces you to arrange food around it. I can't wait until the day I move into my own house, again, and out of apartments with cheap/make do appliances.

I enjoy getting fridges at grassroots pricing from my appliance dealing landlord.

carguy123 wrote:

Besides, I get something out of the freezer *maybe* once a day, whereas I get something out of the fridge about 10 times a day. So to me it makes more sense to cater to the most frequent use and put the fridge above rather than below.

Which means you like side by side fridges too then.

No, I dislike them quite a bit, because of the aforementioned space issues. I had one that was in the house when we moved here. No big items fit on either side - can't put a turkey or pizza in the freezer, can't put a party tray or cookie sheet in the fridge side. I think side-by-sides are stupid, at least for the way we use a fridge, and my wife firmly agrees.

That's why I want one of these. Just have to sell a kidney first...

They're not body-part expensive, or at least don't have to be. I have a KitchenAid laid out like that, except counter-depth. You can save a fair amount of money (and gain lots of space) by getting one without the through-door ice and water dispensers.

pinchvalve wrote: That's why I want one of these. Just have to sell a kidney first...

Oh yeah...now you're talkin'...

That's my dream fridge...but I'd want a bigger one if it's available. Got a family of 6, including our nanny.

We have a big a$$ side by side now. I forget how many cubic ft, but it was the biggest non-commerical model Sears had. I absolutely hate the piece of E36 M3. Yes, it holds a large pizza box, but it takes up the entire width. And yes, it holds a nice amount of stuff, but since it's narrow and deep, you wind up stacking stuff in front of other stuff. So it's a constant hunt for food when the fridge is full. The freezer holds a giant turkey, we've had 20-something lb birds in there. But again, since it's narrow, it takes up most of the width of the shelf and makes it damn near impossible to put anything else on that shelf.

Reality is I need a fridge like pinchvalve posted AND a large chest freezer. Then once my garage is converted into my personal Garagemahal, I'll get another one for there...I don't drink beer but I'll get a fridge anyway.

pinchvalve wrote: That's why I want one of these. Just have to sell a kidney first...

Oooohhh yes! My buddy and his wife bought one like this for their new house a couple years ago.

But it was a $2500+ Samsung.

I won't even have that much in my 2.8L Built M20 turbo engine. Can't imagine paying that much for an appliance.

I bought that Samsung. Went scratch-and-dent on a prior-year model and ended up spending just under $2000, a big chunk o'savings. Still a scary expense for me for an appliance, and I was really afraid I'd soon hate it because the french door thing was new territory.

I really like this fridge. Love the french-door setup, because the fridge stuff is in front of you all wide-open and visible, and the bottom freezer doesn't vomit its contents onto me whenever I open it like the sbs did. The sliding tray at the top of the freezer means I can actually put stuff there for Tim and kids to find, so now they can go in the freezer and remove a pot pie for themselves WITHOUT rooting through and disarranging my food like raiding Yankee soldiers.

Underneath the freezer tray is a giant divided bin that is easy for me to get to, but I'm short so I have less of a commute, I guess. Pizza boxes fit no problem in the top tray, where I want them anyway, and the bottom would eat a couple turkeys easy.

Couple cautions on the french door models. First, if you want ice/water through the door (which I need due to the aforementioned Yankee raiders), there's a small icemaker that lives in the top corner of your fridge. Meaning it's small. And takes up a corner, as well as some door storage. Not an issue for me, because I have an old fridge/freezer in the garage that stores ice and our backup milk gallons, but it's common for these models to compensate with a second icemaker in the freezer, which to me seems like silly, expensive, space-sucking overkill. I'm having a big party and need a crapload of ice, I buy a bag. Always have, still will.

Also, watch feature creep. Some of these things want to do just about everything but store food, so they've got so many bins I think you'd get frustrated trying to do something crazy like stick a half-dozen ears of corn in there. (Maybe I'm the only one that buys produce?) That's one of the reasons I went older-model Samsung, because now they offer a fourth door that's for the deli tray, and that's just stupid and wasteful. I have a deli tray below my crispers inside the fridge. But then again, maybe people have larger Yankee/hun problems than my own, so I won't judge.

Good luck, and watch out. Fridges overall have become a LOT more expensive than the last time I went shopping. Scratch and dent is your friend.

Margie

If your fridge is anything over about 10 years old, it will be cheaper over the next ten years to have your A/C guy drain the Freon, use it for target practice, and buy a new one than to keep it and run it. This is an area where longevity hurts you.

Can't fit a turkey?!?

First of all how many turkeys do you put in a freezer in a year and secondly I've never had a refrigerator that wouldn't fit a turkey - EVER! Regardless of style

Now a big flat pizza box is another thing entirely. Many sizes and styles won't fit them.

chaparral wrote: If your fridge is anything over about 10 years old, it will be cheaper over the next ten years to have your A/C guy drain the Freon, use it for target practice, and buy a new one than to keep it and run it. This is an area where longevity hurts you.

Maybe if you buy a super cheap one.

That's a big problem here, our energy is so cheap, stuff like that doesn't ever pay for itself. During the few months when we don't really have to run heat or A/C, our electric bill will be around $35-40.

Our bill this month, and the A/C is running basically 18+ hours a day was only $145.

carguy123 wrote: Can't fit a turkey?!? First of all how many turkeys do you put in a freezer in a year and secondly I've never had a refrigerator that wouldn't fit a turkey - EVER! Regardless of style

Those turkeys on HGH and 'roids are big suckers....

chaparral wrote: If your fridge is anything over about 10 years old, it will be cheaper over the next ten years to have your A/C guy drain the Freon, use it for target practice, and buy a new one than to keep it and run it. This is an area where longevity hurts you.

Somebody will have to do the math for me that shows how pitching a 10-year old fridge that cost $2,000. new and replacing it with a $2,500 new one is going to save me money.

pinchvalve wrote: That's why I want one of these. Just have to sell a kidney first...

Looks like the exact one I have. GE Profile 28.5cubic incher. Echoing my comments earlier in the thread, it's awesome. Only quibbles is the smallish icemaker and the fact it's loud when making ice, both known before purchase. Also, one veg bin will open with just one fridge door open, the other will not as the other door blocks it.

Used a Lowe's 10% moving coupon + they had a 10% sale off all appliances at Home Depot and 0% APR for 6 months. It's paid off now, all that lessened the pain but still- ouch on the price. It replaced a side by side fridge I inherited from my parents that had the freezer die a few months after I moved into my new place. My first real large appliance purchase, I'm so grown up!

We have a very large bottom freezer unit in the kitchen. I can tell you form experience that if you take the sliding basket out you can put 2 20#+ turkeys and a couple good sized ham butts in the freezer.

In the basement we have a large upright freezer and a smaller size refrigerator. The refrigerator is a recent purchase since we were always running out of room upstairs.

There is just the two of us but we buy in bulk to save money. Every two months we go to a local butcher shop and the local chicken/turkey farm and load up. Prices are usually a dollar less per pound than we can find in the store even when they have a sale so it pays off.

Since we have our own garden and there are many local orchards a good part of the extra fridge is filled with fruits and veggies right now. the rest of it is cold drink storage.

Did you know that the grocery store will cut the turkey in half if you ask nicely? If it's not Easter/Thanksgiving/Christmas, who cares about presentation... and 1/2 turkeys fit pretty easily.

1988RedT2 wrote: Somebody will have to do the math for me that shows how pitching a 10-year old fridge that cost $2,000. new and replacing it with a $2,500 new one is going to save me money.

Because a refrigerator more than ten years old likely costs $200 a year to run, and a new one costs $50-100. And who says you have to spend $2500 on a new one? I mean, you can, but you can get an efficient one with almost any features you want for half that.

In reply to Marjorie Suddard:

I have the same Samsung you do. Love it, but just ordered my third replacement icemaker bin - mine does crushed ice, cubes and water, and the crush/cube selector door either sticks or this time actually broke. Also, I've never used it but in the freezer door bin there is a flip up plate that allows a pizza to slide in standing up - a nice touch.