What do I want in a FRIDGE?

[bisous]

Welp, I gotta buy a fridge for the first time in 20 years. We're definitely on a budget. We don't want lots of special features. Our ice maker/water dispenser broke more than 5 years ago and we've done fine without it. Whatever we buy we'd love for it to last.

We don't have huge preferences about color. Our current fridge is white and that matches our other appliances so that would be first choice, probably. I think that's also the more budget color so that's a plus.

What STYLE fridge do we want? We currently have a side by side and that works out great. I know exactly where the food from our Costco run goes. We have 6 family members and we probably shop once a week for fresh foods.

Our current fridge is 36 inches wide and just about 70 inches tall. It is definitely not counter depth!

I'm thinking here on the board, I might have more in common with what kind of fridge you might buy for a vacation home?

Would love any recommendations!

TIA!

[SnuggleBuggles]

Why isn't your landlord getting it?
Side by sides are terrible, imo. Too narrow to be useful. At least our old one was- couldn't even fit a box of frozen pizza in there.
Ours is a monster- definitely not counter depth- but I love it. The fridge that came with the house is counter depth and lives in our garage. I couldn't function with such a tiny fridge if that was the only fridge I owned.
French doors on top, 2 drawers on the bottom has been great for us. And love our ice maker/ water dispenser on the door. Water consumption went way up once we got it! Ours is a "space saver" design so really not an issue.

[bisous]

Thank you for your input! I know tons of people that hate the side by side but it has been fine for us! I like the look of the french door. My boss has a freezer drawer and that seems convenient. I will say that food often falls out of my carefully stacked freezer, lol. That would put an end to that!

Before our side by side we always had top freezers and they didn't bother me either! Maybe I'll be ok no matter what? We keep trolling FB marketplace and it seems like lots of fridges are available but they are all 30" widths. I'd rather NOT give up that much space.

[hbridge]

We JUST bought a new fridge, to be delivered later this week. I was ready to purchase last March, just as things closed. A LOT of models are currently on a manufacture "pause". The two we were considering a year ago are no longer an option so definitely go with current inventory and ask as you are looking at various models.

Our must have was an ice maker and a water dispenser INSIDE the fridge. These limited our options considerably.

I love our current fridge, but it is over 17 years old and making some weird noises, ect. We currently have a freezer drawer on the bottle, which I had a lot of concerns about before we got it, but I love it!

The big difference between our old and new is that the new has the "french door" style for the fridge.

Good luck

[SnuggleBuggles]

I like the drawers. I file the boxed food vertically vs stacked. Easy to peer in and see all the labels at once.


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[doberbrat]

Make sure it is Big enough Inside. When dh went to replace our previous fridge, he got one that was about 1in less in width than the old one - there is a built in spot for the fridge so it was easy to see. BUT the inside is substantially smaller - prob due to better insulation for that energy star rating.

We have the freezer on the bottom - 2 doors and I hate it. Not only is it too small, but its impossible to find anything in it. i do like having all the fridge stuff up higher, but I wish the freezer had pull out drawers.

[wencit]

We bought a fridge about 9 months ago. Based on my research, I decided I wanted a bare bones model, no in-door ice and water dispenser, as those are reportedly often the first things to break. We also use a Brita pitcher and keep it in the fridge, because as I learned with my last fridge, Brita filters are much easier to find than specific manufacturer refrigerator filters once they get discontinued. Many people on here also recommended avoiding LG and Samsung.

I previously had a side-by side, and ended up buying a French door style fridge. I really like it so far. As someone mentioned, I couldn't even fit a whole pizza box in my side-by-side, but now it's no problem. My biggest complaint with the French door style is that the freezer doesn't hold nearly as much as the SBS. I'm one of those people who likes to freeze a lot of food, especially now during the pandemic, when my grocery store outings have been extremely limited. I ended up buying an upright freezer for my garage, and now I feel like I have the best of both worlds. Haha!

Oh, and I also purchased through Costco for their extended warranty. I think it gives you an extra year. It's been fine so far, knock on wood. I don't hold high expectations that any appliance purchased nowadays will last a very long time.

[mom2binsd]

If you can do without the outside ice maker/water dipsenser (I use mine all day long so I'd do without a lot of things to get that feature), but if it's not needed it will help with your budget.

Finding one available before next year will be a challenge. Neighbors had to wait 4 months for one, and my inlaws spent months finding one (and they wanted a bare bone white one with the freezer on top).Check the big box stores for open box, minor dents etc, as finding a new once can be a challenge.

Fridge styles are very personal, and if the side by side works for you, stick with it.

Also keep checking FB Marketplace3

[Kestrel]

We have SBS plus a freezer in the garage; that works best for us. All of the open packages of things go inside the house, along with precooked meals, full packs and meats in the big freezer.

The one thing that made a difference for us was light! Our old fridge was so dark inside. We also got the 48" wide and I love it. It has ice in the freezer door, so not taking up a ton of freezer space. (Jenn-Air) I would have rather _not_ had stainless, but that's the only way some of my chosen items came, so we got all stainless. Too much upkeep to keep looking nice, and we only have older kids' fingerprints to fight - I would guess littles would be more work.

[RiverRat]

I have a French door fridge with freezer drawer on the bottom and love it. So much better than side by side (I’m honestly surprised they still make side by side). I had side by side previous to this and hated not having space to have something horizontal. Like a dessert or whatever.

To save money I did in freezer drawer ice not in the door. Water is in the door but I didn’t want the ice as it always gets stuck.


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[Kindra178]

We just got this one for our basement - Frigidaire 20.4 Cu. Ft. White Top Freezer Refrigerator. It’s been really great. No water or ice needed though.


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[niccig]

We got a fridge 2 months ago. No issues getting it delivered the next week. Costco had the best price and extended the extended warranty. We have Whirlpool French door, ice and water in door. All fridges get bad reviews, this was best of worst reviews. We did a lot of research to find that no fridge will last 20 years anymore. Components are cheaply made so they’re designed to fail.

Apparently freezer on top is best design then side by side then French door. Stay away from Samsung and LG. Our Samsung had 4 repairs in 6 years for ice freezing up behind the back panel, encasing the fan in ice so then the fridge heats up and food spoils. We read a lot of reviews and the whirlpool we got doesn’t have that problem but the ice maker may go. I’m fine with ice cube trays if have too. Seemed less of a problem them fridge heating up with the Samsung


We also got a small chest freezer for the garage. It’s about 3 cubic feet, so doesn’t take up too much space but allows me to have extra items on hand. We’ve all been home so eating more at home than ever did before

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[niccig]

Double post

[klwa]

I'm going to be an outlier. We went from a side by side to a French Door with freezer drawer and I HATE IT. Hubs likes it, but I had a system in the side by side that worked extremely well (most commonly used items in both the freezer and the fridge were at eye level, etc.) and the french door system just doesn't work as well for the way I use it. The new fridge is larger than our old one and I can't fit everything in it that I used to be able to. I would argue if you like the one you have now, try to find one similar.

[truly scrumptious]

We got a fridge 2 months ago. No issues getting it delivered the next week. Costco had the best price and extended the extended warranty. We have Whirlpool French door, ice and water in door. All fridges get bad reviews, this was best of worst reviews. We did a lot of research to find that no fridge will last 20 years anymore. Components are cheaply made so they’re designed to fail.

Apparently freezer on top is best design then side by side then French door. Stay away from Samsung and LG. Our Samsung had 4 repairs in 6 years for ice freezing up behind the back panel, encasing the fan in ice so then the fridge heats up and food spoils. We read a lot of reviews and the whirlpool we got doesn’t have that problem but the ice maker may go. I’m fine with ice cube trays if have too. Seemed less of a problem them fridge heating up with the Samsung


We also got a small chest freezer for the garage. It’s about 3 cubic feet, so doesn’t take up too much space but allows me to have extra items on hand. We’ve all been home so eating more at home than ever did before

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I could have written your post word for word. Had a Samsung, hated it because of the same ice-over-fan issue. Recently replaced it with a Whirlpool French Door with freezer drawer. I also agree with what you said about "best of the bad reviews". I have resigned myself to buying a fridge every 5 years - if I'm lucky it'll last 7-10, but after 5 you're living on borrowed time.

[Jeanne]

I'm going to be an outlier. We went from a side by side to a French Door with freezer drawer and I HATE IT. Hubs likes it, but I had a system in the side by side that worked extremely well (most commonly used items in both the freezer and the fridge were at eye level, etc.) and the french door system just doesn't work as well for the way I use it. The new fridge is larger than our old one and I can't fit everything in it that I used to be able to. I would argue if you like the one you have now, try to find one similar.

I'm a SBS lover myself. When we have to replace our eventually, I'm getting another SBS. Top and bottom freezers are like the ultimate junk drawer from hell to me. I need many shelves to see what I have.

[bisous]

Thank you so much! We just found out that our fridge IS actually still working and that it was just a lightbulb that went out. We had an unexpected power outage on Saturday night but it went back on within an hour. When we checked the fridge, the freezer was nice and cold but the fridge had actually gone up several degrees. That, paired with the lightbulb not working made us think the fridge was no longer functioning properly. My dad talked us into waiting at least 24 hours to see if the temp would go back down, and it totally did. So for now, we won't have to worry about a fridge any more!

Still, this makes me want to watch FB marketplace carefully. I think I might be leaning towards another SBS. I can see myself falling prey to the "ultimate junk drawer" for the freezer. And I just know I can make a SBS work. I will be careful to note the inside space too as I really do like having as much space as possible.

We're lucky this time because my biggest fear is that we'll lose our insulin. DS1 needs it and we get 3 months worth at a time. We were concerned enough that we bought a generator after a series of power outages here. If the fridge dies though, that won't help us with insulin! As each vial costs $400 OOP, it is worth a pretty penny to have a fridge that actually works!

That said, I'm not looking forward to a 5 year lifespan on such an expensive appliance. How disappointing!

[AnnieW625]

I have an old SBS Kenmore (really a rebadged Whirlpool w/o water and ice) and it was our full time fridge in our old house from 2014 until 2019 when we remodeled. It is fine and I got used to the SBS layout pretty quickly. We were very limited as to what fit in our kitchen and needed something larger than 20 cu ft. top freezer fridge we were replacing. This one is 25 cu ft. IIRC.

When we remodeled our kitchen in 2019 we went with a GE Profile French door (cabinet depth)....the largest one I could find (24-25 cu. ft.) and we did French door over SBS because we knew we would be selling. TBH if we weren’t selling we may have done another SBS and gone with the largest model possible because we had more flexibility then because we were remodeling. The French door it worked fine except the water line froze over and caused a sheet of ice to grown on the bottom of the fridge and leak. It was a $120 fix by a plumber though (and we moved out the following week). That is a known issue with all GE French door fridges per multiple plumbers we spoke with while trying to trouble shoot the issue.

When we moved in August we inherited a Kenmore Elite (rebadged LG) and the condenser went out in mid September (after 6 weeks of using it....we estimated the fridge was about 6-8 years old) and it was going to be $800 to $1000 to repair if LG didn’t honor the recall repair. I called LG who referred me to Kenmore and I got nowhere with Kenmore (because I didn’t have an extended warranty) so we decided it wasn’t worth it to try and we bought a new Whirlpool French Door with water and ice.

So we ended up buying this fridge from Costco:
https://www.costco.com/whirlpool-25-cu.-ft.-36-inch-wide-french-door-refrigerator.product.100390141.html

Here is the SBS version:
https://www.costco.com/whirlpool-25-cu-ft-36-inch-side-by-side-refrigerator-with-adaptive-defrost-feature-in-monochromatic-stainless-steel.product.100500398.html

Sadly they are both out of stock now.

With us being home now I would be lost without water and ice. We drink a lot of water and I love ice in my water.


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