Refrigerator Style

[Willyou]

We are looking at new refrigerators and are enamored with the french door bottom freezer style. Anything we should be concerned about with that style?

[Cecil]

We are looking at new refrigerators and are enamored with the french door bottom freezer style. Anything we should be concerned about with that style?

There was one in my house when I bought it.  I was NOT enamored by the french doors.  However, it did not take long for me to like it.  The only issue I have is the pull out drawers.  On one side, I can open one door and pull out the drawer.  On the other side, the drawer will hit the little plastic strip between the doors, so for that side, I need to open both doors to open the drawer.

[Willyou]

Good to know. We'll watch for that as we shop. The main reason we like the french doors is because there is a cabinet close to the front of the frig where it needs to sit. The french doors won't take up so much space in their swing.

[rednoblue]

We are looking at new refrigerators and are enamored with the french door bottom freezer style. Anything we should be concerned about with that style?

we have fridge with bottom freezer pull out and love it.

Do not have french doors as our fridge sits next to a wall. .. this prevents the door on a french door style from opening far enough to pull out the drawers.  The french doors open differently/hinged differently than a single door.(at least the ones we looked at)   A single door works great, french doors would not open far enough with the wall there.  It looks like it should work...but it don't here

if yours is not next to a wall...probably be good.

[fredhargis]

That's the style we chose, and we like it. I did notice on ours (an LG, skip them for whatever brand is next) if you open both doors at the same time in a certain fashion, that center strip will re-close while the door is open. If you then shut the doors with some force, you break it off...the display we looked at had this problem. We still bought it since it has a better interior arrangement on the fridge part than the other counter-depth models we looked at. We've' also owned Samsung (
) and Maytag(
) French door models and neither of them behaved that way.

[R Clark]

GE Profile with the French Doors and bottom freezer.  We've had it for going on five years and it's very good.

Finally, a fridge that makes enough ice to suit my preferences.  And, there's two ice makers: one in the freezer and one in the door above where it dispenses on demand.

This is the second bottom freezer we've had and we like them very much.  Make sure that your placement location can accommodate the full extension of that pull out freezer.

As for the pull out drawers in refrigerator portion, the different features of those are probably what really differentiates the brands.  Wife picked the GE over the others, so I really don't have any research that says GE versus LG versus Samsung versus...

[Roly]

GE Profile with the French Doors and bottom freezer.  We've had it for going on five years and it's very good.

Finally, a fridge that makes enough ice to suit my preferences.  And, there's two ice makers: one in the freezer and one in the door above where it dispenses on demand.

This is the second bottom freezer we've had and we like them very much.  Make sure that your placement location can accommodate the full extension of that pull out freezer.

As for the pull out drawers in refrigerator portion, the different features of those are probably what really differentiates the brands.  Wife picked the GE over the others, so I really don't have any research that says GE versus LG versus Samsung versus...

That is the same refrigerator as we have and like it.   The only issue is that you need both doors open to pull out the full width drawer.   The dual icemakers are great for when you are having people over.  You can shut either one off if you dont need it.    The GE refrigerator uses the RWPFE filter which you must replace every 6 months or it shuts the water off unless you install a bypass.   the RWPFE is the same as a RWPF filter but costs twice as much because it has a rfd chip in it.  $50 for the RWPFE.  This is where GE is ripping the people off, like printer ink.   Roly

[K. L. McReynolds]

As mentioned, a french door model beside a wall is not good. We have had two and found a middle crisper drawer is really useful and convenient.

Ice makers are problematic. Not enough ice or they cease operation.

Get the longest warranty you can----modern fridges break a lot---and we had to buy a cheap standard fridge to use when the warranty period takes two weeks for a repair.

[Snipe Hunter]

One of the coolest things I get to do as a home inspector is that I get to see everything away from it's showroom environment.

I'm building our new kitchen now. We have had a double door fridge with the freezer on the left and fridge on the right for years. Our biggest problem with it is that if we put something large on a shelf in the fridge, there's no room for anything else. Really stinks, especially around the holidays.

After seeing the fridges with the freezer drawer at the bottom and wide shelves in the fridge, I was sold. I can stack things in a freezer drawer without smashing food because it's frozen. Our new one is still in the box in the garage.

It's a GE Profile purchased from Costco.. Watch the sales. Costco is competitive with everybody and their extended warranties are a lot cheaper than their competition. Costco just has a limited selection compared to the Competition though. All the new appliances are GE Profile, some from HD, some from Costco.

If we had the room, we would have bought a wider "industrial" size, but no room.

[Robert Adams]

Mainly personal preference. 

   The bottom freezers typically hold less than a side by side and you have to bend over every time you get anything out of it. They also typically have small ice makers that are excruciatingly slow to produce ice. There are versions with two icemakers now which helps. 

      For us the bottom freezer isn't very useful as we would much prefer the freezer be larger than the fridge as we don't have much need for storage there. Also the anemic ice makers are another no go for us as we live in TX and make allot of iced tea as the weather is insanely hot and iced tea requires allot of ice. 

        Like I started off it's personal preference. For us there are no refrigerators on the market that come close to fitting our needs. We would actually be better off with a standalone freezer and a small fridge. We don't keep much in the way of veggies here because we come and go so much that we waste 50% of what we buy as it just goes bad. The only leftovers we do are briskit etc from the smoker and that we split up and freeze...