<p>Our fridge is pushing 17 years and apt to die any day. Looking at choices these days, I am completely overwhelmed! We are looking at side by side models with the usual ice/water dispenser–not sure if I will like the new french door styles/bottom freezer styles. I think constantly bending down for the freezer will get tiresome!
Do you have any input as to what brands are good, which ones are trouble prone, and what nice little clever and nifty features available in fridges these days you are finding useful?</p>
<p>Kenmore is a great brand with very reliable products. They definitely have refrigerators with everything you’ve described. </p>
<p>One nifty feature on some fridges is a small door on the outside that allows you to grab the drinks (or whatever you happen to put on the door) without opening the whole fridge door - great for saving energy?</p>
<p>I am dreading the day my 20 year old fridge dies. It has 5 microwaveable containers that slide into a holder underneath a shelf - so space saving and so useful and I have not seen modern fridges with that. And it has a door on the outside of the fridge which opens up to get to milk and juice.</p>
<p>I kind of like the look of the french door style freezers myself.</p>
<p>Huh - I have dorm fridge ads down the side of my page - interesting and a bit creepy.</p>
<p>swimcatsmom, better have dorm fridge ads than mail-order Russian brides ads that popped up the other day!</p>
<p>All I can say is that (formerly) my 15-yr old Whirlpool fridge is still doing OK at the house we sold it with. Sigh… My 9-yr old fridge at the current house (Frigidaire) is not doing so great. It had a meltdown once, but hubby’s $50 fix did the trick until something else started to make funky noises. We have a very tight dedicated fridge space in the kitchen, so finding a replacement would not be easy…</p>
<p>What sort of thread were you reading that you got Russian bride ads?</p>
<p>This one:
<a href=“http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/parent-cafe/547805-russian-judge-sexual-harassment-necessary-survival-human-race.html[/url]”>http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/parent-cafe/547805-russian-judge-sexual-harassment-necessary-survival-human-race.html</a></p>
<p>:eek:</p>
<p>Back to our beloved appliances…</p>
<p>I think that I would like the bottom freezer drawer ones, because you can pull out the drawer. I have a top freezer model and haven’t seen the stuff in the back of the freezer in years.</p>
<p>We have the bottom freezer, fridge on top model and would never go back… So nice having the fridge at eye level - and we are in the fridge way more than the freezer. </p>
<p>Pulling out the drawer works fine for us… ice is on top which is the main reason I go in there… We do not have ice through the door- but don’t miss it at all.</p>
<p>I saw an LG fridge at HD that had two separate freezer drawers - very convenient! One for meats, one for the stuff that should not be in contact with raw meat. Very nice.</p>
<p>2 freezer drawers? Perfect! Ice cream on one side; everything else on the other.</p>
<p>Mine is making puddles on the floor occasionally (and often makes weird sounds), whiich is why I think it is on its last breath. </p>
<p>I hear you, BunsenBurner, regarding dedicated space issue, we have a tight 30 inches or so where the old fridge sits and will have to take a wall down to fit anything new! But I think the time has come to bite the bullet and embark on this project…
This little venture is going to cost us much more than the price of the fridge but at least D1 just graduated and D2 will not start college until 2010, so no more tuition bills this year. Trying to look on the bright side!</p>
<p>Just<em>a</em>Mom: We fit a new Kitchen Aid fridge into one of those limited spaces like yours a few years ago. It stuck out more than the old one and definitely took up every inch. We like it, but I wish we had gotten the freezer on the bottom.</p>
<p>Early this year we replaced our 20-year-old fridge, and we’re saving approx $50/month on our power bill! Whatever you get, buying an Energy Star rated fridge will probably be worth the extra money (depending on where you live - here in Calif. our electricity rates are obscene). I personally like the fridge on top, freezer on the bottom.</p>
<p>Our 2-year-old freezer-on-the-bottom Amana roolz. WashMom doesn’t like traditional side-by-sides because wide stuff won’t fit. Going from a 20-year-old side-by-side to our new Energy Star refrigerator is saving us about $25 a MONTH on electric bills (!). This isn’t a typo - some of those old fridges are major electricity-pigs.</p>
<p>I’ve been looking for a new one, too, and came across “convertible” models - one is Haier and another is Samsung. As I understand it, depending on the manufacturer, the compartments can be changed from refrigerator to freezer as needed. Has anyone had any experience with these?</p>
<p>We just got the LG from Home Depot. Freezer is on the bottom and the double doors are on the top. We did NOT want the water/ice dispenser. It adds a lot of cost and we simply don’t need it. Getting the ice out of the bottom freezer is simple (it has an ice maker). We are really happy with the LG so far.</p>
<p>We recently bought a GE side by side with dual compressors (gee, H must like engines…) The air in the freezer side never mixes with the air on the fridge side, which is supposed to cut down on lots of problems like dried out food in the fridge and odors in the ice. I do notice veggies keeping longer. There are grapes in the fridge that were bought before we went out of town for 2 1/2 weeks that taste fine.
We debated the french door style but decided ice in the door was a must for us (lots of iced tea here - and when it’s 107 I even put ice in my nightly wine!) Putting the ice maker up where it can work in the door took up too much fridge room in the models I looked at. But I was surely temped by the one with the cool LED lights.</p>
<p>We have a GE side by side. No problem with width. Wide enough to fit a pizza box in the fridge. Ice maker in the door with a cool blue light. Brushed stainless means very few finger prints. And it’s a really tall fridge and I love it cause I’m really tall too…</p>
<p>Arrgh! I have been informed that our fridge just kicked the bucket! On top of my cat not doing great and getting a call from my doc to come back for more tests, this is just the thing I need to worry about right now!</p>
<p>I recently bought an LG from Best Buy - the freezer is on the bottom. I love having the pull out basket. I would rather have had a pull out freezer drawer but those were a little too expensive for me.<br>
I will never have another fridge with a freezer on the top.</p>