What's the best style for a refrigerator/freezer?

[hedgehog]

Side-by-side, freezer on top, freezer on the bottom?

[intaglio]

1. Or inconvenient, but energy efficient

a chest freezer with separate fridge

[Laurian]

2. I purchased a new refrigerator about a year ago.

I got one that has french doors on the refrigerator with a pull out freezer on the bottom. I'm very happy with it. The french doors along with the adjustable shelves in the refrigerator compartment work really well for storing large platters and bulky items during holidays, etc., but the shelves are easily reconfigured for every day use.

The pull out freezer has lots of space and I am able to find what I'm looking for without shuffling a lot of stuff around. I previously had a side by side and found that frozen foods would sometimes get buried and lost to the point that it became difficult to know exactly what I had in there. For me, the freezer drawer is much easier to keep organized.

I hope you find one you like. It's a big purchase and one that gets so much use that it's important to find the one that best suits your needs.

[northoftheborder]

9. This is exactly what I want next, and glad to hear your positive review.

Long ago, they made models with freezer on the bottom, (I had one) but eventually they went to all freezers on top. I'm getting too ancient to root around in the veg. bins at the bottom! I want the frig. stuff at eye level, so I can see everything. I'm not crazy about the ice through the door, based on friends and families' fridges. Seems they are always leaking, or spitting ice out, or getting stopped up. I used to think they would be great, save a lot of energy not opening the door all the time for ice. I've never had one, because of space limitations.

[postulater]

3. Hanging horizontal on the wall above the counter

Ours has two fridge doors and a third freezer door. It's just the right height, at eye level, so everything is easy to see and reach.

Too bad they stopped making them in the mid 1950s.

[CottonBear]

4. What brand and model do you have?

Can you post a picture or any info?

[postulater]

5. Ours is like the one in this photo

We have the brown, it also comes in yellow and turquiose, I think.

Runs like a Deere. Not very energy efficient, I'm sure, since the thremostat seems to not kick in an out as accurately as it should. And I dread when it finally goes we will have to significantly modify the kitchen to fit a 'real' refrigerator in. In the twenty-some years we have owned the house I have only had to replace a fan and some rotten wires.

http://vintagraph.com/blog/the-ge-wall-mounted-refrigerator.html

[mopinko]

17. compressor on top helps.

still don't get why they aren't always on the top.

[Ruby the Liberal]

6. I have a side by side

and if I were to do it all over again, I would go with 1 or 2 fridge doors on the top and a pull out freezer on the bottom.

Holidays are a pain as the fridge isn't wide enough for a platter. It barely holds a large-sized pizza box (almost an exact fit).

[jeff47]

7. All of them.

There's positives and negatives for each layout.

The most energy efficient is freezer-on-top, followed by freezer-on-bottom, followed by side-by-side.

Freezer-on-top tends to be less usable day-to-day, because you have to bend down for the fridge. And we use the fridge much more than the freezer.

Freezer-on-bottom has the disadvantage of being harder to find stuff in the freezer. You also can't do ice in the door with a freezer-on-bottom fridge.

Side-by-side solves those accessibility problems, but it's harder to put large things in the fridge and freezer.

It kinda comes down to what your priorities are and how you use your fridge.

[auntAgonist]

16. We have Ice in the door with our freezer on the bottom GE Profile. LOVE that fridge.

French doors. Freezer on the bottom. Filtered water and ice in the left door.

aA

[Warpy]

8. My next one is going to have the freezer on the bottom. I want the fridge, which I use more often,

at eye level. Right now I have a side by side fridge/freezer and it sucks ass, neither side being wide enough and the bottom of the freezer prone to growing a glacier.

The freezer was on the top in most models for years because that's where the coils were, the cold air sinking though the fridge and keeping everything there cool. They're not constructed that way any longer and there's no reason to have it on the top except silly convention.

[HeiressofBickworth]

10. I agree with another poster

It depends on your intended usage. I've had a freezer-on-top, which was ok. I was younger then and stooping for things on the bottom of the refrigerator wasn't a big deal. If you have an ice-maker in the freezer-on-top, you lose a lot of freezer space.

I once had a freezer-on-the bottom unit. I liked that a lot. The most frequently used items were at eye-level.

I now have a side-by-side. I never had a water/ice in the door unit before and I've come to like that very much. However, I get annoyed because the freezer section is so narrow it seems that I can't get much in it. We've had to get a small freezer chest for the garage to give us more space. Likewise the refrigerator side. It just doesn't seem large enough although the over-all size of the unit is larger than anything I've had before.

So, since not one model has every feature you might want, you'll have to prioritize.

[quakerboy]

11. Freezer bottom

Way better, in my opinion. Fridge stuff is easy to get to. Freezer stuff is also pretty easy to get to, as you are looking down into it, rather than into a shelf that's at shin height. The pull out freezer seems to provide at least a portion of the advantage of a chest freezer(cold air staying put down at the bottom of the drawer, rather than falling out.

Excepting the cheapest standard freezer on top models, its gotten kinda hard to find one without water/ice in the door. But its worth the time and effort to do so. I hate those. Also, just because it has an icemaker does not mean it has to be hooked up or used.

[Paper Roses]

12. My daughter recently bought a side-by-side and regrets it. The freezer is too small.

She told me the next one will be a refrig. with a freezer in the bottom.
The only reason she bought the side-by-side was that the previous owner had allotted the space when they redid the kitchen.
I agree with her. I have visited and found the refrig. a pain in the neck. It also has an ice cube and water dispenser that takes up room.
I'll take my old GE top freezer any day. No bells and whistles. Just a plain old refrig.
Had it for 15 years, not a problem yet.
I do move it from the wall and vacuum out the coils and fan every six months or so.

[Kolesar]

13. Side-by-side refrigerators use the most energy, ...

...and the side-by-side refrigerators with an icemaker in the door are the worst.

None of those would have met the federal efficiency standards, so the EPA had to create a special category for those wasteful refrigerators.
---
We bought a 21 cubic foot Whirlpool/Kitchenaid with a bottom freezer and we love it. It has an automatic ice maker in the freezer.

[Kolesar]

14. Samsung, LG Dumped Refrigerators in the US to take market share from the domestic manufacturers

That is a trade treaty violation.

LG is "Lucky Goldstar". They used to make those low quality VCRs two decades ago.

[tru]

15. freezer on top

I use a lot of Amy's stuff, so I access the freezer most. A top freezer makes things very easy to see.

I took out a frig shelf, since I'm single and the extra space makes things easy to see and get to.

freezer
shelf with under shelf small bin I use for butter and cheese.
shelf
veggie bins

I don't find it hard to get to things in this setup, despite my acting up back. I keep most veggies on the bottom shelf and long storage veggies in the veggie bins.

I would never buy an icemaker, so that's of no concern to me. I might as well drop a rock into my stomach as drink something ice cold.

[Kaleva]

18. I prefer the freezer on the bottom model

It seems to be easier to get at everything. Had a side by side a number of years ago and the shelf space for the freezer were narrow and limited what we could store there.