Spin off of slo's refrigerator poll..

[Dan Murphy]

.. A spin off of @slo's refrigerator thread today. In your experience, what is the ideal refrigerator/freezer configuration, like side-by-side, French door (top freezer or bottom freezer), bottom freezer, top freezer, or some other configuration?

 

[luvnwdwgal]

French door/bottom freezer

 

[Moliphino]

I think there are pros and cons to each. As I said in the other thread, I hate having a bottom drawer freezer. Stuff gets buried and lost at the bottom and it's so hard to get in there to clean. The French doors on top are fine.
I think for our next one we'll get a side-by-side. I really want crushed ice in the door and NOT have a drawer freezer.

 

[PollyannaMom]

In my experience, nothing I've had is "ideal". I currently have French doors with the drawer-style freezer in the bottom, and while I like the way it makes the fridge area more eye-level, it would never be enough space without the additional freezer I have in the basement, and I always bury stuff in the drawer and forget it's there.

If I was designing a perfect kitchen with unlimited space and resources, I'd look for two separate full-size units (no freezer in the fridge) and both with single doors.

 

[barkley]

i like side by side with the pull out baskets in the freezer. i can designate baskets by use (1 for baking stuff, 1 for ice cream, 1 for microwavable snacks/meals, small top shelf has breakfast stuff). i've got our older one in the garage and use the freezer almost exclusively for bread type stuff-loafs, rolls, tortillas, pitas, naan... top and bottom freezers require to much digging under and in back of stuff for my taste.

 

[Kitty 34]

I've always just had the fridge with the freezer on top and have always been alright with that.

 

[DLgal]

Side by side, in the largest capacity offered, is the way. This is the ONLY configuration that maximizes freezer space, which is super important to me.

The next best is the tried and true freezer on top, fridge on the bottom.

I cannot stand French Door refrigerators. Who wants to bend down to rummage through a freezer drawer? It is the most inefficient configuration, as far as organization is concerned.

 

[jo-jo]

We had the top freezer for about 30 years. At the same time our backs and knees started acting up, we switched to the French doors bottom freezer. I was needing to find stuff for DH too many times on the bottom shelf. Yes, there are times we find an ice cream sandwich squish beyond being edible, but we won’t go back. Never understood side by side.

 

[BlueStarryHat]

We have a side-by-side, but the freezer is very narrow and we hate it. We had to buy a freezer for the basement for our meat and other things. Upstairs we can only fit the stuff we absolutely need on hand for every day. I would love to have a fridge with a bottom freezer.

 

[unrequited23]

French door/freezer bottom is my absolute favorite. Followed by standard door/freezer top...I'm short and have had frozen items slide out and hit me in the head while rummaging around in it. I've had a side by side and could not stand it, nothing seemed to fit.

 

[Stratman50th]

Ours in the house is a french door with the freezer in a bottom drawer, 28cf. It was the largest I could get that would fit in a standard household space.
We have a side by side in our bus in the garage which we use as a backup. The freezer side isn't wide enough and I can barely store a frozen pizza flat.
Something I want to throw out there is in door ice and water dispenser. Again we have one in our bus. the chute and mechanism takes up valuable storage space in the freezer. I opted not to have one in our kitchen fridge to add more freezer space. It does have an ice maker but it's above the drawer and the ice bin doesn't take up too much space.

 

[kdonnel]

As long as it is counter depth I don’t have a preference.

 

[Mackenzie Click-Mickelson]

I hated the side by side fridge at our rental house. The freezer was too narrow especially with the ice maker and food packages never fit right, ziplock bags would then just be stacked on top so if you wanted the pizza you needed to pull everything piled on top off of it. It was a pain and a fight to fit things in there.

I said when we get our own fridge it'll be a top/bottom and that's what we have. We have fridge up top freezer down below. The freezer has a main bottom part with a separator in the middle then a drawer that pulls out, in the door is a pizza storage spot although we often use it for bags of frozen veggies. The top part with the fridge has a lower drawer we use for meat, then three drawers on top of that (one used for cheese, another dough items like biscuits, and the last used for veggies), then you have the main part with the shelves, one shelf is the adjustable kind (which I really wanted) with half the drawer able to slide under it for taller items so we put milk, crystal light container when we make it, lemonade, etc there.

We do have a deep freezer in the garage that we use for frozen half pound meats, chicken and whenever we make the freezer meals but could still technically get by with the bottom freezer. A side by side configuration wouldn't work well as a substitute for a deep freezer due to constantly having to stack things on top of each other, pulling items out just to get to something.

 

[Jangles]

In the U.K. they sell ‘American style’ fridge freezers. That’s what I have.

 

[Praying Colonel]

French door/bottom freezer>>>>>>>Top freezer>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>side by side

 

[Micca]

We have a side-by-side, but the freezer is very narrow

We like our side-by-side but we also have a narrow freezer. We have to get creative with some frozen items that come in boxes.

 

[tvguy]

Well, we have had a side by side for the last 40 years that has worked out very well. Had the first one.......a 25 cubic food Montgomery Ward made by Fridgidaire for 27 years, and while it was still functioning correctly, other than the ice maker, we felt it was time to replace it. We got the current one, a 27 cubic food Kenmore made by LG 13 years ago.
Now that is is just the two of us, something so big is kind of crazy.
I grew up with a top freezer, and that would be my second choice. My mom switched to a bottom freezer after I moved out and to me, any configuration with the freezer on the bottom is less than idea. She used to have to sit on the floor to access stuff in the freezer. She was in her 60's when she bought it, and lived to 90 and while she was always nimble enough to get up and down off the floor, just seems to me that a top freezer might have served her better. Of course, how often do you go into the freezer versus the refrigerator portion?

 

[soccerdad72]

I prefer the french door / bottom freezer, but they all have their pros and cons.

 

[CGB]

Just wanted to say I appreciate the responses. My 36-year old fridge (that is still going strong) will hopefully someday bite the dust and I'll be able to get a new one. It's nice to read the pros/cons of each style.

 

[SC Minnie]

We've had most of the configurations. I like our french door freezer on the bottom the best out of all of them. In the garage we have a standard fridge with freezer on top we use for drinks and overflow freezer items. We've had the side by side and I wouldn't want another.