Anyone have a French Door Refrigerator?

[ringo865]

DH and I just returned from a week-long vacation. I promptly committed to making a 2016 IRA contribution and then bought a little bling. The next day, the compressor on our side-by-side fridge buzzed itself out of existence. Thankfully, we have a full freezer in the basement and an old top freezer/fridge (in "marigold") in the pole building, so our food wasn't ruined, and is still available - just a bit inconvenient.

Internet searches and calling around several places confirmed our fear that repair costs would run $600-800. Although we had hoped to upgrade our kitchen appliances all at once (at a later date, with new floors/countertops), we are now on the unexpected hunt for a new fridge.

We are considering the French Door (fridge on top, freezer drawer on bottom) style with in-door ice/water. Consumer Reports did a very abbreviated report in August and had only the briefest "rundown" in their year-in-review booklet.

I was hoping for some real-life reviews. If anyone has one of these, what brand is it, what do you like about it and what do you dislike? Would you recommend it to a friend? Comments about things to look for or things to avoid would be helpful, too.

Thanks in advance.

 

[telephone89]

Ive got something like this https://www.lowes.com/pd/Samsung-28-07-cu-ft-French-Door-Refrigerator-with-Dual-Ice-Maker-Stainless-Steel-ENERGY-STAR/50143404
Don't remember the size of it, but its a Samsung French door w/ Bottom freezer and the same ice/water dispenser. I LOVE the bottom freezer. We don't have a deep freeze, so fitting larger items would be impossible in a side freezer. I find the drawers a little unneccesary (the 2 pull outs and the shallow wide one), but I'm also fine with just leaving my veggies on the shelves, and don't eat a ton of ice cream cake (at least that's what Kelly ripa uses the shallow one for in the commercial LOL). No complains. That said, it's only been 3 years or so.

eta - the shelves on the inside of the door with the icemaker are also quite small and awkwardly shaped. We use that area to store the sauce packets you get from Chinese food restaurants, the baby hot sauce bottles, and random things like butter, tubes of tomato paste/wasabi paste.

 

[ringo865]

telephone89, Thanks. That is EXACTLY the one we were looking at last night - and took pictures of the SKU, etc., to "research"...

Does yours have the "dual ice maker" so, one in the door of the fridge, and the other is a little bin in the freezer drawer? If so, can you shut that bottom one off? (we don't need 12 pounds of ice per day...)

Some online reviews say that Samsung ice dispenser drips water (as the ice melts or something) and then water runs down the door. Or that it makes "wet ice". Have you had that issue?

Also how is it on "noise"? Our old one (11yrs) was really quiet, until the compressor went bad. Then it was VERY LOUD. But some of these new ones (our neighbor's LG, he says) is a little loud.

 

[canuk-gal]

HI:

Fisher and Paykel. Had 2 French Door LG's prior to this (new) fridge.

cheers--Sharon

 

[VapidLapid]

I have a kitchen aid french door fridge with freezer bottom. It was around 2,500. It is somewhat of a disappointment. The interior parts are cheap plastic and EASILY broken. Especially the deli-drawer. I bought an expensive replacement part for the hinge that broke, replacing/installing it was a nightmare. I noticed that the replacement was slightly different, thicker in the weak spots, particularly the spot that had broken. I was furious that it had happened to may others, they knew about the problem, and fixed it but did not do a recall, or provide owners with the updated part, I had to pay for it. after about a year and a half it stopped diverting the defrost to the evaporation pan, it just collects in the bottom of the freezer forming a large sheet of ice. It takes about a week. Then the next time it "defrosts" there is no place left for it to go so it leeks out the underside in the front. then I have to break the ice sheet up with a hammer. I put a cookie sheet on the floor in front of it and swipe the ice out onto the cookie sheet. once a week. the hinge/seal piece that is attached to the left door and swings in to form the seal of the space between the doors is adequate only. One can only close the left door first. It seems not to seal as well as one would like and is subject to the kind of black (mold?) deposit one might see around an old refrig door gasket. The plastic drawers do not slide in and out smoothly. I do not recommend a kitchen aid refrigerator. I thought I was spending enough getting a higher end appliance, but I would rather have paid twice that for something of real value.

 

[azstonie]

I have one. Its 5 years old and its been nothing but trouble. It was part of a class action suit, which unless I wanted a $300 credit at Sears (never ever ever getting back together with Sears ) is an insult.

I like the french doors, gives you a lot of fridge room. The freezer is darn large, I like it.

Super loud. Matte finish scratches easily. Its a Kenmore Elite, which is made by LG. What a POS.

I got to know the repairman very well. His advice is: Side by side with ice/water in the door and nothing else. He said be cheap with it because they aren't made to last longer than 5 years now. So skip the warranty too, ya ain't in this for the long haul.

Good Luck!!

 

[baby monster]

Oh how I love french door fridges. Everything at eye-sight, no huge door to swing out, food easily found. I built my dream kitchen in our old place and it had a LG french door counter-depth fridge. 8 years with no issues or even a hiccup. Quiet, bright, even lighting and temperature. Unfortunately, we had to sell and move to get more sq ft. All appliances stayed because everything was designed in a single vision. The current kitchen is adequate but it has space only for an old school freezer top fridge, which is a big pain because I can't find anything it and have to crouch down every time I open it. I miss my LG french door.

 

[redwood66]

I have a Samsung one like telephone posted but is around 2 years old and black. I turn off the bottom ice maker to have more room and we must not use enough ice because the top ice maker jams up after about a week and we have to chip out the ice that did not spill into the holder. Other than that I like it. Love the water in the door and the filter system because we have hard well water. The filters are expensive but I try to find them on Amazon and buy a two pack. Hope this helps. DH is a Lowes manager so we got a decent deal. Fridges are soooo expensive!

 

[TooPatient]

We got the Samsung French door refrigerator with no in door water/ice. I love the freezer. The shallow top drawer is great for frozen veggies currently in use (I buy 5 pound bags).

We do have a slight challenge in that we keep 2 gallons of water plus a gallon of fresh brewed iced tea in the refrigerator plus BBQ sauce and soy sauce by the gallon. Too many tall things!

The refrigerator is nice and big. I fit 3 twenty pound turkeys in at Thanksgiving plus all the other stuff I needed for the meal.


One thing to be aware of is making sure you place it where you can pull the bottom refrigerator drawers out for cleaning.

 

[Dancing Fire]

Our fridge is 30 yrs old... The next fridge will be a French door style.

 

[lambskin]

I would love a bottom freezer but I HATE the bin style drawer rather than the shelves on a top freezer. I think you can pack better with the two shelf system and not a big bin where the turkey seems to be on top of the smaller more fragile items. When we replaced our fridge I wanted a bottom freezer as we are both tall and use the fridge more than the freezer. But alas all models had bottom freezer bin rather than shelf models. Got the icemaker but was unable to hook it up as our house is screwed up. So I lost space there. Bummer. But I never seem to run out of ice. Ice trays are a pain in the a**.

 

[distracts]

For me the bottom freezer drawer is super inconvenient because you either have to store not much stuff in your freezer or dig through it all if something you want has shifted to the bottom. Our kitchen refrigerator is like this, but the one in our garage is side-by-side and so I tend to store anything that needs to be frozen that I might want to quickly access in the garage just so I don't have to sort through bags of frozen stuff in the freezer drawer. It's also nearly impossible to store a thing of ice cream in it in any sort of logical manner. Would not recommend.

 

[TooPatient]

I absolutely hated our first bottom drawer refrigerator. One big drawer all a jumble. It was also just a wire basket so all cold would escape and anything on the bottom would thaw a little each time. I had to keep frozen ice coolers on the bottom to prevent damage to food.

Our Samsung (pictures in my previous post) has an even bigger freezer section but it is solid plastic so no damage to food. The bun is divided in two plus another shallower drawer (also divided). It is easy for me to organize.

 

[luv2sparkle]

We have a Samsung French door with a drawer and then the freezer on bottom. I wouldn't get the one with two icemakers. I read that that one had more problems. Ours has been problem free and we have had it about three years. I did quite a bit of research and it is hard to find one brand with a lot of favorable reviews. I love the middle drawer, it is very handy and the top has a lot of room. I tried one with a drawer inside the French door and hated it right away and returned it and bought this one. Lowe's lets you do that. Other than that, and the fact that I hate stainless steel for all the fingerprints, it has been great.