French door bottom freezers worth the $800 difference?

[Anonymous]

I was shocked to see the new French door bottom freezer fridges are $800 more than the old conventional models. Are they really worth that price premium? I'm thinking maybe if we could see more of our expensive organic food, less of it would go to waste, which would pay for the fridge...

[Anonymous]

Are they really that much more?

I have a black Maytag french door fridge (without the water through the door, because that just takes up fridge space and it does have an ice maker and a water dispenser inside the fridge).

I love ours, but we got it as part of a Maytag package....buy the Amana. It's less money and it's the EXACT same as the JennAir and the Maytag. Generally, Amana is the part of that family of appliances that is the same, but with less features. In this case, it's exactly the same. Look it up Online and you'll see.

There is more room in the fridge than in a side-by-side. The drawer freezer holds more, I think, or maybe even the same amount but you have to root through it a bit.

[Anonymous]

I have heard that bottom freezers are difficult because it's hard to find things -- you have to unpack what's on top to get to the items below.

[Anonymous]

I love them but we decided on a two door since everyone in our house uses the water function regularly-it was a more important feature to our family than the bottom freezer...everyone except me though. I was out-voted.

[Anonymous]

My parents just bought that fridge. I was amazed by the amount of room, and the storage in the bottom freezer. I however don't think it is worth the extra money.

We have a regular fridge, but with the freezer on the bottom. It has two pull out selves to make it easier to find things, but I honestly don't think the freezer is big enough. We tend to buy meat when on sale, and stock up the freezer. Once we stock up there isn't room for much else, just a couple loaves of bread (which I will either make, or buy in bulk at Costco). I don't even make ice cubes because the trays take up too much room. If it wasn't the fridge that came with the house, I would have gotten a side by side.

[Anonymous]

I do not recommend a french door fridge. First of all, they have a side that needs to close first so that the gasket is tight. You probably wont' think about it and do it properly. Will your kids? If they don't, the fridge will be slightly open a lot of the time. I know someone who really regrets her purchase for that reason.

Also, if you are carrying a large tray or something that takes up more than 1/2 the fridge, you need 2 hands to open the fridge but you'll only have 1 free hand.

I think it's a popular look now, hence the premium pricetag. However, I think there are some serious design and function flaws.

FWIW, I'm buying a new fridge and we chose the KitchenAid built in (bottom freezer). KA makes fridges for most of the other brands (not Viking or Sub Zero, but JennAir, Amana, Gaggenau I think). We did a ton of research and the KA is cheaper, fully integrated and the main difference is that it doesn't have a metal trim on the shelves. It has a french door option, but we're not buying that!

[Anonymous]

This is OP here. Good luck with the KitchenAid. Maybe the fridges are different, but we had problems with their dishwashers. We bought a new Kitchenaid dishwasher to replace the 25-year-old one that came with our house. It does not work well. On the other hand, we bought a Whirlpool dishwasher for our summer rental house and it works better than the KitchenAid. The repairmen at our beach house tend to be more honest -small town folk- and they told us that they do more repairs on the KitchenAids and higher end appliances than Whirlpool.

Also, THANKS everyone for the input. This makes me feel better about not shelling out this money we can't afford right now (we bought the beach house back when we were flush - Nasdaq 5000, remember?).

We currently have a side by side but I feel like there's not enough room for the regular food. If we replace with a conventional (freezer on top), does it have less freezer space than a side by side? I guess I can check all this out with measurements, etc.

[Anonymous]

We got one a few months ago when our fridge died--we had to have a side by side or french door style due to space limitations. We LOVE it. We have so much more room in both parts. The water spout in ours does not take up more room. The ice maker is at the bottom inside. I actually worried that I would be uncomfortable with it b/c I'm 8 months pregnant but it's no problem.



The only issue we've had is our 2.5 year old son is able to open the freezer when he wants a popsicle.

[Anonymous]

Kitchen Aid fridges rate very highly in consumer reports. Not so for dishwashers; you're right about that! For dishwashers I think the European brands are better. They put a premium on saving water, which Americans really dont care about!

[Anonymous]

My whirlpool dishwasher uses less than six gallons a wash. Much less than if I hand washed all my dishes. You just have to make sure that you get one that is much energy and water efficient.

The specks for it were the same as the BOSCH, but a little cheaper, but not by much.

[Anonymous]

Our Bosch dishwasher used to take 3-4 HOURS to wash the dishes! We finally replaced it after 5 years with a KitchenAid and I love it, so YMMV!