Introduction
Refrigerator ranking isn’t a normal way of spending your free time. However, when an old refrigerator dies on you and you’re in the market for a new one, that’s your top priority. On the other hand, you can search for “refrigerator repair near me” and hire professionals to fix it for you. Let’s check out what’s the best refrigerator style for you.
The Details
- Top Freezer – Top freezer is the refrigerator style that comes to mind when you’re thinking of refrigerators. The classic style has been around for several decades and as the name suggests, it has a freezer compartment at the top with most of the unit being used for refrigeration. Modern innovation has produced a wide variety of styles for top freezer units and depending on the type you choose; you may get a lot of performance differences.
Fortunately, you don’t have to think a lot while buying a top freezer unit. They are an easy and convenient option everyone’s familiar with. People usually opt for these when they want a basic refrigerator. If your old refrigerator has seen more than a decade, breaks down too often, or has terrible defrost cycles that melt the ice cubes or freeze burn the meat, then you can replace it with a top freezer unit without much thought into it.
- Bottom Freezer – As the name suggests, bottom freezers are refrigerators with the freezer unit at the bottom. It’s a spin on the popular top freezer style of refrigerators. However, unlike top freezer units, bottom freezer units have a larger freezer compartment as a drawer instead of shelves. It’s great for people who want easier access to cold cuts of chicken and steaks. However, the lack of shelves can also make organizing the freezer compartment a bit difficult.
Fortunately, you can always fix that by buying dividers and placing them inside the freezer compartment. In many ways, bottom freezer refrigerators are an inferior substitute for French doors. French doors have better features and more benefits. However, if you want a smaller fridge with similar features at a fraction of the running cost, then bottom freezers are the way to go.
- French Door – French door refrigerators take styling and functional elements from both side-by-side and bottom freezer refrigerators. However, unlike side-by-side refrigerators, both side doors on a French door open up into a large refrigerator compartment. The freezer drawer sits at the bottom occupying around one-third of the space of the entire unit. While French doors usually come with three-door configurations, there are a few models that have four doors.
If you have a large family who requires ample freezer space, then the French door is a great choice. Moreover, it allows you to store a lot of wide items. Since the refrigeration and freezer sections both are compartments that take up the entire width of the fridge, they are better than side-by-side refrigerators for storing leftovers and other such items that need more width and depth.
Despite having a large freezer and refrigeration compartments, French doors don’t skimp out on premium features like water and ice dispensers, temperature flex drawers, and custom crispers. If budget is not an issue and wide space is a priority, the French doors are the best refrigerators for you.
- Side-by-side – Side-by-sides have been gaining popularity in recent years and this design often comes to mind when you think about premium refrigerators. The greatest advantage of a side-by-side is that it allows you to access most things without stooping or bending down. Moreover, the doors don’t need a lot of space to swing open and that allows you to place this refrigerator in tight corners.
However, the advantage of door clearance becomes a disadvantage in the form of thinner compartments. The entire height of the fridge is divided vertically into a freezer and a refrigeration section and that means both compartments are narrower than usual. You’ll have a hard time storing pizzas, sheet pans, and wide dishes inside the fridge. Moreover, if the fridge vents out the cold air from the top vents, then there would be a significant difference in temperature at the top and the bottom.
Items stored closer to the top vent could be cooler than the things at the bottom. The problems get worse if the fridge is overstuffed. Manufacturers have solved this issue with multiple compressors and all-around venting systems. However, since these types of features are fairly new and rare, side-by-side with this technology are significantly more expensive.
- Column – Column refrigerators have a very niche market and use case and they aren’t for everyone. They have been trending recently, especially among millennials in the city as they spend most of the time outside their home and buy fresh ingredients for cooking. Unlike the car-dependent suburbs, which incentivize people to bulk buy items and stock their fridges, walkable cities with good public transportation have very different needs. That’s where the column fridge comes in.
They have a slim and tall profile that perfectly matches the size requirement for a single person living in a studio apartment. Moreover, as those studio apartments get smaller, column fridges become more practical due to their small footprint. Even suburbs have found a great way of using column fridges.
Instead of buying a large French door or side-by-side suburban kitchens may have three or more column fridges for their space needs. This brings more efficiency since you only need to use the fridge that’s stocked up and have more control over temperature and climate control. However, keep in mind that column fridges are usually more expensive than their classic counterparts.
Conclusion
With the wide range of refrigerator styles available in the market, it boils down to your specific need for space, features, and efficiency. While a guy living in a studio apartment would be fine with a top freezer refrigerator, a family of four with a big kitchen may prefer a side-by-side door refrigerator. You can also hire pros to fix your old refrigerator by searching for “refrigerator repair near me”.
