American style fridge freezers- advice please

I love mine but, I do make use of it as I make double and freeze things like spag bog/curry /soup.

Love ours too. It’s a Samsung with open shelves both sides. Loads of room & easy to see everything. Not a fan of freezer drawers as you can’t easily see everything & they have tendencies to stick and crack. Don’t think you have to fill the freezer side to run it efficiently However, if yours says you should, you could fill a few plastic boxes filled with ice!

Bread is a good 'filler' for empty space in a freezer.

We also have a Samsung which we have had for 15 years.

It has 2 drawers but neither of those has cracked or broken in all the time we've had it.

As well as having regularly used stuff (frozen veg, chips and some bread), I use mine as a sort of holding freezer so I move things in and out of my main freezer via the kitchen one.

I prefer the drawers (top quality, of course) as they do help to stop all of the freezing air escaping every time it's opened - freezing my feet.

Empty boxes work too, as they reduce the volume of what can escape each time, saving on bills. I have a second freezer and separate fridge in the garage, very useful for parties and Christmas.

Thanks for your replies. Using iceboxes for fillers is a good idea too thanks. I haven’t found details on the Stoves Fridge Freezer info so far re how full the freezer should ideally be to run best.

I HATE mine. The freezer part is too small and it's too deep to be convenient. It has shelves as well as a couple of drawers. Things fall out on to the tiled floor so plastic freezer boxes break. The fridge part again too small, the drawers are huge so a pain to get out and wash. Bits have dropped off or snapped. Huge fiddle to master the screen for temperature etc.

As soon as I can afford it I will go back to a larder fridge and larder freezer standing side by side.

I do quite like the look of the double door fridges, nice and big and easy access, with big pull out drawers underneath for the freezer section.

I'm following this thread with interest - would love one of these beauties when I get my new kitchen installed, but there are only 2 of us and I too wonder if we can fill it. I hate the drawers in freezers, 2 of mine have cracked and I have (so far) successfully superglued them - but hold my breath every time I have to open one.

All 3 AC have and love them but of course they have young hungry children so use every inch of space

How do grans that have them feel about the water/ice dispenser - they bump the cost up but do you use them?

We inherited a double door one when we moved and it's fine except the icemaker wasn't working so removing the mechanism gave us a bit more room in the freezer section. If you are a big freezer user I think a separate one is more value (and we bought one later) but I can't complain about the American style unit. Plenty of room in the fridge section.

dottygran59 I found a great tip for broken plastic drawers. Get a metal ruler and secure it to the inside of the broken drawer with Gorilla Tape. The tape is indestructible and the ruler strengthens the drawer.

I have the standard fridge freezer in my kitchen but as they are built in the fridge is separate from the freezer. Never had any problem with drawers in a freezer usually had a self thawing type (frost free I think they are called). Also have another fridge freezer and a separate fridge and freezer in utility. Again no problems with drawers. Experience with American style: freezer a nightmare as usually shelves. Everything seems to get bundled in and basically have to empty the shelf to find anything with the door fully open. At least with drawers you can take one out to search, keeping the door closed. You can get replacement drawers, my son recently had a mishap and dropped a drawer when washing it out. New one cost £22.00.

Ooooh thank you, LadyJus - what an amazing idea - if the super glue fails (which I am expecting it to) I will try this. Replacement drawers cost £75 each - and 2 of the 4 in mine were broken. 4allweknow - ah, that's something to think about - re having to empty the shelves to find things.

Thanks for your replies - this is why I love gransent

That’s very interesting thanks all - never thought about things falling off of shelves. We are having a new kitchen so trying to sort out appliances. Dottygran59 - it’s also just two of us mostly so it was changing to a bigger size that I thought was the biggest issue. There is a model that has two doors for the fridge and two deep drawers underneath (not the usual door and then thin plastic drawers) that’s also a possible. Am Obviously finding decision making harder these days!

Ah Moll yes, I saw those as well. I looked online so couldn't see inside them - but as it was the silly plastic drawers I wanted to get away from in the freezer this would probably work quite well. It's an integral fridge freezer and I thought it was great when I first got it but Mr Dot knocked over a container of gravy that was in the fridge (above the freezer) and it dribbled between the freezer door and the unit door and made a right mess. Was a devil of a job to get the unit door off and clean it.

I have a fridge/freezer where the freezer section consists of two large drawers. As the freezer section is usually below the fridge, I can just open each drawer individually and just look into it. Each drawer has a shallow lid/tray on the top that will hold things like butter, bacon, crumpets and will slide open if I need something from the main space.

All my lower kitchen units have large pullout drawers as well. I cannot immagine ever having anything else.

I had a side by side American type fridge freezer but without the water dispenser as we prefer drinks at room temperature. I found neither side was big enough - I had my old freezer still in the utility so that helped things. I found the fridge side was not wide enough to take two dishes so effectively only one dish each shelf. At the moment I have a larder fridge in Kitchen and freezer in this utility room - both are Hotpoint Ariston and have good quality drawers.
If I need to buy a new combined one I will aim to go with the double door fridge at the top - you an see everything - and two freezer drawers below. One drawer usually a has a second drawer inside which slides back and fore.
When looking at fridges etc I find that some plastics have a really strong smell - they tend to be the less robust ones but also set of DH’s asthma so I now ignore them.

While we are discussing freezers. I want to buy an upright freezer, about 200 litre plus (a bit) with mainly drawers or pull out baskets. Can anyone recommend any. Most seem to have mainly shelves, with or without doors.

I looked up the freezer Welshwife recommended, but it has been discontinued.

We had a big American fridge freezer with double doors which lasted 14yrs. Only two of us. The only complaint was on freezer side it just had shelves and things would drop out easily. Fast forward to last year when it broke down and we decided to replace it with a double door top which is fridge and the bottom half is the freezer with two large pullout drawers. Very pleased with it.

We used to have a tall larder fridge and a tall freezer that stood side by side. Then we had to move to temporary accommodation after a house fire and only had space for one appliance, so had to buy a fridge/freezer.
Thinking forward to when we'd be moving back home a few months later, we bought two fridge/freezers, stored one in the garage, and now back home they too stand side by side in the kitchen.
The benefit is that the fridges, which are opened most, are both at eye level, and if one appliance broke down we'd still have both a fridge and a freezer in the other one.

M0nica I envy you your pull-out drawers! One of my base unit cupboards is the bane of my life and requires a torch to see what's at the back of it ?

V3ra, I’m not clever at posting links but you can buy pullout wire basket drawers and runners which can be fitted to kitchen units. Really makes best use of your units. My friend did this and revamped her units doors etc. It was like a new kitchen.

I really wanted the Fisher Paykel drawers that you can just change from freezer to fridge or larder - but too expensive and not enough room so I got a Haier one with double doors and two pull-out drawers below. I like the glass finish as I hate cleaning stainless steel.

Thank you bridie54 I'll have to look into it ?

My daughter’s is like this. Be careful when considering the freezer capacity before purchase. She keeps an additional freezer in the garage. The small drawers really are a nuisance!