Fridge question, really need advice please!

[StillOrSparklingMadam]

Trying again as I really need advice on a new fridge. The old one is dying...

We have a smallish kitchen in a city maisonette with only one real place to put the fridge (otherwise it will be next to the oven). It therefore needs to be no more than 59.5 cm wide.

I want A-class energy efficiency, that's not negotiable for me. And with two children I need a reasonably tall fridge, a mini-fridge with a micro freezer won't cut it.

My problem: it seems that the only options to replace my fridge are going to stick out up to 10cm into the room (beyond the countertop). The current one sticks out about 5cm. Is that ridiculous? I mean, I know it won't look great, but is it completely unacceptable?

I just want a decent fridge to replace my old one, any tips? I don't know why it's so hard!

Double down and get a tall fridge freezer?

What height and depth do you need?

Unacceptable in what sense? Ultimately I'd just be picking the best I could find that suited the household capacity wise and making sure it didn't restrict any access. You can usually filter the options by height/width/efficiency on most websites, that's how I chose ours.

Ours sticks out a bit and yes, in a perfect world if I really thought about it prefer it perhaps didn't but ultimately nobody is coming over looking at things like this and I suspect none of the home mags will be coming knocking asking to take photos either. It's just one of those things in a smaller kitchen/normal house.

We very quickly replaced integrated under-counter (useless) fridge and freezer and now have both a dryer and a fridge which stick out. I hate it but would I go back to small fridge? Nope

@EVHead it's going to be about 203cm I believe? Plenty of room above the fridge space so I can go as tall as I like. I said 'fridge' but I meant fridge freezer.

@WhiteFire any height is ok. The current fridge/freezer is about 64cm deep, with the counter being 60.5cm deep. It works well and looks fine, but I can see that the fridge is right against the wall. All the new ones will need more space, apparently 5cm or so, and they appear to be about 67cm deep to start with.

@dontgobaconmyheart thanks for the reality check 🙂It's true, Vogue Interiors is not likely to be in touch.

Filtering by height/width/efficiency is what's got me here, to a handful of options all of which are rather deeper than the available space. The designated fridge space has a counter on the left (60.5cm) and a balcony access door on the right (wall is 58cm deep but the current fridge is a good 7 or 8cm deeper and it looks just fine. It gives enough space to open the fridge door more than 90 degrees).

I suppose I'm just worried about having the fridge take over the entire room. Especially frustrating because there are zero options for checking out the fridges in person unless I travel to another city. I went to our local showroom but they didn't have anything above a C energy class there.

(Just a grumble: are we really expected to spend well over a thousand quid these days on something we're going to use and look at each and every day without even seeing it first? Not even to see the actual colours before it's right there in the kitchen for the next decade?!?)

Agreed, current fridge is 187x59.5x64 and I definitely couldn't go smaller. I have a teenage boy! But it seems like that size is no longer available.

It’s perfectly ok these days to put a fridge next to the ovens due to modern insulation. Ours is next to ovens and no issues.

Does this enable you to put the fridge at the end of a run where sticking out would matter less?

Is it really? I have a freestanding Smeg cooker. I had the idea that it just meant your fridge was going to have to work a bit harder which is obviously not ideal.

If I did that I would have to swap the dishwasher to the other end of the kitchen which would be quite a hassle but yes, it would work.

(I realise I am lucky to be able to afford to replace my dying fridge in these times without it meaning financial ruin, but it's still an annoying hassle on top of all the other problems in my life, most of which are health-related, before anyone comes in to shout at me.)

You can search based on depth and there are lots of options: https://ao.com/l/fridges-narrow/1-35/29-30/?ef_id=Cj0KCQjwuZGnBhD1ARIsACxbAVjdvlD3Qb2dG2mPylORoiSHQfmWQq2ZN6xtyTCa6c7cjeGrKdky6N0aAhofEALw_wcB:G:s&s_kwcid=AL!8149!3!647366270399!!!g!!&&utm_medium=search&utm_source=google&utm_campaign=dsa%20-%20refrigeration%7cdsa%20-%20freezers&utm_term=dsa%7cdsa&utm_content=dsa-375365228149&gclid=Cj0KCQjwuZGnBhD1ARIsACxbAVjdvlD3Qb2dG2mPylORoiSHQfmWQq2ZN6xtyTCa6c7cjeGrKdky6N0aAhofEALw_wcB&gclsrc=aw.ds (I'd avoid Beko due to fire risk, but there are decent options like smeg too).

Do you understand the new energy ratings, and are you comparing like with like?

You’re extremely unlikely to find an A rated fridge with the new ratings - the A is pretty much only there to catch new innovation.
There are no A rated fridges on AO.com and I’m pretty sure the one on Curry’s is on the old rating. An old A++ is equivalent to an F, so a new D rating will be MUCH better than an old A, so make sure you are looking at the right thing.

Thank you. This is where the problem comes in: there are few A-class energy options.

You're a star. This is clearly what I was missing. I knew that the ratings had changed but I obviously didn't understand them.

I couldn't figure out what the issue was... that was the issue!

Thank you. I'll go and read up on those and see what my new preferred energy rating would be.

(Current fridge is A+ and I felt l didn't want to go 'backwards', but I had no idea what I was talking about!)

Our fridge is next to the oven. When the designers put the design together I questioned and they said it was fine to do this. 2 years in, no problems.

Our fridge also sticks out a bit as its a huge American one, doesn't bother me at all.

Yes, I was going to say about the new energy ratings how they've changed (our FF is 25 years old, still working and I've dithered for years about replacing it because it's inefficient by modern standards so expensive to run) so A efficient pretty much doesn't exist in the new ratings, it's something to aspire to with technological improvements.

But even a new E will use less energy than an old B. Compare the 'annual uses' figure to see.

I would say I feel stupid for not realising but this was exactly why I wanted to ask this question - I couldn't figure out what I was doing wrong! A whole new world of fridge options has just opened up for me 😂