Switching to a new 'side by side' Fridge Freezer style. Anyone tried it & been happy using this layout? Will my brain explode?

[FridgeFunster]

Has anyone here bought the 'side by side' style of fridge freezer & was happy with it? With the freezer compartment on the left & a full size fridge on the right?

I've always had the traditional design with freezers at the bottom & wonder if my Muscle Memory will explode trying something new

My husband likes this design & thinks we won't lose stuff in deep freezer drawers, if we go for this one. I'm suspicious that the top part of this freezer doesn't even have drawers 😳😅

Shall I walk on the wild side & try something new? Any flaws to the plan I haven't spotted?

NB. Life has been super-stressful for a few years & I can't believe I'm overthinking this damn fridge 🤣

I would have had a fridge like this if I’d had room. Instead I wanted doors out to the garden so had to sacrifice the space. But I think they’re great.

I had this before. When it broke I swapped to a French style- the bottom is freezer, two doors. The top is fridge- double wide. So good for space. Much more versatile.
The old one I felt the fridge was too big and the freezer too small. Now it’s just right. The space works much better.

We have this type of fridge by choice. I've always found the stacked ones a bit inconvenient.

Ours does have drawers throughout, I'd be annoyed if stuff fell out whenever I opened it. It takes up more room but fits well into our kitchen and means we can store more stuff. It keeps things fresh for an insanely long time.

No issues with mind explosion or losing freezer food.

We have that style of fridge/freezer. It's great! You lose so much space with drawers. You wont miss them for a second.

I really like it. I don't think your head will explode, either!

We have similar. The freezer drawers are not that big and slide out, you wouldn’t lose anything in there. The top part in ours has the icecube dispenser so one less shelf. Using the other shelves for tubs, bread, bagged things like Yorkshire puddings etc.
if anything, I wish ours had the wider side for freezer space.

We had a side by side American style for years. We recently changed it for the more modern style with the side by side fridge at the top and the big freezer drawer at the bottom which is in sections when you open it. We love it. It’s a Fisher and Paykel one from John Lewis.

I have a side by side American style . I find it much better than a standard fridge freezer. I found the drawers always cracked. Was hard to find things. Drawers would full out if dugging though ti look for something then the hassle of getting them back in.

The side by side the freezer seems narrow but it holds more. Theres only 2 drawers at the bottom. The rest are shelves no more struggling to find stuff. You can see what you have more clearly. No fighting drawers. Nothing is over packed.

I have one but don't like it! The fridge is too big and the freezer shelves can be tricky to stack. I'm going back to the old design when this one needs replacing.

This. We've just bought a fridge this style and love it. So much fridge space and one big double width freezer drawer split into two compartments when opened. We use the fridge for more than the freezer so having double width fridge space on top works well for us.

For what it's worth, my mum has the kind of fridge you're suggesting and finds the freezer quite cramped, she much prefers the style we've bought.

We looked at these but found the freezer space very restrictive as in the normal size ones the freezer section is quite narrow

This sounds interesting - could you please provide a link?

1. Be careful with placement. You need a good amount of clear space either side of an American, they can't be near a perpendicular wall. American fridge doors are quite thick and have to be opened to nearly 180 degrees to be able to get drawers and shelves in and out. Other fridges you can just swap the door opening around to the other side but obviously you can't do that when you open the doors both sides.
2. The internal freezer width is pretty narrow. A frozen pizza for example will often need to go in vertically because the're too wide to fit in there horizontally. Not a massive problem in itself but it has annoyed me at times. Losing things in there is unlikely to be a problem as they're not that deep. It's a good size freezer but really not huge unless you are used to something very small.

If you have the space for something that wide then I thoroughly recommend the sort that has an extra wide fridge at the top and a huge pull out freezer drawer (with compartments) at the bottom. I had one of those in a house I rented for a while and it was bloody brilliant. So practical. I loved that I could put huge, wide plates of stuff into the fridge, and accessing stuff in the freezer was easy. The freezer section on the one in your photo looks very narrow. If I ever get my kitchen re-done that is exactly what I will buy.

We have that style. I find it easy to see what we have in the freezer which is good. Only negative is sometimes when you’re meal prepping you need to freeze things on their trays (then decant into containers later) - this type of freezer is quite narrow so some of my baking dishes don’t fit. Not a huge issue but just to be aware of. When this one needs replacing we’re planning to go French style (double fridge on top, freezer drawers below).

We didn’t like it. Sold it and just got a bigger fridge freezer

We just ended up stacking stuff in the freezer and you couldn’t see anything

I really miss my side by side fridge freezer (new house has integrated F/F which I hate). They hold a lot more than you’d think and unlike my stupid AEF F/F you don’t get the bottom section of the fridge freezing everything.

Depending on what you put on the freezer shelves things can fall off the shelf so I use the bottom drawers for anything like frozen fruit or veg, chips and the shelf part for boxes or tupperware sort of things that I can stack.

As PP says if you have frozen pizza then the width might not be wide enough to put it in without uprighting it.

Best to think about how you organise things. I also have a larder freezer in the pantry as we shop at Costco and every drawer has a specific item in it. Maybe keeping a list of what you have to you don't lose things even in a side by side f/f.

This type I would have preferred
https://ao.com/product/honfq2t718exk-hoover-hfridge-700-american-fridge-freezer-stainless-steel-102399-27.aspx?mmrf=mm2f92d39c8ca49299c0cc

I got this type
https://ao.com/product/fmn470w20e-hisense-american-fridge-freezer-stainless-steel-101374-27.aspx?mmrf=mm2f92d39c8ca49299c0cc

I was restricted on depth which made a big difference to what I chose.

Yep had one for years, love it. Wouldn’t have anything else.

I've got a "fridge freezer" sized fridge and two under counter freezers. I had one freezer for ages and now I can't imagine how we managed without a second one! It's so useful but not so massive that it gets disorganised.

I’ve had both and I would never choose the side-by-side type. The narrow freezer deeply annoyed me, and we were forever losing things in it. Plus I hated scrabbling around on the floor for the things we used most often: veg drawer, raw meat drawer and milk. We now have a French doors FF and it is very nearly perfect.

We’ve got one and really like it.

We’ve got the one in your picture! I would never go back to a freezer that had only drawers now - I love being able to see what’s on the shelves.

PP who said pizzas don’t fit flat is right - we put them in the door shelves/racks whe we have them. I also put anything unstable like bags of frozen veg/fruit in the door.

It hasn’t given us loads more space than we had before in the freezer, but being able to see everything you have and not scrabble around in drawers is a game changer. Just be aware that if you stack it absolutely full and the air can’t circulate, you get frost.

On the other side the fridge is great - loads of room!