Fridges + Freezers - integrated, freestanding, or sex frudge spec? Need guidance

[ClaudiaCutie]

Will be moving to a new house soon with a horrid old kitchen, which will be swept aside to be replaced by a fabulous new kitchen, and there is plenty of space for a side-by-side fridge freezer pair. After much thought I've decided not to go for an American style FF, or indeed the French door style. What would be best for us is two separate larder-style appliances: one fridge, one freezer.

So that's fine, but now I'm stuck. Do we go for integrated or free standing? Is there any difference other than personal preference? Does one spec perform better than the other?

Also - if we choose integrated, the fridge & freezer will need to be delivered before Xmas but the kitchen refurb won't occur until next spring. So can we use the integrated appliance in a non-integrated for a few months? (Nude, as it were). They must come with doors of some sort, are the doors just ugly or plain or something? It won't matter if it looks weird for a few months, it will be worth it when the new kitchen is installed, but my ignorance of whitegoods is hampering my decision making. Until this week I didn't even know about sex frudges.

Thanks!

I don't know about sex frudges either?

Ah you need to have read the earlier thread, see:

www.mumsnet.com/Talk/property/1856786-Anyone-bought-a-French-Door-fridge-freezer

I prefer integrated. I used my integrated fridge freezer for a month or two before installing it, but we had to prop up the legs as it didn't stand up properly. Doors are plain and ugly but not gratuitously offensive. I'm dithering right now as to whether to get a massive fridge freezer or to do two larder style appliances. Right now we have a Smeg larder fridge (lovely to look at but will not fit with new kitchen) and I can't go back to less space! We also have a chest freezer in our utility though and it feels a bit extravagent to have two freezers.

we have an intergrated ff but are getting rid of it and replacing with a fee standing unit - we find it is really quite small inside and are having problems with the doors fitting correctly - the freezer frosts up quickly as if the door is open but you cant see if the door is open becuase of the kitchen doors attached to the freezer door - PITA - we have had it looked at twice and things fit a little better but we have decided its coming out - too much faff around it.

Integrated will look better in the long run IMO - you will need two carcasses to sit them in too ideally - as you want them to be secured to the walls for safety ... So if you are getting the carcasses you may as well get the doors too !?!? Or if you don't know where you will end up buying - then just use ikea tall carcasses - then upgrade if necessary when you buy your 'real' kitchen ! :-)

We've gone for an undercounter integrated freezer and a tall stainless steel fridge.
I'm not a big freezer user and I have another one on the garage which gets used for freezing fruit from the garden, icecubes for parties etc. So the small integrated neff one is fine.
I do however use a lot of fridge space. I think the SS one goes with the design of my kitchen and is half the price of a similar spec integrated one (not including the cost of doors/carcass etc)
In my old kitchen I had a freestanding fridge freezer and an integrated undercounter fridge. So now will have the same amount of space but just organised differently.
I looked at the Which? guide to choose which appliance brands looked reliable, energy efficient, good value etc

Freestanding is cheaper, wastes less space, is more energy efficient, and looks better.

The ony problem with 2 free-standing appliances that, presumably match, is that when one breaks down, they will have changed the model of the replacment slightly so they will no longer match

I've 2 integrated fridge-freezers made to look free-standing [not helpful]

We're going freestanding for reasons mentioned above - easier to replace/access/fix and that they're slightly bigger. Size matters...especially in sex frudges.

www.kitchenappliancecentre.co.uk/cda-fw821-integrated-fridge-in-column.html
This one has 321L capacity ! For a fridge that's pretty good !!! They do a freezer too !! But if integrated they don't have to match so you can shop around for the largest capacity freezer too !

www.kitchenappliancecentre.co.uk/cda-fw881-integrated-freezer-in-column.html
228l freezer !! That's pretty good too !!

VERY helpful info, thank you! Have decided I really don't like the look of freestanding, after looking at about four billion pictures of kitchens, I'm v keen on the integrated version after reading comments esp WRT to getting the two appliances matching - it's quite difficult to get a perfect match in freestanding as Edith points out, but if we go integ then we can even choose different brands now that I think about it. Good to know we'll be able to use non-integ for a few months too (thanks M to M for that info) if we give the appliances a plinth to live on. (WookiesWife, the house is already chosen so I have a kitchen plan already done; just need to exchange/complete in next few weeks ... I won't order the appliances until we have exchanged mind you!)

thanks all :-)

exciting times ! good luck with it all !!! :-)

Good luck!

Got to go, DP says she want a Frudge.

Hubba Hubba!