American style Fridge Freezers - advice please

[Wolfgirl]

I dont subscribe to WHICH? mag, so am asking you lovely people.

Can you tell me the following:

what should I look out for when buying one? i.e frost free, energy efficiency etc, and what are good guidelines to look for

what is a good cubic capacity

who has one with an ice dispenser - are they any good? high or low maintenance?

and anything else you can tell me, OH!!! what Make and model would you recommend, that would be good

thanks all xx

anyone?

we have a maytag, very good make, but pricey. We bought it used. I love it though, since it has glass shelves and stuff, better made. Ice dispensers are lovely to have, but do take up a lot of the freezer space, so if you are going to have one you will probably need a second freezer.
I don't know if any of them need defrosting. Ours isn't stated as frost free, but it is.

Thanks Chopster; yes I have wondered about the ice cube thingy, and tbh it is not a major factor for me; would prefer without tbh.

Just took a google for maytag, and yes LOL they are expensive.

Thanks for your input, thats great, and who knows we may go for one with out the ice!

I love my ice dispenser wouldn't be without it in the sumer but yes it deos take up a lot of freezer space. I recently bought a samsung in fake stainless steel (cause it was so much cheaper than the real thing and I'm a penny pnching cheapskate) and am very happy with it - think it was about £600 from Curry's. Lots of ofers on at the moment.

Previously had a Whirlpool which broke.

Worth every penny (but then I am an american). Definitely get the ice dispenser. Once you have one you will wonder how you ever survived without it. I'm running off ot work, but I'll write more later.

bump

We've got a Samsung one (incl ice and water dispenser). Love it. The fact that the ice/water dispenser takes up some of the freezer space doesn't bother us. The DCs love the fact that they can reach easily to get water for themselves. And the fridge copes incredibly well with everything we throw at it, including Christmas, which is when we have the most food needing storing.

We had a Maytag ZigZag in our last house which I adored. It's capacity is 729 litres. In the previous house we had a smaller GE one that was only in the 500 litres range of capacity. I was happy to have the larger one by the time we had the second child. We particularly used the extra freezer space. Also, the ZigZag has this clever zigzag shape so that there is an extra wide part in the bottom of the freezer and an extra wide part in the top of the fridge. Really handy. The GE one started making noise after a year or so and we never really managed to get it sorted. The Maytag didn't make noise, though it had one shelf that came off within the first year. Maytag very quickly sent someone out to repair it for free.
They are all frost free. The ice dispensers are low maintenance, but you do need to have a water hookup to them and make sure it has its own shutoff valve, so if there is a leak (not uncommon to pinch pipe when moving fridge out for cleaning behind it) you can shut it off and still have water at the kitchen sink.
Shop around. You can find a huge variance in prices. Just make sure you are comparing the same model numbers and colors (stainless steel is more expensive than white and stainless steel on front is less expensive than stainless steel all the way around).

We've just bought a Samsung without the dispenser. Do you need to be near a water pipe or something? We thought the freezer would be too small if we had one.

There's loads of space inside. I miscalculated the gap needed though and we had to cut about 4 inches of work surface away.
Ooops!

you do have to be near a water pipe, yes. Ours is in our utility room, so we don't actually have water going to it so it doesn't make ice.