Amana French Door Refrigerator

Since a fridge usually lasts for close to two decades, it’s not a purchase you have to make everyday. When the time does come, however, there are so many refrigerator models on the market nowadays that it’s not always so easy to choose. Although your old fridge was probably a top-mount or a side-by-side, this time around there is a new model out there known as the French door refrigerator which has rapidly become the most popular type of fridge on the market. French doors are a variation on a standard bottom mount refrigerator (add link) with added convenience. We’ve put together a guide to help make your refrigerator shopping experience easier so that you don’t become French toast in the process!

Pros
French door refrigerators are the most popular model of the day because they take the best of all worlds by combining a bottom mount freezer with a double door, side by side fridge. The double doors are ideal for smaller kitchens or kitchens with an island, allowing for less clearance room for doors. Unlike a side-by-side fridge, however, the French door possesses standard interior room inside for wide items like pizza boxes and baking trays eliminating the down side of side-by-sides. It’s also possible to open one side at a time, to prevent cool air from escaping, making them the most efficient type of fridge on the market. GE and LG both make French door fridges with four doors, meaning that the freezer has two different sliding drawers. This is ideal for organization and easy access and also helps to conserve on energy, since less cold air is lost each time you open the freezer. Although most French door models come with through the door water dispensers as well, it’s hard to find them with ice dispensers as well except for in the Maytag model.

Cons
The only real downside of a French door fridge is the price, since they are substantially more expensive than top mount, bottom mount, and even side by side refrigerators. It is also more and more difficult to find them in narrower widths.

Additional Features

• Glass shelves are the sturdiest and easiest to clean, although plastic shelves are also fairly durable. Adjustable shelves such as pullout shelves or bins, split shelves, and full-extension drawers are a must to make room for oddly shaped or oversized items. Most must be raised by hand while some have a crank system. Anti-spill shelves are also highly recommended as are fridges with larger door shelves for gallon containers.
• Mini-doors provide easy access to most popularly used items. They also save energy by allowing you to open the main door less frequently.
• A fridge with a manual defrost uses half the energy of an automatic defrost model but obviously has the major drawback that it needs to be defrosted regularly.
• Refrigerators with anti-sweat heaters that prevent condensation consume 5-10% more energy.
• Accessible controls located in the front of the compartment make adjusting the temperature and humidity much easier. Some extras include humidity and temperature controlled drawers for meat and vegetables.
• A fridge with insulation to help dampen the sound of the compressor will be substantially quieter than one without although most fridges are quiet enough it.
• Some models now have digital controls that display the actual temperature of the various compartments of the refrigerator. However, electronic controls and thermometers are likely to fail at some point, which may make it more headache than it’s worth. As the kitchen becomes the new living room, more refrigerators are being made that incorporate high-tech equipment such as TVs, digital-picture or music devices, and family-organizing centers, although it will cost you much more than it would to purchase each item separately.
• Most French door freezers come with internal ice makers—a valuable feature for most homes.

Size
French door models come in 30, 33, and 36 inch widths with as much as 25 to 28 cubic feet of interior storage space making them the biggest type of freestanding fridge on the market. GE and Samsung even make a model with 30 cubit feet of space. It is considerably more difficult to find them in narrower widths.

In Summary
A French door refrigerator is the best way to go for anyone who can afford it, offering you the best of all worlds. They are convenient and attractive offering the conveniences of a side by side fridge without the inconveniences. Since five of the major brands on the market are really made by Whirlpool, including Maytag, Amana, and KitchenAid, most of the differences you find in the various models are purely cosmetic. We hope this guide will help make your shopping experience easier so it doesn’t all look like French to you in order to make the decision that’s right for you.

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