Should You Buy an American Fridge Freezer?

An American fridge freezer is often on the wish list when we’re revamping our kitchen or moving into a new home. These capacious status symbols have a lot to offer, particularly if you’re always cooking for a large family or enjoy entertaining at home. But what exactly is an “American fridge freezer” as opposed to the more humble, normal variety? In general, American fridge freezers offer the following features:

• Huge capacity – American fridge freezers can cope with a larger than average shop, making them ideal for holidays, or just busy weekends with the family.
• Food freshness technology – American fridge freezers make practical use of all the latest technology, keeping foods at the optimum temperature for prolonged freshness.
• Ice and water dispensers – these are a popular feature of American fridge freezers, ideal for those wanting chilled water on tap and ice at the touch of a button.
• Super stylish design – American fridge freezers are designed to make a bold statement in your kitchen. Sleek stainless steel styling and retro colours are popular options.

American fridge freezers generally offer a double door design with a freezer on one side and fridge on the other. This can be a 50-50 split, 60-40 or even 70-30, so make your decision based on how much frozen and fresh food you generally store. You can also find side by side American fridge freezers and French door models. The most advanced options even allow you to switch the temperature in certain sections, so you can temporarily increase your freezer capacity if you swoop up some frozen food bargains.

Designs with two doors above a pull out drawer (sometimes called French style American fridge freezers) are also gaining in popularity. The drawer allows you to see your stock of frozen food more easily.

What are the American Fridge Freezer Pros and Cons?

• No more overflowing fridges and packed to bursting freezers. An American fridge freezer will hold, on average, around 30 shopping bags of food – more than enough to satisfy the needs of the hungriest big families or the busiest of party hosts.
• Make the most of the latest technology. Frost-free freezers, humidity regulators, fast chill settings, auto defrost, holiday mode and blue light technology (to keep food fresher for longer and help lock in nutrients) are just some of the advantages of American fridge freezers.
• Instant access to fresh, chilled, filtered water and ice cubes or crushed ice on tap.
• Inner storage options are seemingly endless – wine racks, glass shelves (to avoid drips), bottle holders, egg racks, salad crispers, compartments for butter and cheese, extra shelving of varying widths in the doors – it’s easy to move them all around to store your food in optimum conditions.

If you’re still asking yourself if American fridge freezers are any good, then perhaps you need to consider some possible disadvantages too, and bear these in mind before making an expensive purchase that might not be right for you.

• Will you really make the most of an American fridge freezer’s enormous capacity? If not, you’ll be paying to cool a much bigger space than necessary.
• Do you have sufficient space in your kitchen for the increased width, height and depth of an American fridge freezer? If you’re not planning on a complete kitchen refit, you may struggle to fit one in.

Is an American Fridge Freezer Right for You?

• Are you a real foodie who loves to keep a stock of fresh ingredients on hand to whip up gourmet meals at the drop of a hat?
• Are you a busy mum or dad with a horde of hungry kids and their friends to feed?
• Do you have teenagers and young adults in and out of your house at all times of the day, always looking for something to eat?
• Do you want to ensure food stays fresh right up to the use by date to avoid wastage?
• Are you a keen entertainer who’s always busy planning their next dinner or drinks party?
• Do you bulk buy fresh food but worry that your current fridge freezer can’t cope with chilling large amounts quickly enough?

If you’ve answered yes to even one of these questions, then an American fridge freezer is a kitchen essential you’ll want to give serious consideration to.

How Much Do You Want to Spend?

There’s no doubt that an American fridge freezer is an expensive investment, so you’ll want to make sure you’re getting the best the market can offer for your money. Expect to pay anything between £800 and £2000 depending on size and features. While you might be surprised at how much American fridge freezers cost, their advantages can soon outweigh the initial outlay.

What’s the Size of American Fridge Freezers?

The increased dimensions of American fridge freezers are one of the major reasons for their popularity. If you’re cooking main meals for a full house every day and never have enough places round the dinner table, then the ability to store more fresh food and cooled drinks is a huge plus. You’ll be able to fill your trolley at the supermarket and take advantage of bulk buys and bargain offers, meaning you’ll save money on your food bill and have to make less shopping trips.

Standard fridge freezers range between 50cm and 70cm in width, while American fridge freezers come in at 90cm wide or more, so get that tape measure out and consider where to locate your new appliance and whether or not you’ll need to make some adjustments to your kitchen to fit it in. They’re also deeper than traditional fridge freezers, at around the 70cm to 80cm mark. If you’re buying your American fridge freezer to make a grand design statement in your kitchen, it won’t much matter if the model doesn’t sit flush with your other kitchen units, but you’ll still need to make sure there’s enough space to open both doors or pull out the drawers if you’ve gone for a French style design.

Added height allows for storage of packaging in all shapes and sizes. If you’ve got full height units in your kitchen, you might want to remove any which run above the space traditionally left for a fridge freezer, as the average 175cm to 200cm for an American fridge freezer will take up most of the height of the wall.

Before making your final choice, check the model’s dimensions and compare them to the space where you’d like to locate your American fridge freezer. Don’t forget to also measure the doorways that your new appliance will need to get through to make it into your kitchen – some American fridge freezers can be considerably bulky and difficult to manoeuvre into place. Check if your supplier can remove the doors of the fridge freezer to make fitting it through your doors less of a struggle – our delivery team can do just this for just £19.99, just be sure to tick the Recycle box in the shopping basket and make sure it’s disconnected and out of position when we get there.

What’s the Weight of American Fridge Freezers?

Since we’ve been considering their size, it’s important to remember just how heavy American fridge freezers are too. When choosing your new appliance, ask about delivery and fitting options to avoid having to deal with this from the start. We offer free delivery at Appliance City (to the majority of UK postcodes) so that’s one less thing to worry about.

You’ll also need to think about how you’ll pull the fridge freezer out in order to clean behind it and keep the rear free from dust. You may need to get someone to help you with the maintenance and cleaning.

Integrated American Fridge Freezers

What happens if you’ve decided to go for a completely new kitchen? Can you get an integrated American fridge freezer to co-ordinate with all the lovely new units in your designer fitted kitchen? Well, up to a point, yes, but it’s fair to say that options for integrated American fridge freezers are still somewhat limited at the moment. If you can’t find a suitable model to match your new units, you’ll need to consider if an American fridge freezer that sits flush with your fitted units would suffice. You could have your new storage units constructed around the fridge freezer, giving it that built-in appearance. For many people though, the appeal of an American fridge freezer is precisely that stand alone design and retro feel that it brings to a family kitchen.

American Fridge Freezers and Plumbing

One of the main questions that arises when buying an American fridge freezer is plumbed or not? The majority of models with state-of-the-art ice and water dispensers will definitely need plumbing in, and should be placed within 1.5m of your water supply tap. So can you use an American fridge freezer without plumbing? How do non-plumbed American fridge freezers work? Well, they work in much the same way as everyday fridge freezers. You can still benefit from ice dispensers and filtered water on tap, but you will need to refill these by hand. Read more about this here. I’m assuming you’ll link to the article on this here.

Do You Need Those Extra Features?

Before you rush off to look at what’s available, make sure this kitchen investment is one you’ll make the most of. Will you really use all those extra features? There are plenty of super stylish and efficient standard fridge freezers on the market too, so choose wisely.

For more information view our full range of American Style Fridge Freezers, or get in touch with our team.