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Hi,
having recently moved into a house I am looking to slightly alter the kitchen to take an american style fridge/freezer (width is 95cm). Now to my problem, having looked on the web there seems to be a large number of manufacturers and models ranging from £599 to over £3,000 all seem to have something going for them but I have come across a number of reviews that concerned me. They mainly relate to Samsung and problems to do with the water dispenser and the fan freezing, so that got me thinking I don’t really know anything about these fridge/freezers other than the manufacturers specs. I am looking for one with a water dispenser that has good reliability and if things do go wrong won’t cost an arm and leg. Do you have any suggestions – I have been looking at the LG range? Your advise would be most welcome- thanks
Re: American Style Fridge/Freezer, reliable and value for mo
yep.. the lg seems to be a reliable machine
the samsung.. well, just take a look around.. poor is a good word to use
the whirlpool isnt so bad since the changed the motorised baffle
but id certainly go for an lg.. quality goods at reasonable prices
Re: American Style Fridge/Freezer, reliable and value for mo
Take a look at the Admiral GC2224GEKW. Slightly more expensive but worth it IMO.
Don
Re: American Style Fridge/Freezer, reliable and value for mo
Thanks to both helo_75 and don for your input. I would however like to ask Don why you have chosen the Admiral GC2224GEKW, is it that they are reliable for their cost or is it a combination of a number of things. Your explanation would be very helpful to me so that I can understand what you have based your descison on?
Many thanksRe: American Style Fridge/Freezer, reliable and value for mo
Quarter wrote:I would however like to ask Don why you have chosen the Admiral GC2224GEKW, Many thanks
Hi Quarter
The Admiral is a better built appliance, will give a longer life span and should it fail the after sales service is better than most of the others currently available IMO.
HTH
Don
Re: American Style Fridge/Freezer, reliable and value for mo
Don,
Firstly thank you for the clarity but when you say after sales do you mean that provided by the manufacturer or do you mean to get someone on a call out to look at it and fix it? The reason I ask is beacuse when I looked at the call an engineer link through this site Admiral were not listed unless it comes under another name that I am not familiar with? Would you be able to shed some light please.
Another question, the model number you quoted (GC2224GEKW) was for a white appliance, changing the letter at the end of the model number from W to B gave me the black colour appliance but of course the wife is after a stainless look. Not so easy to detect this one as I have 3 possible options, SAF224GB or SAD224GB or SAX224GB, I’m not sure which is which?
Sorry for the lengthy ramble…… 😀Re: American Style Fridge/Freezer, reliable and value for mo
Quarter wrote:Don,
Firstly thank you for the clarity but when you say after sales do you mean that provided by the manufacturer or do you mean to get someone on a call out to look at it and fix it? The reason I ask is beacuse when I looked at the call an engineer link through this site Admiral were not listed unless it comes under another name that I am not familiar with? Would you be able to shed some light please.The After sales service as supplied by the manufacturers during the guarantee period IMO is superior. As for local service thereafter a call to Admiral on 01737 231100 should give a result to a local engineer, Maytag and Admiral are part of the same group 😉 .
Quarter wrote:Another question, the model number you quoted (GC2224GEKW) was for a white appliance, changing the letter at the end of the model number from W to B gave me the black colour appliance but of course the wife is after a stainless look. Not so easy to detect this one as I have 3 possible options, SAF224GB or SAD224GB or SAX224GB, I’m not sure which is which?
Sorry for the lengthy ramble…… 😀Okay from the info I can glean the:
SAF is stainless steel with a black drinks dispenser.
SAD is silver ( I presume a spray finish)
SAX is fully clad stainless steel ( probably all the way round ?)
If in doubt a phone call to the above number should reveal all.
HTHDon
Re: American Style Fridge/Freezer, reliable and value for mo
Don,
Thanks very much for your guidance and explanation I have found this extremely useful.
best regards.
QuarterRe: American Style Fridge/Freezer, reliable and value for mo
Glad to have been able to help :tup:.
Let us know which appliance you purchase, as someone else may be looking for something similar and could find the answer here in this thread.
DonRe: American Style Fridge/Freezer, reliable and value for mo
Don,
We have now been to look at the admiral model you suggested and would quiet happy forgo the water/ice dispenser infavour of more space in the freezer with a preferance to have draws so you can more easily stack food.
Looking at the Admiral range thay all come with water/ice dispensers so have turned our attention to the LG GRA207CUBA, are there others we should consider? Your recommendation would be very helpful.
Thanks
QuarterRe: American Style Fridge/Freezer, reliable and value for mo
Hi Quarter
Gross capacities between the two, Admiral freezer gross is 215 litres and the LG 200 litres. So between the two by the time you get down to the nett nett capacity there is very little in it, except for the quality of build and aftercare of course 😉 .
I would still go for the Admiral, they have been around for years and years so they must be doing something right 😉
Don
Re: American Style Fridge/Freezer, reliable and value for mo
Hi Don,
Yes this I can see will be a real problem purley because although it is nice to have the ice/water dispenser it is not something that we really need so in fact can do without. (It is the water /Ice dispenser that seems to have the majority of problems on these machines (eg LG, Samsung etc etc), is this right?).
Comparing the price between the admiral and LG there is a significant difference of around £490 so I think what it comes down to – is the admiral worth £490 for a freezer that we believe would not be utilised as well, purley because of the facilities to store food within the freezer, ie lack of storage draws that hold the food better. Granted having draws does reduce the net useable space but if you can’t stack food in the admiral without it sliding off the open shelving then this again causes the issue of wasted space.
Could anyone who has either draws or open shelves offer any experiences please beacuse I think until you get to use them sometimes your preception changes.
I am in no doubt the admiral will last longer and problably not cause me any undue problems and the fact that piece of mind does play a large part. However as the price differantial is £490 then I could just go and get another LG with a shade under £200 added to the saving if anything goes wrong that makes it uneconmical to repair. But then again what a waste of a fridge /freezer. It would appear that what ever we decide it will undoutably be the wrong decision becasue life is always like that – isn’t it?
Thanks
QuarterRe: American Style Fridge/Freezer, reliable and value for mo
Hi Quarter,
I just searched on Tribal (link over to the left) and even the Whirlpool machines are competitive with LG and Samsung and, while parts are expensive for Whilrpool, at least you can get them!
Bits and info for both LG and Samsung are hard to get and expensive, information is non-existent.
And, they have a Maytag for £990 as well, far better that the Korean “stuff”. 😉
K.
Re: American Style Fridge/Freezer, reliable and value for mo
Quarter wrote:Could anyone who has either draws or open shelves offer any experiences please beacuse I think until you get to use them sometimes your preception changes.
I am the proud owner of an Admiral fridge/freezer similar to the one you have enquired over. It is a little under 5 years old now and works beautifully (touch wood :rolls: ). So I perhaps qualify to answer your questions from a ‘user’ standpoint?
Firstly, Drinks chiller/ice maker? Works great, no problems but only used by us approx 4 months of the year at best during the summer months. Left unused the ice compartment has to be emptied of cubes and wiped clean otherwise bacteria forms and it gets smelly. Recommissioning the chilled water requires a gallon or two of water to be flushed through to get rid of any stale pipework smells that can develop due to extended lay-off periods.
Fixed shelves?… Only 3 shelves with large spaces between and that means (as you have observed already) stacking the shelves high with food packaging, freezer bags etc all piled in and jumbled up. Getting at those burgers at the bottom of all that is a scramble to say the least.
The freezer section on all american style f/freezers is less than practical for a typical family with 2.4 kids. You’ll need another one in the garage or wherever to store all your grub. We have an upright single freezer with drawers in that we use mostly.
Americans (God Bless America!) love their big refrigerators and not so much on freezers. Hence the two thirds, one thirds adopted format design. 😕The fridge section is great, massive in fact, lovely glass shelving and great fresh food drawers at the bottom. The door holds a mass of bottles, wine, milk and jam jars…brilliant! 🙂
So from a practicality viewpoint and to sum up, each and every American style fridge/freezer lacks in functionality, is far from efficient by comparison to the European way of doing things. Requires a great deal of space, requires a mains water supply to it and uses a fair bit of electricity. Apart from that, they are great, we love ours and have nicknamed it Admiral Bin Laden as our earlier fridge/freezer caught fire appropriately enough on Sept 11th 2001, (Admiral replaced it 3 days later free of charge – very good service by the way 😉 ).
Re: American Style Fridge/Freezer, reliable and value for mo
I would like to send my thanks to Don, Kwatt and Martin for there advice and experiencies – especially martin.
So weighting it all up last night we came to the conclusion that we would go for the Admiral SAF224GB so I ordered it, just waiting for them to confirm delivery….. 😉
Job done
Thanks
Quarter
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