[mattbrain]

Re: New Kitchen, New Fridge / Freezer

Having looked around for fridges, freezers and wine coolers, i have started to appreciate how the sizing of free-standing appliances isn’t consistent vertically – and whilst there are lots of wine coolers which look great, I have struggled to find one similar enough to the Siemens fridge and freezer to not look out of place. The Bosch full height wine cooler is very close dimensionally to the Siemens kit (not surprisingly) but the design language is very different and would look out of place. I have found a Haier Winecooler (WS151GDBI) which is pretty close dimensionally (<10mm difference in height) – any thoughts on this in terms of quality and reliability?

Thanks,

Matt

[mattbrain]

Re: New Kitchen, New Fridge / Freezer

Hi RocketMan

Yeah, I saw that model – but the better half would prefer full size Freezer and Wine Cooler – it also looks like that model is rebranded by JL as well – but it does look quite neat.

Thanks,

Matt

[mattbrain]

Re: New Kitchen, New Fridge / Freezer

Hi Don

Thanks for the pointer to the Liebherr – I think the SBSES7263 is a really neat solution and as I understand it, it uses a locking kit to join the separate units together. I don’t suppose you know whether they do a wine cooler in the same form factor which could also be locked together to create a unit not unlike the JL one?

Thanks,

Matt

[mattbrain]

Re: New Kitchen, New Fridge / Freezer

Thanks for your replies; I can’t find the ‘root’ product in the Electrolux group – I wonder if it is specific for JL?

In terms of Beko, whilst I appreciate they have become disruptive in this space, they just don’t meet the needs we have. They don’t have a plumbed in water or ice dispenser in their freestanding separate Fridge / Freezer and they don’t make any wine coolers that I can see. I have also got a free standing freezer from Beko which is in the garage (as it is suitable for the colder environment) and we are on our second unit after the first failed after 6 months (which left us with a full freezer of ruined food and a wait for several weeks for it to be replaced) – additionally it is clear it is made to a budget and doesn’t feel like a quality product.

Whilst I don’t want to spend unnecessarily, in a kitchen which is costing quite a bit of money I would rather put products which look and feel quality – and Beko just can’t compete with the higher end alternatives at this time.

[mattbrain]

Re: Whirlpool American Fridge Freezer broken down – help!

Hi All

My Whirlpool American style fridge freezer broke down a couple of weeks ago – much reported flashing — and general failure to keep anything cold at all. Naturally this happened whilst I was away on business resulting in my wife having to use the wine coolers as a fridge.

I followed the advice on this forum and bought the capacitor kit from ukwhitegoods and then proceeded to have a go at the repair and have some feedback for those considering it:

1.Test the relays and capacitors whilst you have the board out – I found that the main compressor relay had failed which was the main reason for it dying. I had to buy a new one from RS components and the local store didn’t have any so I drove to the distribution centre which had a bucket load in stock – 1.99 each

2.5 out of the 9 capacitors had failed; I went ahead and replaced the lot.

3.My puny soldering iron which I use for microelectronics bits and pieces didn’t have the grunt to de-solder the relay which has quite a large amount of solder as there is a fair bit of current being switched – I had to grab one with a bit more grunt and ended up using a 60W iron to do so.

4.When testing the relays be aware of the polarity of the test power supply and the relays – if you get it wrong the diodes used to protect the circuitry end up shorting your test power supply (and you get some pretty sparks or fry something else).

5.The ice maker had failed about 2 years ago, this repair also magically bought it to life

6.This is not a hard repair – the board uses simple through hole construction and the pads are generous – you need to take a little time and have some patience but I would say it should be do-able by most people.

The repair has been a resounding success and I am now considered some sort of genius by the better half – I saw this as a gamble – it was worth spending the time and less than £15 rather than £1500 on a new unit – nothing ventured nothing gained.

Best of luck if you are looking to do this yourself – and many thanks to all those kind souls who contributed to this forum and gave me an idea of where to start.

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