Mr Freeze..... revisited. Review on Choosing a Refrigerator

Similar to my review on choosing a washing machine I would directly start of with factors to consider before buying a refrigerator. The important features to look for in a refrigerator are as follows,

1) Defrosting (Manual or Auto)

2) Preservation Of Food

3) Capacity

4) Design (Clean back, Cooling, Single-Double Door )

5) Flexible interior

6) Instant Chilling

Expanding on these features I would start with the most important Preservation of Food. Problem of odors is very common in refrigerators. The overpowering of odors makes one food item smell like others and it affects the freshness of the foodstuff. The odors are concentrated in a small area and intensified with no option for ventilation. The solution to the problem is either you put all strong smelling items (esp. cooked items) in closed containers or choose a fridge which takes care of the problem by its own. Not all refrigerators have this facility. I suppose Whirlpool comes with this feature. Our Godrej ultra does not have this feature.

Most irritating problem with refrigerators is the frost accumulated periodically in deep freezer blocking the space and inhibiting the cooling process. Well-Defrosted refrigerators have a better efficiency. As I mentioned in my earlier review excess frost acts as an insulator (cooling wise) and restricts the cooling effect there by increasing power consumption. So the Defrosting of the freezer becomes mandatory for the operation of fridge. Cleaning of defrost manually takes lot of time and effort. Since first we need to switch of the fridge then remove all items from the freezer. After that wait for the ice to melt and wipe out all collected water. So it becomes very tedious and time consuming. I would suggest opting for a fridge with Auto-Defrosting, it would cost you a bit more but certainly save a lot of trouble.

Capacity to me is the second most important feature to consider for. I suppose 165-liter single door refrigerators are most common in here. Freezer is inside the main cabinet. Frankly I think 165-liter capacity is not at all enough to store food items. Freezer inside reduces the total space considerable. It is very difficult to keep big in size food items (like watermelon). 230-liter is most suitable for every family. If the fridge is double door with freezer separate from main cooling cabinet then nothing is like it. Since it gives better option for storing non-vegetarian items, ice creams and we don’t need to open main cabinet to access the freezer saving power.

In summer we require ice cubes a lot. Even for parties we require lot of ice. Sometime we run out of the ice and incidentally at that time the demand or need for ice is most. In such situations Instant Chilling feature comes useful. It makes ice within few minutes.

A Flexible Interior has movable shelves, trays, adjustable racks to maximize or optimize space available. This is very useful for big, tall bottles. Detachable racks enable to store the required item. Also movable trays and separators allow us to store big sized food items.

Finally about the Design part of the fridge. A clean back design common in almost all refrigerators of present makes the product look good and also keeps us away from wire mess. A uniform cooling inside the fridge should be desire. For small capacity refrigerators the cooling is uniform but for big one with capacity of about 386-liter the cooling is not uniform. So we should check if the fridge has a cooling fan or related facility for cooling. Cost of the fridge mainly varies with capacity.

I don’t know if I have covered all features requires helping a customer in buying a refrigerator. I would appreciate any suggestions.