high end refrigerators

[Adam Herman]

We are buying a new project house and planning the kitchen reno.

we are having a hard time deciding on refrigerators. we are planning on a 48 in Dacor range, and other high end stuff. kitchen has space for separate freezer and fridge. Looking not to get too crazy for the price.

currently I am leaning towards 24 or 30 in wide separates made by Frigidaire or Electrolux but they get poor reviews. also on the table are columns with bottom freezers from blomberg or Liebherr.

anyone have experience with these types of purchases? or suggestions on a fridge like this?

this seems to be more stressful than buying the house!

[lee cox]

I don't know about high end refrigerators but we remodeled our kitchen. We used an ALL Frig for our refrigerator which is a refrigerator without a freezer and then in the kitchen we have a freezer right beside the refrigerator. It kind of seemed redundant to have a small freezer in the refrig when we had the freezer right beside the refrigerator. The only thing we gave up was an ice maker. I don't like the taste of our water so we buy bag ice.

The big plus for us is we went to a Viking 6 burner range and hood. This gave us a lot restate for pans on the top and a restaurant sized oven.

[Jim Becker]

The friend that I recently did the huge "kitchen continent" top for put in a large Thermador refrigerator and freezer. (side by side) It's a darn nice unit!

BTW, for the range, I'm going to suggest you also consider Thermador. Dacor and many others are "nice", but the start-shaped burners that Thermador uses are the absolute bee's knees when it comes to accommodating a multitude of pot sizes from tiny to very large and their BTU output is also outstanding. I originally installed a 48" DCS which at the time was similar to the Dacor in both function and cost, but when it came time to replace, I looked at multiple brands including Wolf, Viking, Dacor and Thermador. The latter blew me away and I'm extremely pleased with it. This assumes you're going to live there and cook on it. If you're flipping, the Dacor isn't a bad choice. But you may be able to score a really good package price with Thermador as my friend did....range top, wall ovens, dishwasher and the giant refrigerator/freezer setup really nicely discounted and everything matches. That could be a selling point.

[Mike Henderson]

I put in a Sub Zero with a bottom freezer. so far, it's been a good frig/freezer. (I did the panels)

379958

Mike

[Patrick Walsh]

In and out of homes all the time. I make custom cabinets. Previous I worked as finish carpenter for a number of very high end custom home builders,

Appliances are now made to last ten years. I would not build my kitchen with 30-100k of custom cabinetry around a fridge that will need replacing before I need or want new cabinets.

I need a new fridge myself, and a kitchen for that matter. I won’t purchase anything other than a sub zero as painful as the idea of spending that kind of money on a fridge is to a guy that makes 60k a year before taxes before overtime.

Viking is junk from what I understand. I have heard of many people having problems with them in the past five years. I guess they are no longer what they were.

I recently priced out a 36” over under sub zero. I think it was 8K?

[Adam Herman]

we have a 48 sub in our kitchen now, It is a 1999 and I got it for $450 and spent 2k fixing it. The new in box Dacor 48 range I have a line on is only going to cost 4k. I have not been able to find many like it for that price. We like to be scrappy.

we may just have to bite the bullet and go for a sub. We will see what kind of deals we can get on the rest to offset the cost. The local appliance places seem to have there head in a dark place when it comes to selling there back room stock and floor models. Maybe their margins are lower than I think.

[lee cox]

We needed something bigger than just a bottom freezer drawer of a refrigerator hence the 2 separate units which can be easily replaced. I garden and the last time I had deer sausage made I ended up with 125 pounds. We need a real full size freezer.

The Viking ranges are fantastic to cook on. The large burners allow a lot of heat without burning. I had to cook on a friends stove and it was really hard going back to a regular range. The small burners create hot spots if you try cook very fast.

I would not go back to separate range top and wall ovens. We took ours out. The gas wall ovens make the kitchen too hot in the summer in Texas. The Viking gas oven which is what I want, no electric for me, gets vented out the Viking vent hood which makes the oven much more usable in August in Texas. The Viking range also has convection which is a plus.

I would rather spend the money on the range and buy a cheaper refrig and freezer. In my opinion you become a better cook using one of the high end stoves without trying hard. It is just easier to get better tasting food when using a good range.

Oh, Mike nice panels on your refrig.

[Malcolm Schweizer]

My only input on this is BEWARE of any refrigerator with pressure sensitive touch pad buttons inside the fridge. I bought a Whirlpool with temperature controls on a panel inside the fridge. I was very skeptical of this, but unfortunately the person who built my kitchen built it with a very small refrigerator well. (whatever you call the opening space for the fridge to sit) There was only ONE locally that I could find to fit, and it was the high-end model with the fancy buttons inside. What happened is that the condensation very quickly destroyed the buttons, and the whole thing quit working... about a day after the 1-year warranty was up, by the way. To be fair, my kitchen is an open-air kitchen with ambient temperatures around 84 degrees F year-round, and I get more humidity than most, but I still feel putting touch pads inside a fridge is just not a smart idea.

[Peter Christensen]

We put in a Frigidaire pair in our place. They are a little over a year old and we have no complaints. Boss lady was skeptical when we planned the kitchen but is very happy we did it. It is nice having the separates and they didn't cost a lot more than the multi door smaller units with all the extras. The freezer is basically the same as the white upright we bought 4 years ago that we have in the laundry room. I would love to have been able to afford to have put a Miele set in but that would have meant selling a kidney and lung and my wife wouldn't give them up.

[Mike Null]

I am a Frigidaire/Electrolux retiree but my last two Frigidaire refrigerators lasted 20 years. If you want a custom installation I would look at SubZero. My daughter installed a high-end Thermador and had to replace it after 4 years.

The beauty of the thermador, subzero and a few other "custom" refrigerators is the depth. They don't protrude so far from the cabinets.

[James Cheever]

Another vote for SubZero. I put one in during our remodel and love it.

[Peter Kelly]

I'd look at the Bosch Benchmark Series (http://www.bosch-home.com/us/productslist/refrigerators/bottom-freezer) of panel-ready refrigerators. About 1/2 the cost of Sub Zero, same factory as Thermador.

Also check the Yale Appliance blog (https://blog.yaleappliance.com/topic/refrigerators). Lots of great info and relatively unbiased reviews there.

[Mike Hollingsworth]

I can still get parts for my 25 year old SubZero.
Thank God, as I can't afford a new one.

[Bill McNiel]

My SubZero is still going strong after 38 years. Counter depth and the ability to add any door panels desired are also worth considering.

[Carlos Alvarez]

We went with LG after so many bad experiences related to us by friends and family with both Electrolux and Frigidaire. Like going a month without a fridge because they had no parts. It has a long warranty, everyone loves them, and the interior was as nice as Electrolux. Bearing rollers on the drawers and all that. We got the one with two freezer drawers, and like it better than our friend's who has the one drawer model.