In praise of the top-freezer refridgerator

The top-freezer fridge is efficient and reliable, and had been the only design for ages.  The electricity is cheap even if your fridge is inefficient.  The cost of a luxury model is not much spread over some 10 years or more.  But if you stick to the top-freezer design, you are green.

For decades, the fridge grows in size.  People go to shop every week instead of every day.  You want to put everything possible in the fridge in case you need it one day.  But it cannot grow any deeper or you will have difficult getting things out.  It cannot grow any wider or the door will be a danger to yourself, or just an obstacle in the house.  It cannot grow any taller or it will be unstable.  But if you put the big box at the corner, no one will be bothered.

Any larger fridge you need two doors.  The side by side is a joke design.  The whole fridge is bigger but both the freezer and the fridge is narrower.  It's irritating when you have trouble putting a pizza into the freezer!  Side by sides are also not as deep as a top-freezer fridge.  You can't put two plates of anything on the same self.

That is not all.  The whole design of SBS is to make the freezer narrow and to justify the total size of the freezer.  Therefore the freezer is narrow, just enough for a pizza.  A large portion of the freezer is a huge ice storage chamber, and a giant ice crusher.  And a lot of space is used for ice and cold water delivery.  The whole ice making and accessories is the most often failing parts.  Though I never have problem with them.

The idea of a bottom freezer seemed very sensible.  Because you use the fridge a lot more than the freezer, you should be facing the fridge and fetch things right in front of you.  But actually it's another joke.  Because you cannot have a little freezer door down at the floor, you need a freezer with a drawer.  And how do you make ice when opening and closing the drawer all the time?