Fridges

It may have been a while since you have been in the market for a fridge, whilst their purpose hasn't changed there may have been the introduction of new technology to keep your ingredients fresher for longer. With more style and configuration options on offer, we want to help make the decision process easy by creating this helpful buying guide.

1. Introduction

Finding the right fridge for your household, have you looking at a few elements. You need to look at the space your fridge will live, do you have enough space to both fit it and give it the breathing space it requires. If you are boiling a new kitchen, choose your appliances first and build the cabinetry around them as they are elements that need the most consideration.

2. Sizing

Kitchen Layout

When it comes to designing the space your fridge will live, you need to think about how you like to move around the room. It will be important to make sure your kitchen and appliances work with you. Things you need to consider are:

Consider your cabinetry

With your fridge, you need to ensure it fits within the cavity you have allocated for it, and it needs not to be a tight squeeze as each fridge has it's own ventilation or breathing space requirements.

Kitchen triangle or work zones

When planning the layout of your kitchen, you need to think about how you want to work, whether it be collaboratively or together. You can look to having a kitchen triangle or work zones configuration, and ultimately it comes down to the space you are working. Work zones have it broken up into five zones: consumables, non-consumables, cleaning, preparation and cooking zones which is the best layout for working with someone else. If your space is smaller, you should consider a kitchen triangle which your refrigerator, cooking appliances, and sink/dishwasher creating a triangle as if a line is drawn to link them together.

Purpose of your island bench

Whilst the position of your island bench does not have an enormous impact on your fridge purchasing decision; it is still something to consider when moving platters and other ingredients in and out of your fridge.

Fridge Sizes

When choosing a fridge size or capacity, you will firstly need to think about what fits in your cavity space, however equally important to this is the consideration of your lifestyle and household size.

Lifestyle

Lifestyle considerations may be things such as are you need large freezer space, high energy efficiency a particular configuration such as freezer on top or bottom.

Household Size

Whether you are living in a family home or with housemates, the amount in your household will affect what is ultimately the best fridge capacity for you. If you are on the fence about whether to go bigger or smaller, we advise to go a little bit larger then you think as you will always at different times of the year have not enough room.

Household size (number of people)	Fridge capacity/volume (litres)
1 - 2 people	200 - 380 litres
3 - 4 people	350 - 530 litres
5+ people	440+ litres

 

Does it fit in your hallways and doorways?

You need to consider how much space you need to safely deliver your fridge into its new home, measure the clearance before you buy.

What way does it need to open?

Whilst selected fridges can have their doors reversed; it is essential to consider what way you need to have your fridge door open, which could be limited by cabinetry and walls.