What are the Pros & Cons of a French Door Refrigerator?

French door refrigerators are the most versatile refrigerator configuration types for large families and bulk shopping. A good balance of fresh and frozen food storage space, along with convertible zones in some cases, lets you personally tailor temperature and humidity conditions to your needs and maximize food freshness. Additionally, their sleek, modern appearances enhance kitchen aesthetics with a multitude of finishes, glass doors, external water and ice dispensers, and even touchscreen options in some cases!

As your appliance authority, AjMadison not only wants to offer you the best French door refrigerators for your home, but also empower you to shop our wide selection of refrigeration units like an appliance pro! Let’s go through all there is to know about the pros and cons of French door refrigerators to see if they are a good fit for your home. We’ll even check out some top picks from our experts and what they have to offer!

Pros of French Door Refrigerators

Plenty of Space for Large Items – French door refrigerators usually have wide shelves and larger bins in the doors, making it easy to store large meats, turkeys, casseroles, stews, and gallon jugs of milk or juice. The door bins themselves are spacious enough to hold those gallon jugs and big pitchers. The fresh food section shelving in a French door refrigerator is also adjustable.

Clear Visibility of All Food Items – The layout of a French door refrigerator is also more logical than that of a traditional refrigerator, sporting full-width shelves so you can easily see and access everything in your fridge at eye level. That way, there is less chance of forgetting some food on the back of a shelf.

Functional Even in Cramped Kitchen Spaces – The doors don’t need the same range of motion as the door of a regular refrigerator. Each door is half the width of the fridge itself, so it can open without bumping into shelves in tighter galley kitchens, for example.

Massive Freezer Storage – Because the freezer is at the bottom, you won’t have to bend down as much to retrieve items on the lower shelves as you would with a fridge that has the freezer at the top. You’ll have to bend down to rummage through the freezer drawer, but most people don’t open their freezer nearly as much as they do their refrigerator. Because single freezer drawers are deep, they are perfect for boxed items like frozen vegetables or TV dinners.

Flexible Food Storage – Some French-door refrigerators also have a customizable temperature drawer just above the freezer. This adjustable drawer can hold different items, including wine, beverages, snacks, fish, and deli meats. Some models can even convert to deep freeze modes for extra freezer storage.

Trendy Designs – French door refrigerators are also very aesthetically pleasing. The double-door design is luxurious and select brands such as Café allow you to swap out their handles for a custom aesthetic. Since French door refrigerators are available in a wide range of finishes, this style is an excellent choice in a modern kitchen with panel ready integration.

High-End Features – Even French door refrigerators from more affordable brands contain an assortment of advanced cooling, monitoring, and diagnostic technologies that enable a climatarian lifestyle, according to Green Builder Media. Select Samsung French door refrigerators, for instance, have touchscreen interfaces that can display diagnostics and smart connectivity for optimizing settings remotely. LG French door refrigerators can have see-through door panels that you knock to illuminate so you can see what’s inside without opening the door. Other models send performance metrics straight to the manufacturer, who can then inform you of small issues before they become big problems.

Cons of French Door Refrigerators

Inconvenient Freezer Navigation – If the freezer lacks a pull-out bin, searching for food in the very back is more complicated. One way to make this easier is to buy a French door fridge with a freezer drawer that can pull out. Another solution is to buy a refrigerator with two freezer drawers at the bottom, one on top of the other.

Ice and Water Takes Up Space – Refrigerators that offer an ice maker offer a convenient automated way to get ice - without the hassle of trays. However, the icemaker mechanism will take up space. If the ice maker is in the freezer, it will take up freezer space. Suppose the refrigerator has an external ice and water dispenser on the door. In that case, the ice maker and water dispenser will take up some refrigerator capacity - as the ice cubes need to be made somewhere.

More Expensive – French door refrigerators cost more than other refrigerator styles because of the vast amount of features and conveniences they provide to consumers. However, they also tend to last longer than standard fridges.

More Complex Repairs – Complicated hardware can make it harder and more costly to repair a French door refrigerator. We recommend you purchase one from a brand with a reputation for longevity. One is Miele, which assembles and tests all their appliances for 20 years of use right at their factory in Germany.

Bulky Designs – Dual door designs make it so the majority of French door refrigerators are at least 30 in. to allow adequate door bin space. As such, they require big cutouts and more strength to move, making them inconvenient for cramped kitchens or people with physical disabilities. A built-in French door refrigerator can alleviate these issues to a small degree. Built-in designs do not need as much clearance to install and their compressors are in the front, making them easier to clean.

Potentially High Energy Consumption – Ice makers, water dispensers, and other features may not individually require tons of energy to run, but used in concert can compound your overall electricity consumption, especially when coupled with French door fridges’ high capacities which require more cold air generation.

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