Refrigerators - Side-by-Side vs. French Door

[JVL1018]

I'll be a dissenting vote.
I love my side by side.
I can fit a pizza box in my fridge, a full size sheet cake from Costco fits no problem. I've never had any issues with it being too small.
My brother and SIL have a French door and while I like the fridge part, I do not like having the freezer as a drawer. They don't like it either.

 

[cristit14]

I have a side by side and like it too. I haven't had a problem with fitting things in it. The freezer side does seem a little harder to organize for some reason, but we have a big chest freezer in the basement for most things.

 

[clh2]

Just saw this post and don't understand. I have a french door and you don't have to one more then one door at a time. And they are very easy to open.

We've had a french door fridge for a couple of months. We need to open both doors to access our "deli-drawer". Everything else is a 1-door function. Generally speaking - the stuff that DH likes is on the left side, and the stuff I like lands on the right side.

LOVE, LOVE, LOVE this fridge!!! Our prior fridge was a top fridge, bottom freezer, so I've never had a side-by-side to compare.

 

[rchristiansen]

I think it really all depends on the size of the fridge. Yes, lots of side by sides are small, but ours is a big 26 cubit ft. fridge and we have no problems with our side by side. I can get a pizza box in and large pans. Ours also has slide out shelves and drawers, which is nice. I would think the french door one would be a pain for three reasons - 1) You have to open 2 doors to get big items in, I don't have to do that with our side by side, and 2) the water/ice dispenser is usually on the inside of a french door fridge and 3) all the freezer stuff just seems like it's thrown in a junk drawer. We like to keep salad plates and frosty mugs in our freezer, and I don't think you could do that in a bottom drawer.

Just my two cents.

 

[arminnie]

I bought 2 refrigerators last year - one side by side and the other french door. (2 separate residences)

I wanted water in the door and had space limitations so I got what was available that would fit in both cases.

The side by side has freezer limitations - but I don't freeze much stuff. I prefer to use meat as I buy it so it's mostly for ice cream and maybe a frozen dinner or two. I don't buy frozen pizza.

The French door though is a real pain in the rear. If you open one door the other comes open. You have to shut both separately in proper order or it does not seal correctly. I find the the refrigerator section holds very little - this refrigerator cost 3 times as much as the side by side and is supposed to be bigger. You lose a lot of space because of the ice and water in the door.

I don't particularly like the freezer in the French door either. It is more like an old chest freezer - stuff packed on top of one another. They are real "in" but not so great to live with.

 

[dreamin_disney]

glad you asked this. We have a side by side and I hate it!! I grew up with fridge on bottom and freezer on top and i think thats better then the side by side. Dh picked side by side cuz his mom had one and for the ice maker.

Next fridge is the french doors with ice maker. Now debating to get the one with the fride, the drwaer in the middle freezer on bottom. 3 seperate comparments

 

[MistressMerryweather]

The French door though is a real pain in the rear. If you open one door the other comes open. You have to shut both separately in proper order or it does not seal correctly. I find the the refrigerator section holds very little - this refrigerator cost 3 times as much as the side by side and is supposed to be bigger. You lose a lot of space because of the ice and water in the door.

It depends on which model and brand you buy. We have a Samsung and the doors are not at all like that. The doors open separately and don't interfere with one another at all upon closing. There isn't an order in which you have to close them. Our freezer has a top shelf and a bottom shelf and many compartments, so you don't have to pile and you don't loose things...and the water and ice are not on the door so you don't loose that space.
There are so many different styles of french door fridges out there.

 

[dis-happy]

Add me to the side by side fan. Everytime I look at a French Door I think "no way, not enough room!".

Where do you put all your milk in there? The only place I see big enough is on the door shelves. However, in my side by side I have an entire shelf for milk---it holds 6 gallons and/or a combination of juice pitchers and half gallon organic milk. This is with a counter depth fridge---my older regular depth fridge held 9 gallons of milk on one shelf!

The I still have a top shelf, two additional shelves, a drawer for lunch meat and cheese, plus 2 deep veggie drawers. Plus plenty of door shelves for soda, large Costco sized condiments, smaller condiments, and a closed butter shelf.

All the shelves are adjustable so I can make them fit exactly how I need them. A French Door would never work for our family. And I wouldn't like stooping/digging into the freezer either.

 

[crz4mm2]

Add me to the side by side fan. Everytime I look at a French Door I think "no way, not enough room!".

Where do you put all your milk in there? The only place I see big enough is on the door shelves. However, in my side by side I have an entire shelf for milk---it holds 6 gallons and/or a combination of juice pitchers and half gallon organic milk. This is with a counter depth fridge---my older regular depth fridge held 9 gallons of milk on one shelf!

The I still have a top shelf, two additional shelves, a drawer for lunch meat and cheese, plus 2 deep veggie drawers. Plus plenty of door shelves for soda, large Costco sized condiments, smaller condiments, and a closed butter shelf.

All the shelves are adjustable so I can make them fit exactly how I need them. A French Door would never work for our family. And I wouldn't like stooping/digging into the freezer either.

My french door shelves are totally adjustable, both sides.... I have plenty of room for everything I use.

 

[kiddo76]

I love my French Door fridge. I have an LG and have never had a problem with doors not closing right. Only for very wide items do I need to open both doors together. All the shelves are split into 2, and are all fully adjustable, with a deli drawer and 2 crisper drawers. There's also a ton of storage in the doors also with adjustable shelves. I put the open milk and soda bottles or wine in the door. The extra bottles and cartons go on the shelves. Plenty of room. I find with this fridge, I have to do a lot less 'stacking' of food for it all to fit.

The freezer drawer has a shallower top basket drawer where we keep the more frequently used items (ice cream, frozen dinners, chilled mugs) and then the deeper drawer is where we put the frozen meat. The best part about the freezer drawer is there is no more frozen food avalanches.

 

[Tinkermommy]

Add me to the side by side fan. Everytime I look at a French Door I think "no way, not enough room!".

Where do you put all your milk in there? The only place I see big enough is on the door shelves. However, in my side by side I have an entire shelf for milk---it holds 6 gallons and/or a combination of juice pitchers and half gallon organic milk. This is with a counter depth fridge---my older regular depth fridge held 9 gallons of milk on one shelf!

The I still have a top shelf, two additional shelves, a drawer for lunch meat and cheese, plus 2 deep veggie drawers. Plus plenty of door shelves for soda, large Costco sized condiments, smaller condiments, and a closed butter shelf.

All the shelves are adjustable so I can make them fit exactly how I need them. A French Door would never work for our family. And I wouldn't like stooping/digging into the freezer either.

My french door has really big and adjustable shelves on the door. I can fit about 4 gallons of milk on the right side door alone. All the other shelves are adjustable and I have two veggie drawers and a huge meat/cheese drawer that is the width of the freezer.

My model is one of the biggest ones out there though.

 

[Zandy595]

I have another question for you all.

The space we have to put the fridge in is exactly 36" wide. The fridge itself is 35 3/4". I told DH that it won't fit but, he and the salesman think it will be fine. Does anyone have a refrigerator that's 35 3/4" and it fits in a 36" space? I'm also worried it isn't going to fit through our front door, which is only 36" wide.