Refrigerator French Door! - French Door Refrigerators

Shopping for a new refrigerator: french door, side by side, top or bottom freezer can be daunting. There are at present a wide variety of features and functionalities available with newer models. The price ranges also vary widely. This is a guide to help you determine the best available models for you particular needs and at the most favorable prices.

What is a French Door Refrigerator?

Distinct from a side by side model refrigerator, french door design puts the refrigeration compartment at eye level. The freezer is at the bottom. This is an efficient construction because the fridge is much more often used. Two doors of equal dimension (similar to “french doors”, thus the name) open into the unit. Because only one of these doors generally needs to be open to access the refrigeration unit, energy is saved from having less inflow of heat from the outside.

Unlike side by side fridges, french door models allow for full width shelves, making storage of wide items such as pizza boxes easy. The door bins also tend to be deep and spacious, allowing for the holding of large bottles and containers.

Intelligently designed with an eye for aesthetics and practicality, French Door Refrigerators have become the most popular type of fridge on the market today.

New Refrigerator: French Door or Side by Side

Unlike a side by side refrigerator, french door design offers an efficient use of space in the form of adjustable shelves which can be moved and removed to customize the fridge space. Often, the shelves are split in half and can join together, allowing both full width use and offset layouts which you can change as needed. We have more detailed analysis of the comparative benefits of each of these models in our featured article French Door vs Side By Side.

History of the Refrigerator: French Door Models

The design evolved naturally from previous forms beginning with the standard top-mount or top freezer fridge. This had become standard by the 1950’s. Top freezer design had the disadvantage of forcing one to stoop down low to get to the lower shelves. A natural variation evolved from this: the bottom-mount fridge, which moved the freezer unit down to the bottom. The idea behind this was that the freezer unit is much less often accessed than the refrigeration unit.

Side by side design then evolved from this. Here, the freezer and the fridge units were next to each other, allowing easy access to both. By the 1980’s, a new kind of refrigerator: French Door, had hit the market. It offered improved design, with the freezer unit again at the bottom and utilizing two doors for the fridge compartment, thus maintaining energy efficiency, as described above.

Refrigerator Added Conveniences

French Door refrigerators can now come with a number of utilities including crisper drawers, ice machines, temperature regulators and adjustable shelving. These mean that this type of fridge generally comes with a higher price point than standard top-mount or even side by side refrigerators. However, even here, the gap is narrowing, making these models now quite affordable.

We feature below and throughout this site, top brands at discounted and sale prices by featuring merchants who are offering competitive and bargain prices on high quality brands.

Also see our page on the Best Refrigerator Deals.

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