Arrrgh!!!

That IS a bummer. I'd be interested in your opinion on the side-by-side, after you've used it for a while. We made our kitchen such that a side-by-side wouldn't fit into it, regardless. As I recall, your refrigerator is a pretty good-sized one, so you should have plenty of room.

I HOPE that we'll have enough room in this refridgerator. I'm sure it's adequate for just the four of us, but I worry a bit about major holidays, when you have to refrigerate a turkey, or keep pies and salads cold.

It will have to do! It takes up every inch of space available, and Fred whistles the opening pitches to the theme from 2001 when he walks by it.....he calls it the MONOLITH! *G*

Tell Fred, "Thanks for the laugh!" The reason I worry about a side-by-side is that it seems to me that each of the sides is too narrow for some large pans--as in, lasagne--or a watermelon. I know that Elegant Friend was disappointed when she bought a side-by-side--for that reason. (I'm surprised that she hasn't replaced it, already. She just painted her bedroom for the second time since moving into the brand-new house in 1998 or 1999. She hadn't been in the house but two or three years when she ripped up the carpeting to get white. She has more money than patience, I tell her.) Your unit is probably larger than hers, so the width of the compartments may not be an issue for you.

Cop Car....the thing is a monster! I suspect that the shelves in the refridgerator are adequate for lasagna, watermelon (as in a watermelon boat) might be a problem, but angled from front to back we might get it in. DH and I think that we'll have to adjust shelf height to hold a turkey. The freezer shelves are pretty narrow, but we have a full sized freezer in the garage to hold overflow. No matter what.....this is here to stay. If I don't like it, it will give me something to blog about! *G*

The Whirlpool refrigerator, about which I told you in an email, has died. We're not sure when since HH and I haven't been in town. When I returned from Colorado, I noted that the soda that I took from the basement frig wasn't very cold; but, I thought it was just me--until HH complained that his Gatorade wasn't very cold, a couple of days later. Everything in the freezer was thawed (50 degrees in it), so I had to pitch the meat--and a baked chicken that had been in the refrigerator section. Nothing smelled bad, but who wants to take a chance?

Unfortunately, when I looked at refrigerators, Monday, the one that I thought would best fit our needs (upstairs--the upstairs GE would be moved to the basement) was twice what I had told HH a replacement would cost. Now I'm considering using a Coleman ice chest in the basement--lol! Another option is to buy a less expensive model and put IT in the basement.

The Whirlpool was not yet 15 years old, but the repairman said it would be about $400 to fix--not worth it. He also said, when I told him how noisy the thing had always been, "Oh! That means that you have a 'bottle compressor'. They are noisy and fail often!" BTW: I can still hear the compressor trying to do its job--but--it is no longer noisy!

Boy, do I understand. We spent about $500 more than I thought we would to get the black side-by-side monolith that resides in our kitchen now. It's wonderful, but different from every refrigerator we've ever had. I need to stop at the parts store to get a couple more shelves for the door, and I want to see if we can add one more shelf to the body of the refrigerator, too.

I can appreciate your comment about the Coleman chest in the basement. We have a full-sized freezer in the garage and are expecting it to go soon. The gasket has seen better days, and while we can change that, we're expecting that at 17 years, the motor will give out soon. It's quite a shock to see the changes in cost for major appliances, 17 years after you bought the last!

It had only been 6+ years since our last refrigerator purchase, but it was still a shock. I got to thinking, though: part of the additional cost is the price of their having to service the refrigerator that they drag away using a vampire machine to remove all of the refrigerant--still freon--to EPA standards.

Went to the library to look up Consumer Reports, today. They write that the new models are 40% more efficient than refrigerators made before 2001, and 50% more efficient than those made before 1993 (the Whirlpool that crapped out was made in 1990 or 1991 and the GE was made in 1999.) They further write, "Thanks to better recycling programs, less than 10 percent of your old refrigerator is likely to end up in a landfill." Good!

The model that would fit into our available space (between a wall and a cabinet, under a cabinet), that I liked best, is a bottom-freezer model. There is a bottom-freezer Kenmore that CU rates as a best buy for about 1/2 of the cost (according to the price listed in CU) of the one I liked. If they have that particular model, and I don't find it repulsive, I'll probably end up buying it.

Cop Car, given the choice, I'd do that same research if I needed to buy an appliance. I've done it with vacuum cleaners, and I did it with all the appliances when we first built this house. That's probably why the dishwasher lasted so long. My sisters couldn't believe I had a dishwasher that lasted longer than 10 years.

Thanks for the info on the efficiency of the new models. That made my day!