Counter Depth Refrigerators

Cooking Discussions Cookware
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Interesting discussion. I’ll offer what I learned in case you and your husband decide that now’s the time to look for the fridge of your dreams!

We have a small counter-depth fridge that came with the house, thanks to a stylish kitchen remodel by our house’s previous owners. They did a fabulous job of maximizing use of limited space in the 1920’s footprint. I thought the counter-depth fridge, though compact, would do for the two of us. I quickly learned that the fridge is undersized for us, particularly because we tend to have a lot of fresh produce in the house.

Jumping to today, I just ordered a second fridge (with freezer) for the basement because the upstairs fridge is even less adequate now that I shop less often. Tight space in the kitchen won’t accommodate a larger fridge upstairs.

My lessons learned are:

  • Make sure the new fridge will offer the right amount of fridge and freezer space for your household’s needs. I was overly optimistic.

  • Know where you will get service for your fridge before you buy. (The sleek-looking fridge that came with our house is a Liebherr. I had a hard time finding a technician to service it when a problem arose.)

  • Plan ahead and consult with a knowledgeable appliance store if you do opt for a new fridge during the time of Covid. I learned that many appliances are on back order, either by weeks or (gulp) months. By choosing an exterior finish that involves less lead time, we should see the second fridge in a few weeks. But for your kitchen you probably have a specific finish in mind. I know I would. :grinning:

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The current fridge seems to be in a 36 inch opening, and it’s snug.

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@shrinkrap, good advice from all, and good points made by @tomatotomato, a couple posts above.

A couple more things to consider:

An extended warranty is a virtual necessity now, due to all the electronics. The warranty cost can pay off with a single visit. I don’t like the idea of rewarding manufacturers for shoddy production values, but it’s the reality. As well, power outages can sometimes lead to adverse events with the electronics.

Secondly, do your due diligence, but avoid getting caught up in reading a lot of customer reviews. Many such reviews are when people get outright lemons or have problems, whereas I think it quite likely you’re not hearing from satisfied consumers. I stopped reading reviews when the realization struck I was getting too scared to buy anything, due to horror stories. :scream_cat:

It seems to be more helpful to talk to technical or repair people at an appliance shop. A lot of salespeople don’t have the knowledge they need about the merchandise they’re selling. Have found dedicated appliance stores better than places selling a variety of stuff.

Finally, the point made about where the repair people are located is important too. Had we not been living in the populous part of our state, we likely would have bought more mainstream appliances. The ones we chose have been good, and we live within the repair area.

Hope this helps.

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That’s right – chat up the repair guy (gender neutral term, because a no-question-knew-what-she-was-doing tech came many years ago on a warranty call (why are we succumbing to PCWorld, not the mag ?) and confirmed we had chosen well (her assessment: bad luck). That said, it was a non-warranty call that opened our eyes to paying attention to seeking the service tech’s advice about next purchase[s].

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Thanks all! At this point I’m not looking for advice about brands and models, husband is great at that. I wanted to know what its like for food centric people, living with counter depth fridges. I’ve gotten some good input in that regard, so thanks!

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I want to cry. Beautiful kitchen. Everything is lovely, especially the gas range.

My kitchen/counter is from the microwave to the left your dishwasher. Your kitchen is the size of my ground floor which includes the sitting room, dining area and kitchen! And I no longer have an oven. The one that came with the house broke a few months back. Replaced it with a convection microwave oven from the 80’s which fits in the old oven space perfectly, that’s how small my previous “oven” is. The same Bosch mini convection oven that broke is no longer being made. Came with the house built in 1995. I contacted Bosch but they had stopped making those convection ovens.

I live in a small country (the US is 237 times bigger) where everything is small (but people are very tall). Everything in my kitchen is 1/2 or 2/3 the size of normal appliances, cupboards, space etc and it’s hard to find replacements for built-in appliances.

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@Presunto, I feel your pain at having a small kitchen, with the dual issue of not being able to find appliances anymore, that fit where the old ones did. I have had very small or inadequate kitchens for much of my adult life. I’ve also seen the very tiny kitchens in Greece most seem to have.

Yet you cook fabulously amazing and over the top food! I did an extraordinary amount of cooking in our small kitchens, H too. I literally wore out a new Kenmore gas range, a bit upgraded from what the contractor would have installed in the home we bought when it was still mostly unfinished. We negotiated some desires in our initial offer, which we got. Anyway, used the heck out of that range, raised two kids, cooked up a storm, and truly wore out the entire kitchen in 25 years.

We remodeled 4 years ago, knocked down walls, and completely changed the footprint of the space; we now we have our dream kitchen. ( H has taken over, and thinks it’s his exclusive domain) :upside_down_face:

It’s very very nice to have, but thinking back on all, don’t think we’ll ever cook to the extent we once did. Also, and I’m not complaining at all here, it can be quite a challenge to cook in a very big kitchen. Mise en place becomes extremely important. So, it was interesting to get used to, but I do love it, and especially like the fact it’s designed for multiple cooks. I’m happy our wonderful designer won a 1st place design award for it in the category of large kitchens in the state of Washington. She really listened to what we wanted, and put a lot of thought into the design and functionality of the space. I think of her every time I cook, or do other kitchen projects.

I also agree that @aussieshepsx2 has an amazing kitchen as well - most beautiful and nicely done!

Anyway, keep on keepin on in your magic kitchen space, and please continue to provide us all with your beautiful photography, snippets of your great lifestyle, and pics and stories of your wonderful travels!

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Thanks!. I’m just glad I have my own house, that’s the only debt and it’s nearly half way paid off! When I see home kitchens in other poor(er) countries I’m reminded how lucky I am. And when I see big houses I’m glad my house is small because big houses require more time to clean. :smile:

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That’s the perfect attitude to have! Another plus for small houses is the money saved on having to heat or cool the space. Also, I can’t tell you how much I loathe cleaning…@Presunto

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We inherited a 30 year old built in counter depth sub zero fridge when we moved into our house in 2016. While the aesthetics of the outside (which matched the horrific cabinet coating) were terrible, I loved that fridge. Unfortunately it died last month and we just got our new one. A new sub zero wasn’t in the cards so we got a more modest but highly rated GE. Absolutely love counter depth. Nothing gets buried in the back. I like opening the fridge and being able to see most of what’s in it. I like how it is flush to the counters and doesn’t stick out. Ours is I think about 35 inches wide. It still can hold a bunch of casserole type dishes and since the shelves are all movable there’s a lot of flexibility. I’d never go back to a non counter depth fridge. That said I have no idea what a standard fridge width is, but this works for us. My dream would be to upgrade when we renovate our kitchen down the line to something wider and built in but I have no complaints about counter depth. I will say that this is our first fridge with door icemaker and water and we were kind of shocked at how much space that eliminated from inside that door. But that’s not specific to a counter depth. Hope that helps.

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My sister’s swanky new penthouse condo came with a counter-depth refrigerator because god-forbid her fridge create unsightly lines in her open kitchen. I look at her fridge when I visit and cry. She has a family of 3, and I’m one, and I have a giant fridge and a small one in the basement; she has about half the space I do and I don’t know how she lives. Her refrigerator is very tall though - probably goes a good foot higher than mine, which would be terrible for me being slightly under 5 ft (my sister’s at 5 ft too, but she has a 6 ft husband to help her reach).

So what do I think about it? Sure it looks nice, but seems absolutely impractical to me. Sticking in a roast chicken would take up half a shelf! I don’t know if she would ever fit a turkey in there without carving that thing up first. I don’t think she can stick deep boxes in there too, so no leftover pizza in a box for sure without moving everything to the side first. For me, if I can fit half my body in there, it’s not a fridge worth considering. I need movable shelves and all that good stuff with the loads of leftovers, bottles, and pots that I plan to stuff in there.

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Hmmmmm…I’m trying to visualize utilizing that as a yardstick. I can’t fit half my body into my current fridge unless I’m butchered in to primals first, and nothing else is in there. We don’t get pizza often, but when we want to store some, I usually have to take the remaining slices out of the box.

I wanted to cry at first, but now I’m trying to make the best of a situation that is not nearly as bad as some. Apparently this is REALLY important to the hubs. REALLY. He has traveled quite a bit with me, initially almost against his will, but it has grown on him. Maybe this will grow on me.

Turns out we can accommodate a taller refrigerator than we have now, for example a 72 inch Bosch, but I can’t get a sense of what the extra three or so inches would add. I’m thinking French 3 or4 door. I am almost 5’5.

In case anyone is interested, here is a link.

Bosch 4 door

comparison of 3 and 4 door with dual compressors. . They all say 21 cubic feet, they include water or water and ice inside, and the third has Depth (Including Handles) of 28.9, while the other two are 30.9 inches. Counter depth vs “integrated”?

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I can understand the point @kobuta made about counter depth fridges, but I honestly would have a hard time getting used to a regular one again. But I do have auxiliary refrigeration.

The one thing I’d keep in mind about the fridges pictured, the more handles you have on the outside, the more cleaning you’ll need to do, as the handles catch a lot of whatever may be on your hands. I’m talking more like maybe residual food stuff, than say Covid viral particles. I’ll take a pic of mine & send later.

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Bravo for dual compressors.

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We have a 33" side-by-side. One year when our “Thanksgiving partners” wanted us to get a large (23-lb) turkey because it would be a bigger dinner than usual, I luckily measured the freezer first, because the turkey was wider than the freezer! (And luckily the extra people cancelled, so we needed only a smaller turkey after all.)

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Counter depth models still still out an inch or three from a standard countertop - the body is usually the depth of the counter and then the door thickness and handles stick out. A truly integrated model will be totally flush with the countertop, door and all.

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Yes, I understand. I was just wondering why the variation in measurement (28.9 vs 30.9). I guess some people have even smaller depth than the standard. Or maybe that is an insignificant difference. I’m going to have to find some super obsessive directions for how to measure.

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If you can make use of the taller fridge to make up for some lost space, it does help, but I really do have waaay too much in my fridge. The thought of losing more shelf space is like asking me to get rid of a 1/3 of my pantry. panic

And if you don’t need to store tons of big items like 25lb turkeys or giant take out boxes, then I’m sure it is much more feasible. My sister really is kind of a minimalist, with on occasional tendency to hoard food like I do. She has admitted that this quarantine has made it harder though, because she is missing the freezer space now with a regular size fridge.

She has a Thermador, one of these 30" types but I can’t remember which one exactly. The one truly weird thing for me about her fridge is that she can’t pull the door open. She has to push and it then opens; that just seems like the manufacturing messing with you on purpose.

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I guess I am a food hoarder as well, or maybe a bit of a hoarder in general, and except for food, I secretly thank the hubs for helping me look at that.

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Technology for its own sake, or as engineers often say “a solution looking for a problem.”

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