Friends - I need help fast! Our 14yo fridge that came with our house kaputted today. We have a repairguy coming SOMETIME tomorrow 8-5 to diagnose. I was working and kind of not thinking about it, and then my husband just now said - you know, it would be good to have a ballpark of how much a new one would cost, so that if the repair is $700 or $800 we could decide to do it or buy a new one. Gulp. I don’t have the time to do the legwork myself.
Help me please to figure out a ±$500? range for a 26 or so cubic ft fridge. Stainless front. With freezer. Maybe with ice dispenser. Nice i.e. for people who like to cook and do cook. But not top of the line like Wolf or Subzero. You don’t need to recommend a particular one, but it would be great to know if I’m in for $1500 or in for $3000. Giant thank you.
We have a LG 27 cubic ft French door with the double drawers for the lower freezer. We got it in march when finishing our kitchen Reno. It has the interior water dispenser and an ice maker but we don’t have a water line to there. Super pleased so far. It was around $2400 or so.
I’m sorry that I can’t make a personal recommendation. Here’s what ChatGPT suggested:
Of course! Here are a few makes and models that fit your requirements for a 26 cubic ft stainless front fridge with a freezer and ice dispenser:
Samsung RF260BEAESR
LG LFCS27596S
GE GFE26JSMSS
KitchenAid KRFF305ESS
These models offer a good balance between features, performance, and affordability, making them suitable for cooking enthusiasts who want a nice fridge without going for the highest-end brands. Remember to compare their specifications, read user reviews, and check for any additional features that might align with your needs. Prices can vary depending on factors such as location and ongoing promotions, so it’s a good idea to shop around and find the best deal.
We paid $2500 last year for an LG french door bottom freezer fridge with Instaview door and dual icemakers. I like it well enough, but would probably have been fine with one of their less expensive models if any had been available. Unfortunately, there were still a lot of Covid-related delays when our fridge died so I had to take what I could get quickly. I called a repairman and he asked the age of the old unit first thing - when I told him it was 12+ years old he just said “I don’t want to steal your money, just forget the repair and get a new one.”
I feel your pain. We have a subzero at home and and had an old Maytag at the weekend place. Two weeks ago we get to the weekend pace and my wife says what’s that smell? I say it must just be the musty air. Open the windows. So we open the windows and then I go into the kitchen and open the fridge. I promptly get a whiff and slam the door shut. I tell the bride that the fridge has died. Spent the weekend comparing fridges at Home Depot and Lowe’s. Not how I expected to spend the weekend. Lots of option around $1500 for the size you want. Made the same decision that it made more sense to buy a new fridge than spend 50% of the cost of a new fridge on getting the old one repaired. Also had to throw out I don’t know how much $$$ in emptying the old one.
How nice to find an honest repair person. I’m hoping that even though ours is old, it can be repaired somewhat cheaply. And I totally get the covid delay. When our dishwasher broke almost exactly 2 yrs ago, we ordered one and it took 8 months to arrive. It was kind of awful.
Huge bummer. We have a 2nd “spare” fridge, so we moved everything into there. We would have to dramatically change the way we shop in order to move down to 1 fridge again. We will go to Costco, for instance, and get 4 gallons of milk at a time.
You’re easily in for $2000+. If your 14 yr old fridge is affordably fixable, do it. The lifespan of kitchen appliances is heading toward that of yogurt. When my former fridge needed repair at about the same age, some 20 years ago, the repairman advised fixing it for as long as it could be fixed because although it was a basic Kenmore, it was much better made than new models. It was still working years later, when I had a sudden small windfall. I decided to replace it before it failed. It was blasting increasingly hotter air out its vent.
I think I get good mileage on fridges for several reasons: I keep mine full. I rotate pint bottles of frozen water next to the cream and other easily spoiled fridge contents and keep them toward the rear of the fridge. I am like that old All in the Family episode wherein Edith tries to make opening the refrigerator into the equivalent speed of a racecar pit stop. The door is never open a nanosecond longer than necessary. The freezer is usually full and if it’s not, I insert Rubbermaid containers filled most of the way with water. If there’s an outage, I do not open the door EVER until the power has been back on for at least four hours. When in bad weather, outages are predicted, I put some not too perishables, and a lot of frozen Rubbermaids or water bottles into a cooler.
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CCE
(Keyrock the unfrozen caveman lawyer; your world frightens & confuses me)
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Our Samsung 28.5 cubic foot French door/bottom freezer with ice maker and cold water dispenser is still running fine after about (?) 12 years and I’ve always liked it.
This one (linked below) is slightly smaller capacity than our current, 27 cu.ft, but otherwise pretty close to what we got then, and runs $1600 at Lowes. Which is, IIRC, about what we paid then, except ours was a bit cheaper for being standard white vs this one being stainless steel surfaced like you want.
When you say yours went kaput, what actually happened? Is it a dead stick all around (no lights, no nothing)? If so, it might be the fuse block, which is cheap and easy to replace.
Or do the lights work but the compressor won’t come on? I know that in a whole lot of cases, if the lights work but the compressor won’t start, the compressor may be completely shot. In which case you’re looking at about $800++ to fix, so might as well buy a new fridge.
OTOH, a lot of times it’s just a $20-$40 capacitor that’s failed, which is what kick starts the compressor. You’ll pay a trip fee of $100-150 depending on your location in any event, but if it’s just the capacitor you might be good for about $200 or so total.
Sorry to hear about your refrigerator. Here’s hoping it doesn’t cost too much to repair!
If not, I offer you lessons learned from my tale of woe with my fridge earlier this year.
First, pricing. If there is a “lucky” time for an appliance to fail it’s near a holiday weekend (for those in the US). Manufacturers run sales promotions then so you can find discounts. For quick pricing research, do a search like Labor Day appliance sales 2023.
You can find this promotional pricing at independent dealers, not just the big box stores.
Second, service. If you find an independent that services what they sell, that is a good idea given the high failure rate of appliances these days.
Third, reliability. The independent appliance repair tech who helps us advised against an ice maker or water dispenser. He frequently gets repair calls when those features fail.
As for brands, you might want to check out this info from Yale Appliance, a Massachusetts store that compiles data about its service calls. While I didn’t buy from them because my kitchen was designed to fit one fridge with unique dimensions (avoid! avoid!), I found lots of useful buying info and tips through Yale. They publish updates too.
Fingers crossed that all goes well for you! There was no good answer to my dilemma, but you can see I did learn something while trying to find a solution.
I bought a GE fridge, similar capacity with freezer, ice maker (no water dispenser) 10 yrs ago and that was just under $2000. I would assume that today, that’s going to be well north of that - 2500 or higher (especially if supply chain is still an issue).
With that being said, I have seen some great deals on appliances during certain times of the year so I would definitely browse a few of your local stores online (Home Depot, Best Buy, Lowe’s?) just to get a more relevant base line. I checked locally for me (Boston/New England area) and there are similar fridges that are showing “discounts” of up to 40%, so they are ranging from 1800-$2500.
If you don’t mind a dent or some scratches, you could consider new appliances that have a few imperfections.
We looked into it a little. There are a couple of spots in the Boston area that cater to damaged appliances.
And both Barons and Home Depot had some on the floor.
Warranties still hold and the damage is cosmetic only.
Maybe worth checking out.
The lights are out - that is all I know. My husband who is neither the best nor worst at figuring things out tried a few things that google recommended, but he couldn’t figure it out. Repair person coming today. He and I sort of settled on - if we can repair for $300-500 we will probably, and otherwise, we’ll go shopping.
Thank you everyone for coming to my rescue with facts and figures, experiences and tips! As someone who works full time, I often can’t just stop everything to deal with the surprises life throws at you. So your help is invaluable. I love this community!
Good decision. I doubt you could have removed all of the funky odor from the old one. The same thing happened to us at a weekend place. Husband literally dismantled the old fridge, sterilized with boiling water and even clorox. Left parts in the sun for several days. When finally put together and started, the odor came back, probably from the sealed refrigerative parts.
