Another excellent point. Looking at the specs of a fridge isn’t a good substitute for seeing the appliance in-person.
Things like build quality and adequate lighting may not be addressed in the specs—again, me learning from experience.
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How would you all interpret this factoid. The model I’m looking at, depending on the website or store website, has ratings between 4.5 and 4.7 across thousands of ratings. However, the brand - Samsung - is supposedly the one that customers least like. Does that just mean that all ratings are inflated? Or that other brands will clock in at 4.7-4.9? Because 4.5-4.7 is good enough for me to feel confident (misplaced?) that unless it’s a lemon, it won’t suck. And then I can go more off my personal prefs for layout and appearance than whatever happens to be rated 0.2 higher on average…
Btw here is the one I’m looking at. https://www.homedepot.com/p/reviews/Samsung-36-in-28-cu-ft-Smart-Side-by-Side-Refrigerator-in-Fingerprint-Resistant-Stainless-Steel-Standard-Depth-RS28A500ASR/315423162/1
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We bought out house 2 blocks from Boston in Somerville in 2002. Custom cabinetry. Limited refrigerator size. Yale Appliance in Boston had one refrigerator that would fit in without having to re do the cabinetry, which we could not afford to do, having invested a lot otherwise with crucial updates to our 1845 house. We had to replace the original pre 2002 refrigerator 3 years ago. It went well. No water dispenser.
I wish I could help more with specifics, but our situation was so unique and it was 3 years ago.
Yale has always come through for us since we replaced the washer and dryer, the gas stove (no parts were available for repairs), the microwave, the dishwasher. The basement upright freezer was purchased in 2002 from Sears, which no longer exists. It’s the only appliance not replaced. Any needed service calls were scheduled promptly and resolved quickly by Yale.
Thanks for recommending the Yale website. There is a lot of useful information there even if you live far away and will never buy from them.
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Customer ratings are like your horoscopes in your daily newspaper.
For entertainment purposes only
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A few things I’ve taken away from appliance threads on this board:
#1 - I posted about a less than 18 month old Samsung stove and refrigerator going kaput with 6 months of each other. One poster worked at Best Buy for years and said that Samsung ‘anything’ was the number one return BUT they also sold more of them. So there’s that.
Another poster informed us that returned/faulty major appliances don’t just go to a landfill or some kind of meltdown metal mill (after all how could they since there are so many of them). They are loaded onto barges destined for third world countries only to use for parts in New appliances. Destined for the USA. Nothing goes to waste.
Then someone explained recently how places like Home Depot & Lowes sell for less because they contract with the manufacturers to sell substandard models.
These were HO posters whose opinion I trust. This business of new appliances is a vicious money making cycle. We decided on a Frigidaire stove and fridge from a local dealer. They had to deliver 3 fridges because the freezer didn’t shut tightly. The stove went out in a little over a year. TG for the extended warranty.
I know I don’t have to tell you this, but just in case you decide on a Samsung. make sure you get the extended warranty. Otherwise no one will touch that thing within a 200 mile radius.
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I have worked with HD and Lowes for a significant part of my career.
They squeeze suppliers on price, but they want top quality.
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Actually, I was off on the dates: two posts from 2016
“One problem with buying from Home Depot and Lowes is the price points they negotiate. They get a cheaper made version of the product made and sold just by them, on many items, I’ve found.
All of these companies have bad track records, it’s just a matter of getting lucky with the one they deliver to you, and researching how much or how little neglect and abuse you can expect from the maker if you have a problem.”
“You are right. Same as items made for Costco and outlet malls. I was in the market for a new toilet and the plumber told me not to buy at Home Depot for that very reason”
So it has been a number of years.
This simply isnt true.
Do the two stores request private brands that are available only in those stores? Absolutely. I’ve worked for several companies that produce private label products for both chains.
Those products roll off of the exact same production lines as the companies’ own brands.
They might be the manufacturer’s price point products, but they are the same products produced for everyone else.
Both chains hold vendors to high standards regarding quality and returns, so theres not a manufacturer out there dumb enough to intentionally produce an inferior product that will get them thrown out of HD or Lowes and wear the eternal black eye of having gotten kicked to the curb(kerb) for too many QC problems.
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Hi @Sasha! Whatever the choice, make sure you understand how you will be able to get local service for the refrigerator. That’s why I’m so set on only buying from a dealer that services what they sell.
If there are independent appliance repair technicians in your area and you can talk to someone, perhaps they might share with you which manufacturer(s) they like to work with and which they prefer to avoid (tech support and parts availability are considerations).
My own struggles in the refrigerator realm are why I emphasize service so much, which has been a frustration for me.
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Ya didn’t make a smoker out of the old one? Come on, Dan!
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We have been living in our current condo for almost nine years now. When we moved in, the kitchen appliances were a matching 20+ years-old Kitchen Aid side-by-side fridge/freezer and the dishwasher from the same set. The dishwasher died that night. Not entirely sure how that was missed in the home inspection, but live and learn. We replaced it with another Kitchen Aid, a floor model from Home Depot.
About three years later, we walked into the kitchen one morning to a strong smell of ozone. The fridge had decided to finally follow its dishwasher brother into that good night. We moved as much stuff as we could fit into a 100 gallon cooler with ice packs. The repair guy said that we should probably buy a new fridge at this point, so we went to Sears and got a Kenmore with French doors, with water in ice in the door and a bottom pull out freezer drawer. We loved it. And then it too died, about a month into the pandemic. The compressor in the freezer went. The only fridge we were going to be able to get in a reasonable time frame was a side-by-side GE model. It also has water and ice in the door, but since it is the door to the freezer, there are, according to the repair guy, fewer moving bits and bobs that can go sideways in this kind of model. I think it cost, in 2020, about $1600. I’m not in love with the layout (I preferred the wider layout of the French doors), but it is (knocking wood) continuing to chug along just fine. The only real complaint I have with it is that it has a very noisy defrost cycle. Seriously. We question whether it is being attacked by poltergeists during a defrost. But, otherwise, it works fine and everything stays cold. It’s probably just a good thing that I have always been a solid Jenga and Tetris player, as far as getting the most out of the narrow real estate on either side.
The replacement Kitchen Aid dishwasher died in July of 2020, so I don’t see myself ever buying another Kitchen Aid in my lifetime. It was replaced by a Bosch, that is still doing well. I can’t speak to other Samsung products, but I replaced the crappy Hotpoint in the kitchen with a Samsung induction range about a year after we moved in and it has performed well since then, other than an interior oven light I have been too lazy to replace. YMMV.
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I don’t think the ratings are inflated if there are thousands of them.
I mentioned upthread my Samsung fridge which is 12 or 13 years old (can’t remember exactly when we got it). It’s been fine with one weird exception [1] (but see ETA). But I don’t have any other major appliances made by Samsung.
[1] This is a French door with freezer drawer below. For some reason they put an incandescent 40W bulb in the freezer, despite the fridge compartment being nicely lit with LEDs. I over-loaded the top drawer and a plastic veg bag melted into the bulb and pulled it out of its slot. But I don’t actually need a light in the freezer so I’ve procrastinated about re-mounting the bulb.
ETA - I’d forgotten this problem. Less a problem with the fridge itself and more about how things change over time. The makers of newer refrigerators (Samsung and others) that use the type of water filter mine takes, changed the inside mount engagement profile a little. This was about 5 or 6 years ago. So now I have to get a knife and whittle the engagement nubs down on the filter cannister when I change one. Another case of “YouTube Folks To The Rescue”, teaching me how to make them fit. 
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This is good advice. Where I live it is almost impossible to find someone to work on LG . I was told this by several salespeople and in posts on nextdoor. My repairman said the same. Someone told me that there is only one company in the whole PDX area that works on them. It might depend on where one lives.
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Certainly they have some cheaper brands of products that are their store brands. An example of this that readily comes to mind is that HD sells Hunter brand ceiling fans and Hampton Bay brand ceiling fans.
The Hampton Bay brand IIRC started off as HD’s store brand (now can get at Walmart etc. too) and is generally thought to be inferior to the Hunter brand.
But the Hunter brand fans sold in HD are generally higher-end fans the same as sold anywhere else. What I mean is, if you find a particular model of a Hunter fan from HD and then that same model from someone else, they will be the same fan.
There will also be some cheaper models of Hunters at HD, which are price-competing with the Hampton Bay fans, but that isn’t the same thing as being a “cheaper version” of a higher-end model of a Hunter fan.
Similarly, if you’re looking at a particular model of a GE or LG or Samsung appliance at HD, it is the same as, not a cheaper version of, that same model sold through another outlet.
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I’ve gotten enough letters from my HOA. They’ve taken to flying drones over everyone’s property (looking for anything they can fine you for). They’d have a field day with an old fridge turned into a smoker.
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I think it is all just a crapshoot or should I say a crap shoot?
The GE Monogram range I bought 9 months ago from a high end appliance store is already broken. I’m glad I stuck with gas dual range because I can still cook on the cooktop. The board for the controller for the oven is fried. After conversation with the repair guy, I suspect this will not be last time it needs to be replaced. Hopefully it is an easy fix so I can do it myself next time. That way I can get it done faster. I never buy extended warranties, but I might for the new frig I plan to buy soon. I have heard that those in store warranties don’t work out well. A good argument for keeping plenty of icechests around to use while one waits for refrigerator to be fixed. It took several weeks for them to show up for range and now I’m waiting for the part which will be 1-6 weeks.
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Holy Cow! Maybe get some more independent-minded neighbors together and vote the bastards out, next cycle. Or a pellet or airsoft gun and shoot the drones down…
You hear these stories and just wonder how it happens with some people who get a little power and then start tripping on it.
My neighborhood will send me a polite reminder if (e.g.) I’m letting weeds grow up around the mailbox area, but as long as I handle that “within 30 days” (LoL), no problem.
And anything that cannot be seen from a car passing in the street is beyond their authority, except you still have to get permission for major construction like adding rooms on to the back of the house or putting in an in-ground pool.
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So…news. I didn’t want to ask for advice and then leave you all hanging. Yesterday morning I lost my job. 2400 of us did at the company. I’d been there for 11 yrs.
We had a secondary fridge downstairs that we just manhandled upstairs today. The dead one is in our living room until we can get rid of it. We have to postpone any new major purchases until one of us is working again. Yep. H was in a contract position that ended in May. What a day.
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I’m so sorry to hear that! What a bummer and here’s to better options in the future
But the timing sucks
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Sorry to hear about that…
Any chance one or both of you can “early” retire??
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