[lovsthosebigdogs]

Originally Posted by John_W

There are thousands of CYV's in TV and half of the people would love to get something other than what comes with the home. We wanted stainless steel appliances and we were told we could have any color we wanted as long as it was white.

After two years of wanting a french door refrigerator, we bought a stainless steel french door Kenmore refrigerator at Sears last month. We had to let the delivery people take our old refrigerator away. There is absolutely no extra room in our garage, we have a car, a golf cart, a washer & dryer, golf clubs, 2 bicycles, a work bench and storage shelves, plus lawn equipment, a laundry tub, water heater and so on. We asked neighbors if they wanted it and they were in the same situation, no room in the garage.

One thing to be careful about in a CYV is the dimensions of the refrigerator space in the kitchen. We have 68-1/4" height clearance and 34" width. We could put most of the 25 cubic foot refrigerators in our kitchen, the width is not a problem until you get into the 30 or bigger cubic foot. However, the big problem was the height, with 68-1/4" clearance finding a refrigerator 68" or lower was a problem. In french doors stainless we found one each of a Kenmore, GE, LG, Whirlpool and Samsung that would fit in that space. After reading reviews and seeing all in person except for the Whirlpool, we went with the Kenmore. The Whirlpool had the best reviews, Kenmore and Samsung were second best. The Kenmore had adjustable split shelves in the middle, one extra door shelf on each door and didn't have the flap between the two doors and also was the largest at 23 cu feet. The Kenmore was also the cheapest and was shortest at 67-1/2" high. Here you can see how close the overhead cabinets are to the refrigerator.

When looking at refrigerators, there are two heights. One is the height including the door hinge, which can be as much as an inch more than the rear height. The only concern with the hinge height is that if the hinges are higher than the cabinets you might not be able to open the overhead cabinet doors all the way.



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JohnW, your post is EXACTLY what I was wondering about. We own a home in Tamarind Grove that we rent currently and will move into in months to come and want to swap out the fridge for a larger one. Good to know you have done all the leg work for us. Thanks!!! I will save your post for future reference.