Freeze Not While Hunting For The Ideal Refrigerator

Deciding on one of the most essential kitchen appliances, the refrigerator, can leave you sweating. After all, you want your cold storage to be the best in multiple aspects, be it keeping food fresh, its looks or cutting down on electricity bills.

Here’s the low-down on the sizes, configurations and features you should consider for the best buy:

Look for the Energy Star

The Energy Star rating, instituted by USA’s ENERGY STAR programme, determines the power-saving capacity and efficiency of most consumer products, including refrigerators. Make sure you look for options that have good insulation and compressors, which sufficiently cool your food without harming the environment by reducing carbon-dioxide emissions.

A top-mount freezer

Refrigerators are sold in many configurations, the most popular of which are top-freezers, bottom-freezers, and side-by-sides. A top-mount refrigerator, especially one with a high Energy Star rating,is likely to use minimum power, compared to its bottom- and side-mount counterparts. Besides providing sufficient space for storing food, top-freezers come at affordable prices too.

Keep the capacity in mind

Remember: The larger the size of your refrigerator, the more the power consumption is. Buying a refrigerator of the right size is thus paramount. Make your choice keeping in mind the size of your family and the amount of food you want to store in it. At the same time, you should also decide on the design and model you’d prefer, be it a single- or a double-door or a side-by-side one.

Other features

You would probably want to buy one that is frost-free, which will prevent water, milk and whatever else you store from turning into solid chunks of ice. You may also be tempted to consider one with a defrost option, which improves both efficiency and storage space. However, if you opt for one that requires you to manually defrost it, ensure that it is done every time a quarter of an inch of ice accumulates on the interiors. The frequency of this operation will depend on your usage.