Refrigerators- Side by Side or Top and Bottom

We have a french door (bottom freezer). I love it. It is by far the best one we've had. I grew up with a "standard" freezer on top. When we were first married, we had a side-by-side (the biggest they made). With this house, we got the french door/freezer on bottom.
I don't think I'll ever want either of the other two options again.

Top refrigerator and bottom freezer. Side by sides are terrible. Cannot fit anything of size in the freezer.

We have the top and bottom. LOVE the design. And they hold much more than the side-by-side.

We went a side by side. I love the idea of the french door kind. I decorate cakes and that style seems so much better suited for larger cakes It seems like more room. But both my MIL and SIL have french door models. I have noticed that both of them have to constantly shuffle things around in their fridge. My SIL says it does drive her crazy , but my MIL says she doesn't even notice she's doing it. The ice maker also takes up some fridge space, so you don't have as much room as you think you do. I didn't love the idea of digging through the drawers in the freezer of the french door kind either. What sealed the deal for us, was a repair man. We asked our guy about it. He said they both have pros and cons, but generally speaking the freezer on the bottom design makes any repairs that come up more challenging and much more expensive. Things we could do simply in a side by side, like replace the ice maker should it break, would be more challenging and require a repair man. So after days of looking in the stores and reading online, we chose a side by side.

We have a french door, freezer on bottom. I think the lure is the fridge being on top and everything in it right in your face. The fridge is obviously used more so that makes sense. BUT, for me having the freezer on the bottom is a pain. Because it is like dumping all your frozen stuff in a box, then you have to go plundering to find stuff. You can stack things nice and neat, such as packing a box, but if you want something from the bottom....... And I don't plan meals well enough to load the freezer according to a daily menu...jeez
Before this we had a side by side, IMO the freezer space was no smaller, in fact I liked it better because of the shallower design I could see all the frozen stuff when I opened the door. Just my two cents.

I have a large side by side in my kitchen (I say large because it is not to scale with the rest of my kitchen) but I also have a standard refrigerator and freezer in my basement.

Side by sides are nice but they have their restrictions. (Think sheet cake...)

While I don't mind the side by side I'm not sure I could manage if I didn't have the back ups in the basement.

since no one has brought it up...
check out the energy efficiency. last I looked side-by-side was less efficient than the french door.
we had a side-by-side that we were given. HATED it. the freezer was just a pain - wouldn't hold a frozen pizza without removing a shelf so it could go in crooked.....bigger side-by-sides will hold ones but a bigger one wouldn't fit in our kitchen. you definitely need to measure your space before buying anything! and somehow the ice maker and bucket took up way more space than in a conventional top freezer or even a bottom freezer. don't know if that was the door dispenser or what, but we lost a considerable amount of real estate for ice that we hardly use.
we are looking at a new fridge - considering bottom freezer with one top door - more energy efficient than french doors plus they tend to be smaller - big deal in our kitchen.
water/ice dispenser also tends to really decrease energy efficiency.

I have had side by side(22.5 cu ft) and top and bottom( 23.0 cu ft). Both of them were good friges. If you have less than 20 cu ft, you probably won't like the side by side because the freezer side will be so narrow.

I'd take a frozen pizza box with you when you go shopping. Place the (empty) box flat on the shelf. If it fits, then the freezer is ok on the width. After that not much else matters. Of my kids that have side by sides, the narrowness is what they don't like the most.

Good luck to you and yours.

I have a Maytag french door with the bottom freezer and unlike Purple M. I love it. I only have to open both doors to open one compartment that is large enough for pizza boxes, cakes, etc. The other two pull out drawers you can get to without opening both doors. It has more space than the side by side for large things. I love the bottom freezer and have never had the handle do anything or fall off like Purple M. has and it doesn't hurt my back at all, and I do have issues with my back. I wonder if she has a different model or something. Anyhow, I don't think this one is rated the highest with Consumers Reports either. Whirlpool got best and LG second. These are specific models though. Side by side they rate Samsung then Bosch. I guess you would have to check each out and some of the better are smaller cu. ft. but maybe you can get more in than they say, or it's what you will be putting in yours, etc. I love the French door and I do have a side by side in the basement and it's nice too but big things just don't fit.

I have side by side Kitchen Aid and I LOVE it.

A lot of it depends on your personal taste and the amount of space you have.

Good luck!

I love my bottom freezer for probably the most honest reason on earth. When my kids were little they could use the freezer as a step ladder to reach the stuff in the fridge. It holds up a lot better than the bottom shelves.

Yeah yeah, kids shouldn't do that, come on, find me a family where this doesn't happen and I will show you a lying sack of....it only takes once to break those bottom shelves and those freaking brackets cost over a hundred dollars a piece!!

It is also easier to fit and access stuff too. :)

I hate side by sides. Seems like you can't fit anything in them. I have fridge on top (1 door) and freezer on bottom and really like that - I've never had a french door, but I would opt for that over a side by side. I can fit a ton in there. The freezer has three drawers in it and separaters, so I don't find that things get lost in there, either.

French door, absolutely. I have had the side by side and HATED it. Can't fit enough in either side. Just got a French door last month and it is great!!

We have the side-by-side, and the freezer is a pain in the butt, because it is so hard to fit things. If I had it to do over again, I believe I would try the one with the french doors and the freezer on the bottom. I just think I would be so much happier with the freezer that way.

Our old side-by-side refrigerator died last year on the day after Thanksgiving. Since it was Black Friday, we ended up getting a great deal on a Maytag french door refrigerator and we love it. Ours also has a water and ice dispenser in the door, which I insisted on having.

Ice-makers will always take up space no matter what so if you don't need the ice-maker, some refrigerators come without it. You just have to ask the sales clerk. Our first refrigerator we got in our old house was an Amana side-by-side, because my mother had it and I loved it. I remember growing up with the old ice-box on the top ones and having to go to the basement to get stuff out of the freezer since there was no room for it in the refrigerator. Was a little scared of falling in the old freezer, but I survived. The M. got a side by side from Sears. The ice-maker was smaller than the new once, but broke so she never used it. (What a waste of space.) Anyhow, her refrigerator was 25 cubic and she could fit lots in there. Back to our first refrigerator, the Amanna...Loved it and still do. It was wide, so we had no problem with cakes, pizza boxes, or cookie sheets. The best part was the freezer was easy to organize...one rack for chicken and pork, one rack for beef and MIL's dumplings, one rack for TV dinners and such, one rack for ice-cream and italian ice, the basket was used for seafood, and we shared the shelves on the door. (2 for me and 4 for MIL.) The only thing was that we couldn't stand a 2 liter bottle of soda upright in it. (Guess we should have adjusted the shelves better.) We got another side by side for our new house. Why not the French door? MIL is still living with us, so everything would be all mixed up together in the freezer. We got the Whirlpool 25 cubic that Lowes had on sale for Black Friday last year. (http://www.lowes.com/pd_112638-46-ED5GVEXVD_0__?productId...) Unfortunately it didn't come without an ice-maker, so there is less room in it than in our old Amana. I like it, but I'm not in love with it like I was the Amana. Our cat absolutely loves the ice-maker, because she loves ice-water. I will admit, that I do love the idea that the ice-maker can give out cubed or crushed ice. (I love the crushed ice...make me feel rich. lol) We're working around the less space. You can fit pizza boxes in it and I did figure out that if I open the door all the way I can fit my cookie sheets in it. (MIL put a table in front of it, which keeps the door from opening all the way.) The bins in the refrigerator part are really large, so that takes up shelf space as well. We can fit a lot of fruits and veggies in the bins. It really depends on what kinds of foods you use and how big the refrigerator is. Hubby appologized to me last night...He was going to get me a bigger refrigerator since they all come with ice-makers, but MIL talked him out of it. :(

I LOVE my French Door model...I have the 36" one (HUGE - they had to take the front door OFF to get it in my house!). With two growing boys, it's a necessity. I like that I can configure the inside the way I need to. It's a little more energy efficient, too, in that cold air sinks (toward the freezer). My cousin has a side by side, and can't fit a frozen pizza in the freezer side flat. I would think about the foods you want in each piece, and then decide if the side by side is big enough or not. (Yes, I can fit a take out pizza box in my fridge without any problem...)

My first suggestion is to measure the area where the fridge would be placed in the new house before going shopping. Get a feel for how much it might stick out and how that might interfere with your ability to get around in the kitchen.

When my husband and I bought our house we went out and bought a nice big fridge that fit in the width of the opening for it in the house. We had it delivered and everything seemed great. But we hadn't completely unpacked and we were doing a lot of paper plates in the beginning. Then a couple days after getting the fridge, I went to put a dish in the dishwasher and discovered that the dishwasher door could not open all the way because the fridge was too deep! I will never understand why someone would design a kitchen so the dishwasher and fridge overlap, but that's the way it was.

We were fortunate enough that we were able to return the fridge and get another one instead. We had to buy an expensive, low-profile side-by-side one because that's the only one that would fit and give us a reasonable amount of cubic feet inside the fridge. And there is literally about 1/4 inch clearance between the dishwasher door and the fridge.

I don't really like side-by-side fridges because wide things do not fit in there. Buy a large cake that needs to stay cool or a party platter and it won't fit.

The one thing I do like about side-by-side models is it's easier to find ones that have the water and ice dispenser on the outside. It's harder to find that with a top-bottom fridge....or it was last time I bought one.

We have a side by side refrigerator and I love it! It's so easy to get everything from the freezer. (The only negative is I don't think it hold as much as a regular freezer, but on the positive side you can't over jab the freezer and allow stuff to get pushed to the back.) Ours also has the water and ice dispenser on the freezer side. We do have a second freezer in the basement because we buy meat in bulk. I recommend a side by side.

I have the Maytag French Door model and I HATE it!!! The freezer on the bottom has turned out extremely difficult to open and wrenches my back (which I already have problems with) every time I open it and the handle is always falling off! The design of the two doors on top drives me nuts as well - if you want to get something out of one of the drawers, you have to open BOTH doors.

As for the side-by-side, my MIL has one and I HATE it as well!!! It always feels so cramped, you can never put in any large containers and you could NEVER throw in one of those Walmart pizzas to bake later!! lol!!!

Having had experiences with these types of refrigerators, I can't wait till I get to pick out a new one!!! I will definitely be going BACK to the small freezer-on-top style!!! (I have a stand-alone freezer so I don't need a big one!)

While I realize these are not life-threatening problems they are the little things that get annoying after awhile that I wish someone had told me to consider before buying!!

Good luck!!