Best fridge to Buy: BY MURI CHARLO: Which is the best fridge that a home owner should buy? This is a question that is posed by many. Before you buy a fridge, you must first understand its dynamics. There are various brands in the market today including LG, Samsung, Toshiba, Sanyo, Ramtons and Hotpoint among many others. While various factors determine the cost of a refrigerator, it is possible to own one with less than Sh. 30,000 while the most expensive non-commercial fridges can go up to Sh. 500,000.
In fridges there are frost and frost free type. Frost is the one that forms icing within the freezer and frost free is one that doesn’t form icing. Frost free fridges are economical as the compressor doesn’t run continuously thus low power consumption. Most frost free are double door and has a durable motor for example Samsung that gives 10yrs warranty on the compressor. For this type you need to have at least Sh. 40,000.
For a budget below Sh. 30,000, the best fridges to buy will either be a double door frost or 1 door with defrost. Defrost helps you remove the icing with a press of a button. Other features to consider is wider power surge variance. This means even without a fridge guard the fridge can resist power surge when low or high. Please note: Any fridge requires a fridge guard for full protection against power surge.
Colour is also very important to note. Colour white will fade after sometime but silver will remain as it is for years without maintenance headache.
Some refrigerators in the market have extra features like incorporating an ice making machine that not only produced cold water but also crushed ice and ice cubes. Other models also incorporate a water dispenser on one of their side doors.
Even those fridges with ice-making machines come in various varieties, some need manual plumbing while others have automatic internal plumbing and one just needs to fill in the water which is then automatically sent to the ice maker.
Fridges with water dispensers are less complicated in that the inside of the side door has a water container and the outer side a tap through which one can fetch a cool refreshing glass of water. The water dispenser feature fridges are relatively cheaper and can be acquired with just Sh. 100,000 while those with ice makers average about Sh. 190,000.
My advice: for your budget press yourself a bit. Add Sh. 3,000 and purchase either Samsung 1door or the LG that goes for Sh. 33,500 and Sh. 32,900 respectively.
