Choosing the right refrigerator for your home

Without a fridge, you’d literally have no chill!

Summer is almost at its peak, and unless you live in a hill station, you’ve felt the heat too. With the growing heat, our cooling concerns grow. More specifically, concerns about the refrigerator. You could be moving someplace for a new job or simply looking to upgrade, getting a fridge in your home is crucial. For an appliance that can cost upto tens of thousands of rupees, it’s better to do a little research before investing all that dough.

There are several factors that contribute to the ideal fridge for your home. The size, price and longevity are the key to the right pick. You can make your choice even simpler by opting for fridge rentals. RentoMojo’s fridge rentals come with multiple benefits like free maintenance, installation, and relocation. So, in case your requirement changes over time, you can easily swap or upgrade to a fridge that suits your need better. You can also return or own anytime during your rental tenure, ensuring that no matter your need, it can be fulfilled.

With that in mind, there are still decisions that need to be made and you’ll still want to know more about capacity and performance before your can pick a fridge on rent. Here’s our list of refrigerators available in the market and pros and cons for each.

Mini-fridge

Mini refrigerators are extremely handy if you’re a dorm student, on a tight budget, or just need a personal chilling space for those beers. Low in cost and compact in size, these make for perfect additions to dens and TV rooms. However, the limited capacity may also mean that you can’t use the fridge for everything you’d like. If you’re using this as a primary refrigerator, you’d have to be pretty careful about what you put in there as shelf space will be scarce. The lack of separate freezer would also mean no temperature control for the different items you put in there. Your coke will probably have to be as chilled as your frozen peas, which isn’t always the best thing.

Choose this option if you know you won’t need to store more that 5 days’ worth of cold storage items. For anything more than that, you’ll definitely need more space. You can also choose this as a secondary fridge for your room or office by renting it at a nominal monthly rental.

Single door fridge

Single door refrigerators offer the compact convenience of a mini-fridge while also giving you enough space to stock up on groceries. Single door refrigerators often come in different sizes, further allowing you the flexibility to suit your needs. If you’ve rented your first apartment and are living alone or with only one other person, a single door refrigerator will suit all your needs.

Choose between the standard 170L model or if you avidly cook, and store fresh fruits and veggies, go for the 210L version. However, we’d recommend staying away from second hand refrigerators, especially the single door versions. Older single door refrigerators didn’t often have frost-free cooling, causing the freezer to accumulate ice. This would require regular de-frosting to keep up the fridge’s performance. You may want to look carefully at the features and ensure that thermostat levels of your fridge are well adjusted if it’s not a frost-free version.

Additionally, if you’re a health buff, an organic foodie, or live with more than two people, a single door fridge might place a constraint over your storage requirements.

Top freezer double door fridge

Seen as a standard model, this one probably qualifies for a best value for money for 3 or more person households. The sheer number of models available in the market make it easy to find the right price, colour, budget, and capacity.

The best part about double door refrigerators is the separate freezer area and separate temperature controls for each area. You can chill each part of your stored food to the desired level without over-chilling the others. Our recommendation would be a 240L model, equipped to handle the needs of a 4 person household, with a little space to spare for the emergency beer storage. The only drawback might be the space, especially if you have a small house or live alone. For just one person, a double door fridge might be too much to manage (since refrigerators usually require filling them up to a certain threshold to ensure optimal performance), so choose wisely.

Side-by-side double door fridge

Considered a luxury appliance for a long time, side-by-side refrigerators are now seen as a quintessential part of a family home. For a family, a side-by-side refrigerator ensures ample space to store leftover, produce and stocked up frozen pantry goods. As a bonus, you also get variants with ice and water dispenser built into the door. There are multiple low cost options available in the market now, along with sleeker designs that occupy lesser space.

However, even with the sleek models, these fridges can cause a space crunch for smaller homes and apartments. They can also rack up your electricity bill as they use a lot more power. So if heftier electricity bill is a bargain you’re ready to make, this might be the right option for you. You can compare side-by-side refrigerators to pick the one for you here.

And that’ll be our recommendation on how you can find the perfect fridge. Know anyone who’s looking to get one? Share this with them and make their life simpler.