@@WhittyPics the only fridge I’ve ever seen lose its Freon was thousands of dollars and fresh out of warranty. It was a side by side upper with the bottom drawer freezer.
How can people be expected to use a fridge without having a built in TV, WI-FI, icemaker, or a camera? What would you use it for...just to keep things cold?
Edison Trucks, at least for specialized heavy semi trucks while being repair friendly based off of off the shelf parts for easy parts sourcing and repair.
@@heroslippy6666 How do I know, what is inside, if there is no screen? Desperately double-tap the damn thing. Nothing! Alexa, what is in my fridge? No answer.
I don't know how about you do some stockchecking what is in the fridge and then go the market and buy what you are short on, come back home and restock the fridge with said bought items.
More features mean more profit, simple as that. Put in a feature like an electronic LED control panel on the front door that costs $150 and you can jack up the price $500, versus the $50 worth of parts on that cold/defrost unit shown in this video that are easy to get at the local appliance parts store or on the web.
The electrical engineers are forced to comply with “on high” to design systems like this under an NDA. Design engineers are at the brunt of NDAs. No speaking out, also why would you when you’re making money?
They figured out awhile ago that making reliable products builds brand loyalty but then those customers only buy appliances every two or three decades. By using flashing lights, pretty sounds, and cheesy gimmicks (a la casinos) they can create the same draw as brand loyalty but they get to sell you disposable garbage that you'll replace every five years.
To me, having a fridge with a CPU sound the same as having a Bluetooth toothbrush. The more I learn about technology the more I want things that just work mechanically.
I retired from the tech industry as a process programmer. I spent my whole career developing software and applying it appropriately. I often deferred complicated computer/programming jobs to other departments for a simpler, easier to operate and maintain solution. Newer, younger managers think digital/touch pads/remote/sensor/displays/etc. means better. It's mostly driven by marketing to the naive public. Newer appliances with computers use very little processing to operate the appliance. Mostly it's to operate all the "bells and whistles" that have little to no bearing on the function of the appliance. I have a refrigerator with no PCB's. Doesn't require them. It's not an appropriate application of technology. All my stuff stays nice and cold without them. Thanks for what you do. Yep.
Also, manufacturing has come so far that it’s often cheaper to use touchscreens than to use buttons. Same reason why cars have touchscreens these days even though buttons make more sense
@jintsuubest9331 Funny you say that. I keep a club next to the printer so I can break it down for recycling when it prints phantom lines across a page.
@@dentalnovember I'm glad you replied. I had no idea what jintsuubest was commenting about. I never said I was anti-tech nor have I destroyed any tech that didn't operate correctly. I said a cpu in a fridge doesn't make it work better and it is an inappropriate application of technology. Thx.
Personally i think PCB in fridges TO control the compressor and stuff should be made illegal. That way if it break the normal function of the fridge will still work but not the fancy crap.
I do sales n repair. I sold a guy a 40 yr old Frigidaire a few years ago for his garage. His new Samsung has been repaired twice under the 1 year warranty. That old Frigidaire has saved his food twice. We also sell 20+ year old, rebuilt fully, Maytag for $1500 all day with a 1 year warranty. Rarely have to honor the 1 year warranty.
Beauty. I love the simplicity. The real scam is that a $15 PCB costs hundreds of dollars. I just put a new board in my Fujitsu heat pump. The board was about $500. There was a microcontroller, a few connector, and a few dozen passives. That board should have been $30 tops.
Learn to replace components. A new control board for my oven was $300. The relays that burned out their contacts and needed replaced? $3 a piece. Fixed it in about an hour including disassembly of the oven, panel removal, and desoldering old and resoldering new relays on and then reassembling.
@@OtherDalfite Learn what's actually on those boards. It's all surface mount chips with TSOP microcontrollers and flash memory. Fujitsu is not going to provide the firmware so you can repair these yourself.
@@joels7605 it's not always the memory chips that go bad. Beyond the microcontroller and memory stuff, none of it will ever know if you replace the components actually doing the heavy lifting. I bet what went wrong in yours was your passive components. That's where they cheap out. The solid state microcontrollers and memory chips are usually extremely reliable
I see both points. A relay is easy to diagnose and repair. Connectors can be managed. The H-bridges driving motors, well, even if you knew how to isolate faults and check parts like IGBTs and HEXFETs you'd need a schematic of the board. The mfr won't support that level of troubleshooting so sorry bub, no schematics available. We'll gladly take your money. Nobody of consequence is on our backs about it so...
I worked in Public Housing for 34 years and this was basically what we had in the property’s. Easy to troubleshoot and repair, the biggest improvement of the years was the built in door handles because that was the number I problem.
Glad to see the old style simple refrigerator is still available. I have a Whirlpool we purchased in 1985 and it is still running. I have had to replace the fan in the freezer and defrost timer in 39 years. My brother purchased a Samsung side by side and the defrost went bad and it cost him $6oo to fix after only three years.
I apologize for leaving a comment after just starting the video but oh my god i would pay extra money and be so much more excited to get any appliance, a tv, a car, anything with no smart anything. Holy. I can't believe how much i hate the needless computerization of things that DO NOT need it. Id love to see more reviews of products like this
For those of you who want to do your part to help the environment, this is what you want. An appliance that will last a long time and can be repaired. More environmentally friendly than a computerized toaster that has to be replaced every year.
I use a mid 1950s Sunbeam Radiant Control toaster. - put the bread in the slots and it automatically descends; - once color is set, toast comes out to the same color every time (and different color breads come out to the same doneness). The YT channel "Technology Connections" has a video about them ( _This Toaster Is Better Than Yours_ ). I believe someone recently won a design award making a toaster that uses a camera a other electronics to achieve similar results. Unfortunately, the Sunbeam Radiant Control toaster is mechanical and uses a bi-metallic strip for control. IIRC, Sunbeam patented the design in 1940 or 1941 and manufactured the design until the 1980s so the science _might_ still work.
@@Xachremos I found mine at a thrift store for $10. That thrift store often prices things really cheap: Deseret Industries Auburn Blvd Sacramento California
There are way too many new fancy appliances in junk yards and landfills. I bought a Samsung front load washer, 2 years latter, it required a repair that was almost as much as the washer itself.
@smorris281 In 2007, I bought a Kenmore washer and dryer. In 2022, it stopped working for the first time. I'd paid $500 for the set. The repair was estimated at $800. I am sure my new $600 Amana will last much longer. It has so many more cycles and options and all the fancy electronics are in the humid area above the wash tub. And the washer has to be cleaned monthly with *_Affresh_* . I don't know how I survived all those years with a washer with electromechanical controls. Edit: spelling
I have had one like yours for 15 years and only replaced a defrost timer. A repair I did myself. My brother bought one of those expensive, electronic side by side fridges. It failed after five years and the cost of having it repaired was more than it was worth. I win.
Had a Hungarian washing machine from the 80s which for the time and place, had a somewhat advanced heating control unit. It was fully electronic, however, even back then, you could walk into a store and buy all components for it and change it out. Those components are still widely available today and not just NOS, brand-new manufactured. So if I wanted, I could recreate the entire control unit of that washing machine from scratch, by comparatively simple tools (etching the PCB would be the biggest hurdle but even that is achievable at home). With a modern CPU system that's quite impossible.
This is what I put in my rentals. It's reliable and durable, tenants love it because it's a good size, I love it because it just plain works. Always buy things that are reliable and easy to repair. Makes life a lot better for everyone.
My fridge is a 1968 Frigidair with the freezer on the bottom and fridge on top. It's Pepto Bismol pink and I grew up using that fridge at my aunt's and thinking it was just the neatest thing ever. I was fortunate enough to be able to take it home before it was sold. It works like brand new, with some maintenance and parts replacement, of course. I'm going to keep using it until I no longer can keep it running
Same(not the year though, my stuff is from the 80s). All my appliances are my grandparents that my parents then owned and I now own. Work just as good as they did 40 years ago. My best friend has a 1960s microwave though.
*Ben, thank you ever so much for featuring the sibling to our LFTR1814 garage 'fridge, which is a rock. Build date 06-2011, "L" prefix and wire shelves tells you it's a Lowe's-only model. Bought for about $400. Has same controls package as yours however is R22 not R600a. Door shelves permanently attached with 3M low temperature-tolerant epoxy. Has endured every temperature extreme, brownouts and blackouts with grace and aplomb. 13 years and only required annual condenser and fan cleaning. Love 'ya!*
You can also just hot glue the shelves in place, at their ends, if you don't want to mess with epoxy. If the front lip is too flexible, it may let items escape or may crack, eventually, but you can also (before you fix the rails in place) turn the rails over and fill in the lip with hot glue, caulk, epoxy, even a thin dowel, whatever you like, and it will greatly reinforce them.
I am still rockin a FPCI-18TC frigidaire from the early 80s. It has been bounced around between relatives as a garage or second refer. It has outlasted many other bigger and nicer ones that replaced it over the years. I've given it to others when I got a bigger or nicer one as a second refer, only to get it back years later when the other one quit.
My grandma replaced her fridge with a cheap one (about 2016) and it worked well. Didn't even have an ice maker (we just filled up trays). It did what we wanted and was reliable. My parents have a freezer on the bottom with an ice maker but that is the extent of it. Simple is what I like with these.
I have essentially that same fridge that I bought 18+ years ago as a garage fridge. It has been dead solid reliable. The only issue is, as you point out, the in-door shelves are weak and the glass shelves are also problematic. As the plastic parts age, they get brittle and they are just too expensive to replace in an 18+ year old fridge. I'm going to look at installing wire closet shelves as replacements for the glass shelves. Take care and God Bless.
I love the simple, cheap, reliable aspect of this. I also love our Bosch 800 that cost more than 5 times as much, which I got partly as a result of this channel, particularly how quiet it is and the hope that it will last a long time, but if anything were to happen to it I'd strongly consider going back to something like this Frigidaire. I hope refrigerators like this continue to be available for a long time.
We used to consider fridge as buy-and-forget thing. The only interaction is opening and closing door, don't need any touchscreens, bluetooth, etc. I guess, most manufacturers are very angry, that there are most models that can work for a decades and customers have no motivation to buy new ones.
I have a 2005 version of this and it's still going, no issues at all. I thought about getting a new one but I've heard such horror stories about new refrigerators so I'm going to keep it as long as I can. It's stainless steel and I polished it up last year and replaced the bulbs with led and it looks fantastic!
Same reason why some people decided to buy non inverter fridge here. No PCB, no problem. Should last strong, because brownouts/voltage issue can happen randomly.
I have one from 2001 and I had to replace the evaporator fan and the cold control over the years. That’s it! Cheap and easy. I never want another type of fridge that has any computer controls.
I have a 14 year old similar Whirlpool, basic 2 door refrigerator that I bought for $200ish. It has performed flawlessly over the years. It has always been in the hot and cold in the garage and keeps on chugging along.
God that’s beautifully simple. I love old school designs that just stick around. I hope they make this thing forever so when I get a house I can get one.
Thanks for validating my purchase of the refrigerator that I just had delivered today. I bought the 13.9 cubic feet version of this refrigerator. It looks just the same except for size. I wished I had seen this video before I had bought the 10.1 cu. ft. Vissani that I had to return. The Vissani would get no colder than fluctuating between 45-48 degrees at its coldest setting. I took it back, and bought the Frigidaire at a different store. The Frigidaire fluctuates between 35 and 37 degrees in the recommended middle setting. I agree with you about the ice maker being just another thing that can go bad. My wife hates the stale ice cubes and prefers to just make a few or more at a time as needed using ice cube trays. The simpler, the better. There are separate temperature controllers for the two compartments.
@@JohnLeite-cv7kg We keep this refrigerator in the laundry room. We generally keep the door to that room open but don't really notice any sounds. Even standing right next to it, it isn't loud. I can hear it from there if I listen for it. It's quieter than the tiny (1.7 cu ft) 35+ yr old, still working, Hotpoint that we just unplugged. According to my decibel app on my phone with the doors closed the room sound level goes from 32 db to 39 db when the refrigerator starts running. In fact, with doors closed, I can hear the dishwasher and television in other rooms over the sound of the refrigerator.
I work in tech, have smart devices all over my home, but I'll be damned if I own a fridge any more advanced than something like this. Heard nothing but problems from family and friends who purchases modern/smart fridges over the years.
I've heard similar things. Someone commented to me that they noticed the "tech-y" people had a tendency to actively prefer simpler and less technological solutions, like using a basic wristwatch instead of only using their smartphone to tell the time. I think it's a consequence of already carrying enough of a "technological interaction" balance in their lives and making a simple cost-benefit calculation in their heads.
@Thalanox Sometimes, it's also just a cost or impact balance. I have smart plugs controlling most of my lights and that gives me day to day convenience while also being relatively cheap to replace or fix if there is a problem. An advanced fridge with lots of electronics ultimately does the exact same thing as this simple refridgerator with no added convenience, but repairs are shockingly costly. To put it another way, smart plugs add convenience daily with minor inconvenience and cost occasionally. A smart refridgerator adds nothing to my daily life, adds inconvenience regularly when using its smart features, and costs far more up front and in the long run. A whole home smart lighting system is a net benefit. A smart fridge is a net detriment.
Nice. I have a simple Amana, huge freezer on top. It was like 700 dollars, had for three years with no problems so far. I watched some of your earlier videos before buying my appliances and can't agree more - simple is better. If I want an ice maker, I'll buy a countertop one and cold water comes out fine in a Brita pitcher. Great video!
When I started to watch this video, I realized that this is the refrigerator that my wife selected earlier this year. We also have white ice trays. Those trays don't last forever but as you said they aren't expensive.
Thanks to your suggestion I own this. Simple, big, well made and it's the best appliance buy I think I've ever made. Going on one year now with no issues whatsoever. THANK YOU!
My 20yr old fridge looks very similar to this. Going strong, never had an issue. Not only is there no $$@$#%^ing microships in it, I tossed the ice cube maker, too. Sold it on eBay for $100. Simpler kicks ass. I hope your fridge last decades!
I have a refrigerator that came with my house when I bought it in 199, and as near as I cantell, it was built in 1984 or 1985. I had to replace the heating element six years ago when the coils iced up, and the ice maker sprung a leak about 11 years ago, so I disconnected the water line and uss a small counter top ice maker to keep the basket full. The dispenser works fine. Illwprkbably jinx it, but the unit is about forty (40) years old and still works great, i.e., it cools and freezes without all the BS computerized crap which is what my computer handles.
I have the countertop ice maker n u have to stay on it - dumping each basket into a bin in freezer. OR The ice just melts and has to run again. So when I go to get it, there’s little to none.
I have had a Maytag branded fridge of almost identical design for about ten years now. Zero problems, easy to clean. It may not be sexy, but it’s great.
Thank you very much, great refrigerator for my garage. I have Kenmore built by Whirlpool with ice maker in my garage here in Lafayette Louisiana. Had it my basement in my townhouse in Gaithersburg Maryland. Got it on a holiday sale with shop your way rewards for $460 it's a 20 cubic foot refrigerator freezer top mount.
Freezer tops are the only kind of fridge I will ever buy. And this video outlines many of the reasons why! Thank you for this channel, it's truly a breath of fresh air.
I have always had one of these-whether in my apartments or now in my garage. They seem simple and reliable and get the job done cheap to buy as well even brand new
Thank you! Love your videos. One point on the word simple vs simplistic. Simple is easy to understand. Simplistic is over-simplified, with a negative connotation that it is misleading.
Thanks so much for this. Four years ago we bought a Frigidaire FFTR1425 as a backup fridge (it sits in the basement) and absolutely love it. It's rock-solid reliable, quiet and just does its job. Contrast this with the five year old buggy, WiFi-enabled, bells-&-whistles, fancy LG fridge we have up in the kitchen. With that we have had had two failures: one under warranty & the other paid for out of pocket. (Friendly vocabulary note: don't use "simplistic" when you mean "simple." "Simplistic" means treating complex issues and problems as if they were much simpler than they really are.)
I've had a similar Frigidaire refrigerator since about 2010 or so, several of the shelves had failed and I was unaware you could get replacements of them! Thank you for that tip and otherwise the other information in the video, I'll make sure when that time comes to get a new one I'll get something similar, my fridge is a place to put food nothing more, I don't need a screen or computer in it otherwise!
I have a 20 year old version of this fridge that has needed some work once or twice but it rock solid to this day. I also have 3 Frigidaire CPU-less full-size freezers that have been bulletproof for about 9 years. The only issue I had was burning out the analog thermostat when a door was left open for a week. I bought a $35 part and swapped it in myself. Five years later it still drops the contents to -20F.
Your video just popped up in my feed at random. I've got one that looks exactly like that except its a GE. 5 years old and no issues with it, I just clean the dust and other nasties out of the refrigeration system a few times per year. Its a simple, reliable design and does what I need it to do, keep cold and frozen foods cold or frozen (respectively). My former refrigerator was 35 years old and was the same simple design.
My 30 year old house came with the most basic appliance package---and the GE top freezer is still kicking (so is the dishwasher, range and dryer! Not energy efficient (according to the guides, it costs 2x as much to run) but for now---I think I'll keep it as the cost for a new purchase and subsequent ones would cost way more than the energy use this one has. Thanks for the videos!
On this type of fridge i usually have to clear drain line and sometimes new gaskets. The defrost heater is well made and rarely go bad. Super easy to check frost pattern and ohm out compressor.
My fridge is a whirlpool from 96 and still running perfectly fine. That's a 28 year service life so far. Pretty good. As much as I love new technology and new refridgerants that are completely friendly to the environment, the actual build quality of new stuff ends up making it worse than something with 113g of r134a that runs most likely 3x longer for lifespan than manafacturing several more new units. Still using an R-22 window AC and compared to a new R32 portable unit.. the old one is probably more efficient due to the actual design. Somewhat ugly often works better.
I've owned side by side, three door, four door, bottom freezer over the years. By far the best one, is the top freezer with basic controls. I even think it's just as efficient as any of the other configurations.....
Bought a similar fridge about 20 years ago. Think I'd had to replace one part on it in that time. Is it pretty? No. Is it a bargain? Yes. Excellent video by the way!
I have a GE from 69. Yes, its turquoise, and with gold trim. Its the one with the carousel shelves. Its not the daily use one. That one is also a CPU-less bottom freezer model. Nothing automated on it. Its cool (daumb tschh) Same with the washer and dryer. They are actually from the 80s. But its my landline I love the most. Its a Comdial 2500 from my unit in the military. Its from 75, and still works great, with awesome sound. Not a transistor in sight Glad to see more stuff like this. We dont need computers in everything. Dont need internet connected everything, collecting data and recording you doing your thing in your own home!
I bought the equivalent GE, the garage ready version, and added the icemaker accessory to the freezer. Under 800 bucks and it's working great. Hardly anything to go wrong.
I was using a soviet fridge made in 1967 until a couple years ago. It even had old school mechanical lock instead of a magnetic strip. It never needed refrigerant refill, lived through a house fire, survived very erratic power fluctuations and donated it's parts for a 1980s fridge I'm using currently before getting recycled for being too small. And somehow I never looked at it and thought "Damn, I wish it was running Android and needed it's own app to function properly" XD
I bought a Sears 12 years ago and went with the Consumers Report recommended plain model. Its fancy feature is self defrost. It has a never used icemaker because the well water would kill it. It was plain and affordable. I clean the coils since our wind blows dirt in. It has survived blackouts and brownouts so I am very happy with it.
Is that a reference to some movie? I'm pretty sure the saying is supposed to be "bells and whistles", i.e. extra unnecessary features irrelevant to the basic functionality of the device, used to justify a higher price.
These are simple and reliable, and an ambitious do-it-yourselfer can repair almost everything on it. The only thing I don’t like is the refrigerator on the bottom; as a taller-than-average male I don’t like having to stoop to see what’s in the compartment I use most often.
We have one of these as our secondary / basement fridge and can now rest easier in confidence that it seems to have been a good choice! Even still, it's connected via an electrical surge suppressor to minimize chance of issues caused by electricity spikes.
Thanks for the review. Saving this video for when I need to replace my side by side. Hope you have a great weekend ! Fun fact, the contents of your fridge look almost identical to mine !
we have one of this style slightly different door and a different mold for the controls but it has been our only fridge for over 20 years. in that whole time the defrost drain (the bane of all fridges) iced over once we unplugged it overnight and now 9 years later it hasnt happened again, whereas our newer one has to be defrosted every year or it stars pouring water everywhere
My frigidaire is a 1998 model, flawless except for the defreez module (25$ and 5 minutes to change)...i love it! Some rust on it but it is a tank! if only every other thing lasted that long...Cool to see i could get a newer one for so cheap!
I have one of those LG's with the inverter compressor. After purchasing, I've learned that they commonly fail after just a few years. Luckily, I have a 2nd fridge in my basement, and it's a cheap fridge like you have there, and should last a long time.. This is my backup when the LG compressor fails. I can't see the selling point on saving energy when they need to be replaced more often.
Ben- I own this exact refrigerator as a secondary in my garage. My normal refrigerator is a 1989 Whirlpool bottom freezer, same technology. Also have a 1970 G.E. electric oven, 1968 G.E. electric dryer, 1989 Kenmore (Whirlpool built) dishwasher and a 1999 Whirlpool direct drive washer. All fully functional- all simple technology. BTW- I ran a family appliance repair business for 31 years and worked 42 years in the field. What this refrigerator has is exactly what 1970's auto defrost units had- electro mechanical systems that are reliable and easy to fix. I'll take them any day over variable speed compressors or multi-phase operations. By the way- don't bet your life on your thinking that this isn't as energy efficient as a pcb controlled unit. I ran tests when I still had my shop. Compared a 1936 GE manual defrost to my 1989 Whirlpool auto defrost to a 2006 G.E. high end pcb adaptive defrost unit and in the end the 1936 manual used the least energy, and the 2006 the most. Don't drink the energy efficiency Kool-Aid!
I take care of a twenty apartment building. This is what I use. Simple and reliable. Replaced one that was 22 years old only because the door seal magnets were weak. New door seals were $400 Canadian. Crazy
For a repair guy / DIY advocate, you are missing the obvious. You can buy generic temperature control units for ten to twenty dollars that not only give you a readout of actual temperature but can be set anywhere over a wide temperature range plus you specify the hysteresis you want as well as any start delay to avoid trying to start the compressor under pressure. You can also get a mechanical dial style with sensor bulb on a capillary. Any 24 hour defrost timer can be wired in and made to work, also a generic programmable timer module could be used to custom set optimal parameters for each scenario. Might as well DIY it right. Top mount? Doesn't that usually refer to the compressor? I would guess the compressor is on the bottom toward the back. Not the best for efficiency, all that heat bearing up on the bottom of the cooled box.
Ha, I’m sure the fridge I bought in 2010 at my old house which is now our rental and running strong is a predecessor to this one, and I have the same one in my current house in the bar that was installed by previous owner in 2012. Both running strong!
past 8 years my dad went through 3 new fridges, he learned his lesson and went to a place that sold used appliances and got one from the late 90s, been working fine so far.
Our 20 year old whirlpool et20dk has finally kicked the bucket - I appreciated being able to diy the repairs myself in the year prior, and I think this (or the 20cu variant) is going to make a great replacement!
I have two Frigidaire basic 18cu analog units, soecifically because we have voltage interruptions and spikes in both locations. One gets hurricanes and the house has ancient wiring. The other is a very modern house but on a rural mountaintop CoOp in a national forest that gets blackouts lasting 1 second to three days on a regular basis. Rock solid circuitry
My 1990 model ($390) lasted till 2019 when the defrost cycle died, but the unit had started to rust so I replaced it for 450 instead of replacing the two controllers and the circ fan (again)
i have a similar Whirlpool fridge in our basement we use as a second fridge/freezer. It's been plugged in 2005 and has never given me any problems. It's usually packed full and we get into it on a daily basis. There's no reason for a fridge to need a CPU, have a touch screen, have Bluetooth, or have a camera on the inside so I can see what's in the fridge w/out opening the door. It's like trying to shop for a new washer and asking the salesman "Does it have an end of cycle buzzer?" they are say, 'No, but it will connect to your phone and tell you when it's done." I don't need that. I just a buzzer that I can hear from upstairs.
I have the same model and size. Can confirm the noise is an issue. The first few months of operation were fine, but the compressor rattles a lot more at start/stop and even during operation. Also had issues with the Recommended temperature level (leafy greens freezing up) and now keep it closer to the 10 o'clock position.
You could probably replace the rubber standoffs that mount the compressor. Mine from 1999 also does it but since it’s in my office break room at work I just live with rattle.
Links to the 18cf and 20cf Frigidaire models:
FFTR1835VW3 (18.4cf): creatoriq.cc/3UcGpPd
FFTR2045VS (20.4cf): creatoriq.cc/4hcksJG
Simple, cheap and reliable. No computers or motherboards to needlessly complicate operation and repairs, and be more expensive.
If you don't mind breaking your back and stooping over every time you open the door.
If they made a freezer bottom model, I would be interested.
Until all the FREON leaks out
@@IndependentThinker74 Just buy one and turn it upside down.
@@WhittyPics the only fridge I’ve ever seen lose its Freon was thousands of dollars and fresh out of warranty. It was a side by side upper with the bottom drawer freezer.
How can people be expected to use a fridge without having a built in TV, WI-FI, icemaker, or a camera?
What would you use it for...just to keep things cold?
Someone needs to build a pickup truck based on this design philosophy. Reliable, simple, affordable.
Toyota have just done so. Asian market only though
I have no plans to sell my 15 year old bare-bones Tacoma.
Edison Trucks, at least for specialized heavy semi trucks while being repair friendly based off of off the shelf parts for easy parts sourcing and repair.
Toyota sells one but only available in Asia.
Toyota sells one but only available in Asia.
No CPU? How can the fridge reorder milk and eggs? We will starve to death!
The worst part is that you cannot even play retro video games with this thing. That's the main function of a fridge, right?
@@nova_supreme8390 I know right? How can I do my office work at home if my fridge doesn't even have a screen?
@@heroslippy6666 How do I know, what is inside, if there is no screen? Desperately double-tap the damn thing. Nothing! Alexa, what is in my fridge? No answer.
I sell those Samsung Smart hub fridges. They're cool, but that tablet is nearly $900 customer cost.
I don't know how about you do some stockchecking what is in the fridge and then go the market and buy what you are short on, come back home and restock the fridge with said bought items.
This is how they should be designed. Hate how companies overdesign stuff just to create more SKUs and more unreliable products.
More features mean more profit, simple as that. Put in a feature like an electronic LED control panel on the front door that costs $150 and you can jack up the price $500, versus the $50 worth of parts on that cold/defrost unit shown in this video that are easy to get at the local appliance parts store or on the web.
The electrical engineers are forced to comply with “on high” to design systems like this under an NDA. Design engineers are at the brunt of NDAs. No speaking out, also why would you when you’re making money?
@@crosslink1493 Electronic LED control panel costs more like $15 in volume order.
and making them Smart gives them the ability to collect your data that they can Sell for even MORE profit.
They figured out awhile ago that making reliable products builds brand loyalty but then those customers only buy appliances every two or three decades. By using flashing lights, pretty sounds, and cheesy gimmicks (a la casinos) they can create the same draw as brand loyalty but they get to sell you disposable garbage that you'll replace every five years.
To me, having a fridge with a CPU sound the same as having a Bluetooth toothbrush. The more I learn about technology the more I want things that just work mechanically.
also do you really need a microwave with bluetooth and app control from your phone?
@@acmhfmggru Mine's more old school than that. It runs on manpower. So easy, even a caveman can do it.
Now they have toilets with WIFI🙄
@@Support_Ad_Blocker what is that for? analyzing your poop to see how much junk food your eating?
@@Warp2090 No, the way things are going it's probably going to turn into a subscription thing. No pay, no working 🚽
I retired from the tech industry as a process programmer. I spent my whole career developing software and applying it appropriately. I often deferred complicated computer/programming jobs to other departments for a simpler, easier to operate and maintain solution. Newer, younger managers think digital/touch pads/remote/sensor/displays/etc. means better. It's mostly driven by marketing to the naive public. Newer appliances with computers use very little processing to operate the appliance. Mostly it's to operate all the "bells and whistles" that have little to no bearing on the function of the appliance. I have a refrigerator with no PCB's. Doesn't require them. It's not an appropriate application of technology. All my stuff stays nice and cold without them. Thanks for what you do. Yep.
Also, manufacturing has come so far that it’s often cheaper to use touchscreens than to use buttons. Same reason why cars have touchscreens these days even though buttons make more sense
I assume you also keep a gun near your printer and ready to blow it apart whenever it makes funny noises.
@jintsuubest9331 Funny you say that. I keep a club next to the printer so I can break it down for recycling when it prints phantom lines across a page.
@@dentalnovember I'm glad you replied. I had no idea what jintsuubest was commenting about. I never said I was anti-tech nor have I destroyed any tech that didn't operate correctly. I said a cpu in a fridge doesn't make it work better and it is an inappropriate application of technology. Thx.
Personally i think PCB in fridges TO control the compressor and stuff should be made illegal. That way if it break the normal function of the fridge will still work but not the fancy crap.
We can _not_ keep this style of fridge in stock, even used and refurbished. When we set one out on the floor it's usually sold within 2 hours.
I do sales n repair. I sold a guy a 40 yr old Frigidaire a few years ago for his garage. His new Samsung has been repaired twice under the 1 year warranty. That old Frigidaire has saved his food twice. We also sell 20+ year old, rebuilt fully, Maytag for $1500 all day with a 1 year warranty. Rarely have to honor the 1 year warranty.
@@benjismith593 Where are you, I want to be a customer.
Beauty. I love the simplicity. The real scam is that a $15 PCB costs hundreds of dollars.
I just put a new board in my Fujitsu heat pump. The board was about $500. There was a microcontroller, a few connector, and a few dozen passives. That board should have been $30 tops.
Learn to replace components. A new control board for my oven was $300. The relays that burned out their contacts and needed replaced? $3 a piece. Fixed it in about an hour including disassembly of the oven, panel removal, and desoldering old and resoldering new relays on and then reassembling.
@@OtherDalfite Learn what's actually on those boards. It's all surface mount chips with TSOP microcontrollers and flash memory. Fujitsu is not going to provide the firmware so you can repair these yourself.
@@joels7605 it's not always the memory chips that go bad. Beyond the microcontroller and memory stuff, none of it will ever know if you replace the components actually doing the heavy lifting.
I bet what went wrong in yours was your passive components. That's where they cheap out. The solid state microcontrollers and memory chips are usually extremely reliable
I see both points. A relay is easy to diagnose and repair. Connectors can be managed. The H-bridges driving motors, well, even if you knew how to isolate faults and check parts like IGBTs and HEXFETs you'd need a schematic of the board. The mfr won't support that level of troubleshooting so sorry bub, no schematics available. We'll gladly take your money. Nobody of consequence is on our backs about it so...
When my "new to you" fridge died, the landlord got me one of these. Im happy to see you cover it. I'll use this to my advantage.
I worked in Public Housing for 34 years and this was basically what we had in the property’s. Easy to troubleshoot and repair, the biggest improvement of the years was the built in door handles because that was the number I problem.
I have one that looks like this, the door handle to the freezer snapped after ten years.
Glad to see the old style simple refrigerator is still available. I have a Whirlpool we purchased in 1985 and it is still running. I have had to replace the fan in the freezer and defrost timer in 39 years. My brother purchased a Samsung side by side and the defrost went bad and it cost him $6oo to fix after only three years.
Samsung sucks. Never buy their appliances if you can avoid it.
I apologize for leaving a comment after just starting the video but oh my god i would pay extra money and be so much more excited to get any appliance, a tv, a car, anything with no smart anything. Holy. I can't believe how much i hate the needless computerization of things that DO NOT need it. Id love to see more reviews of products like this
Amen. I am so tired of arguing with my car about when and where I am allowed to unlock which doors.
For those of you who want to do your part to help the environment, this is what you want. An appliance that will last a long time and can be repaired. More environmentally friendly than a computerized toaster that has to be replaced every year.
I use a mid 1950s Sunbeam Radiant Control toaster.
- put the bread in the slots and it automatically descends;
- once color is set, toast comes out to the same color every time (and different color breads come out to the same doneness).
The YT channel "Technology Connections" has a video about them ( _This Toaster Is Better Than Yours_ ).
I believe someone recently won a design award making a toaster that uses a camera a other electronics to achieve similar results. Unfortunately, the Sunbeam Radiant Control toaster is mechanical and uses a bi-metallic strip for control.
IIRC, Sunbeam patented the design in 1940 or 1941 and manufactured the design until the 1980s so the science _might_ still work.
@@RobertJarecki I always wanted one of those toasters. They are just so damn cool
@@Xachremos I found mine at a thrift store for $10. That thrift store often prices things really cheap:
Deseret Industries
Auburn Blvd
Sacramento California
There are way too many new fancy appliances in junk yards and landfills. I bought a Samsung front load washer, 2 years latter, it required a repair that was almost as much as the washer itself.
@smorris281 In 2007, I bought a Kenmore washer and dryer. In 2022, it stopped working for the first time. I'd paid $500 for the set. The repair was estimated at $800.
I am sure my new $600 Amana will last much longer. It has so many more cycles and options and all the fancy electronics are in the humid area above the wash tub. And the washer has to be cleaned monthly with *_Affresh_* .
I don't know how I survived all those years with a washer with electromechanical controls.
Edit: spelling
I have had one like yours for 15 years and only replaced a defrost timer. A repair I did myself. My brother bought one of those expensive, electronic side by side fridges. It failed after five years and the cost of having it repaired was more than it was worth. I win.
Good point you mention about energy efficiency- if you are saving 10% per year on electricity, that can be negated real quick by an expensive repair
I literally just bought this exact fridge this week, love to see it.
Hope you enjoy it!
I find all the computers components are just one more thing to break and usually costly to fix. Thanks for the video. 👍
Had a Hungarian washing machine from the 80s which for the time and place, had a somewhat advanced heating control unit. It was fully electronic, however, even back then, you could walk into a store and buy all components for it and change it out. Those components are still widely available today and not just NOS, brand-new manufactured. So if I wanted, I could recreate the entire control unit of that washing machine from scratch, by comparatively simple tools (etching the PCB would be the biggest hurdle but even that is achievable at home). With a modern CPU system that's quite impossible.
I continue to watch Ben because the level of detail in the summary is always excellent. I especially like the DYI explanation.
This is what I put in my rentals. It's reliable and durable, tenants love it because it's a good size, I love it because it just plain works. Always buy things that are reliable and easy to repair. Makes life a lot better for everyone.
Glad to see there's an appliance company that still cares about making a simple, reliable product
My fridge is a 1968 Frigidair with the freezer on the bottom and fridge on top. It's Pepto Bismol pink and I grew up using that fridge at my aunt's and thinking it was just the neatest thing ever. I was fortunate enough to be able to take it home before it was sold. It works like brand new, with some maintenance and parts replacement, of course. I'm going to keep using it until I no longer can keep it running
Same(not the year though, my stuff is from the 80s). All my appliances are my grandparents that my parents then owned and I now own. Work just as good as they did 40 years ago.
My best friend has a 1960s microwave though.
*Ben, thank you ever so much for featuring the sibling to our LFTR1814 garage 'fridge, which is a rock. Build date 06-2011, "L" prefix and wire shelves tells you it's a Lowe's-only model. Bought for about $400. Has same controls package as yours however is R22 not R600a. Door shelves permanently attached with 3M low temperature-tolerant epoxy. Has endured every temperature extreme, brownouts and blackouts with grace and aplomb. 13 years and only required annual condenser and fan cleaning. Love 'ya!*
You can also just hot glue the shelves in place, at their ends, if you don't want to mess with epoxy. If the front lip is too flexible, it may let items escape or may crack, eventually, but you can also (before you fix the rails in place) turn the rails over and fill in the lip with hot glue, caulk, epoxy, even a thin dowel, whatever you like, and it will greatly reinforce them.
My 1982 JC Penny refrig is going strong after 42 years. No computers, no bells, whistles, it just works.
I am still rockin a FPCI-18TC frigidaire from the early 80s. It has been bounced around between relatives as a garage or second refer. It has outlasted many other bigger and nicer ones that replaced it over the years. I've given it to others when I got a bigger or nicer one as a second refer, only to get it back years later when the other one quit.
Would like to know about a computerless, no ice maker fridge with a bottom freezer. I have enjoyed many of your videos and your helpfulness.
This
My grandma replaced her fridge with a cheap one (about 2016) and it worked well. Didn't even have an ice maker (we just filled up trays). It did what we wanted and was reliable. My parents have a freezer on the bottom with an ice maker but that is the extent of it. Simple is what I like with these.
I have essentially that same fridge that I bought 18+ years ago as a garage fridge. It has been dead solid reliable. The only issue is, as you point out, the in-door shelves are weak and the glass shelves are also problematic. As the plastic parts age, they get brittle and they are just too expensive to replace in an 18+ year old fridge. I'm going to look at installing wire closet shelves as replacements for the glass shelves.
Take care and God Bless.
Excellent workaround!
Find someone with a 3D printer.
FFTR1835VW3
Thanks Ben for the professional insight and evaluation.
Just bought one for my daughter at Home Depot
I love the simple, cheap, reliable aspect of this. I also love our Bosch 800 that cost more than 5 times as much, which I got partly as a result of this channel, particularly how quiet it is and the hope that it will last a long time, but if anything were to happen to it I'd strongly consider going back to something like this Frigidaire. I hope refrigerators like this continue to be available for a long time.
My techs love fixing Bosch stuff. $$$$
We used to consider fridge as buy-and-forget thing. The only interaction is opening and closing door, don't need any touchscreens, bluetooth, etc. I guess, most manufacturers are very angry, that there are most models that can work for a decades and customers have no motivation to buy new ones.
Thank God for you, Ben, that is all I have to say.... ❤
I have a 2005 version of this and it's still going, no issues at all. I thought about getting a new one but I've heard such horror stories about new refrigerators so I'm going to keep it as long as I can. It's stainless steel and I polished it up last year and replaced the bulbs with led and it looks fantastic!
Same reason why some people decided to buy non inverter fridge here. No PCB, no problem. Should last strong, because brownouts/voltage issue can happen randomly.
I have one from 2001 and I had to replace the evaporator fan and the cold control over the years. That’s it! Cheap and easy. I never want another type of fridge that has any computer controls.
I have a 14 year old similar Whirlpool, basic 2 door refrigerator that I bought for $200ish. It has performed flawlessly over the years. It has always been in the hot and cold in the garage and keeps on chugging along.
God that’s beautifully simple. I love old school designs that just stick around. I hope they make this thing forever so when I get a house I can get one.
Thanks for validating my purchase of the refrigerator that I just had delivered today. I bought the 13.9 cubic feet version of this refrigerator. It looks just the same except for size. I wished I had seen this video before I had bought the 10.1 cu. ft. Vissani that I had to return. The Vissani would get no colder than fluctuating between 45-48 degrees at its coldest setting. I took it back, and bought the Frigidaire at a different store. The Frigidaire fluctuates between 35 and 37 degrees in the recommended middle setting. I agree with you about the ice maker being just another thing that can go bad. My wife hates the stale ice cubes and prefers to just make a few or more at a time as needed using ice cube trays. The simpler, the better. There are separate temperature controllers for the two compartments.
How is the noise?
@@JohnLeite-cv7kg We keep this refrigerator in the laundry room. We generally keep the door to that room open but don't really notice any sounds. Even standing right next to it, it isn't loud. I can hear it from there if I listen for it. It's quieter than the tiny (1.7 cu ft) 35+ yr old, still working, Hotpoint that we just unplugged. According to my decibel app on my phone with the doors closed the room sound level goes from 32 db to 39 db when the refrigerator starts running. In fact, with doors closed, I can hear the dishwasher and television in other rooms over the sound of the refrigerator.
I work in tech, have smart devices all over my home, but I'll be damned if I own a fridge any more advanced than something like this. Heard nothing but problems from family and friends who purchases modern/smart fridges over the years.
I've heard similar things. Someone commented to me that they noticed the "tech-y" people had a tendency to actively prefer simpler and less technological solutions, like using a basic wristwatch instead of only using their smartphone to tell the time.
I think it's a consequence of already carrying enough of a "technological interaction" balance in their lives and making a simple cost-benefit calculation in their heads.
@Thalanox Sometimes, it's also just a cost or impact balance. I have smart plugs controlling most of my lights and that gives me day to day convenience while also being relatively cheap to replace or fix if there is a problem. An advanced fridge with lots of electronics ultimately does the exact same thing as this simple refridgerator with no added convenience, but repairs are shockingly costly.
To put it another way, smart plugs add convenience daily with minor inconvenience and cost occasionally. A smart refridgerator adds nothing to my daily life, adds inconvenience regularly when using its smart features, and costs far more up front and in the long run. A whole home smart lighting system is a net benefit. A smart fridge is a net detriment.
my mom has a 30+ year old refrigerator and its never had a single problem. still works like its brand new to this day
Nice. I have a simple Amana, huge freezer on top. It was like 700 dollars, had for three years with no problems so far. I watched some of your earlier videos before buying my appliances and can't agree more - simple is better. If I want an ice maker, I'll buy a countertop one and cold water comes out fine in a Brita pitcher. Great video!
I got one of these refrigerators used eighteen years ago. It works great today!
When I started to watch this video, I realized that this is the refrigerator that my wife selected earlier this year. We also have white ice trays. Those trays don't last forever but as you said they aren't expensive.
We have the 2017 version of this fridge and it has just worked. Never thought about it, it just works.
I still use the 1960's Frigidaire my grandad gave me 30 years ago. Love it.
I bought my Frigidaire back in 1987. STILL WORKS.
Thanks to your suggestion I own this. Simple, big, well made and it's the best appliance buy I think I've ever made. Going on one year now with no issues whatsoever. THANK YOU!
My 20yr old fridge looks very similar to this. Going strong, never had an issue. Not only is there no $$@$#%^ing microships in it, I tossed the ice cube maker, too. Sold it on eBay for $100. Simpler kicks ass. I hope your fridge last decades!
Just bought the Stainless model.. So relieved that wee made this choice. Thank you for confirming what we suspected! Simple is better!
I have a refrigerator that came with my house when I bought it in 199, and as near as I cantell, it was built in 1984 or 1985. I had to replace the heating element six years ago when the coils iced up, and the ice maker sprung a leak about 11 years ago, so I disconnected the water line and uss a small counter top ice maker to keep the basket full. The dispenser works fine. Illwprkbably jinx it, but the unit is about forty (40) years old and still works great, i.e., it cools and freezes without all the BS computerized crap which is what my computer handles.
You got a fridge that's 2000 years old? Damn!
I have the countertop ice maker n u have to stay on it - dumping each basket into a bin in freezer.
OR
The ice just melts and has to run again. So when I go to get it, there’s little to none.
I have had a Maytag branded fridge of almost identical design for about ten years now. Zero problems, easy to clean. It may not be sexy, but it’s great.
Thank you very much, great refrigerator for my garage. I have Kenmore built by Whirlpool with ice maker in my garage here in Lafayette Louisiana. Had it my basement in my townhouse in Gaithersburg Maryland. Got it on a holiday sale with shop your way rewards for $460 it's a 20 cubic foot refrigerator freezer top mount.
Went to USL back in the day. Miss the food there for sure!
I own the same thing (idea not model/brand) brand new from 2017 and still works great, never had a problem...
Freezer tops are the only kind of fridge I will ever buy. And this video outlines many of the reasons why! Thank you for this channel, it's truly a breath of fresh air.
I have always had one of these-whether in my apartments or now in my garage. They seem simple and reliable and get the job done cheap to buy as well even brand new
Thank you! Love your videos. One point on the word simple vs simplistic. Simple is easy to understand. Simplistic is over-simplified, with a negative connotation that it is misleading.
Ok, thank you for the note
I am so glad I found this video. I have an older fridge that needs the cold control replaced. I was hoping it would be this simple.
Thanks so much for this. Four years ago we bought a Frigidaire FFTR1425 as a backup fridge (it sits in the basement) and absolutely love it. It's rock-solid reliable, quiet and just does its job. Contrast this with the five year old buggy, WiFi-enabled, bells-&-whistles, fancy LG fridge we have up in the kitchen. With that we have had had two failures: one under warranty & the other paid for out of pocket.
(Friendly vocabulary note: don't use "simplistic" when you mean "simple." "Simplistic" means treating complex issues and problems as if they were much simpler than they really are.)
Love this, thanks for sharing. Good thing there is a fridge that doesn't have an icemaker and is very reliable.
I've had a similar Frigidaire refrigerator since about 2010 or so, several of the shelves had failed and I was unaware you could get replacements of them! Thank you for that tip and otherwise the other information in the video, I'll make sure when that time comes to get a new one I'll get something similar, my fridge is a place to put food nothing more, I don't need a screen or computer in it otherwise!
I have a 20 year old version of this fridge that has needed some work once or twice but it rock solid to this day. I also have 3 Frigidaire CPU-less full-size freezers that have been bulletproof for about 9 years. The only issue I had was burning out the analog thermostat when a door was left open for a week. I bought a $35 part and swapped it in myself. Five years later it still drops the contents to -20F.
Your video just popped up in my feed at random. I've got one that looks exactly like that except its a GE. 5 years old and no issues with it, I just clean the dust and other nasties out of the refrigeration system a few times per year. Its a simple, reliable design and does what I need it to do, keep cold and frozen foods cold or frozen (respectively). My former refrigerator was 35 years old and was the same simple design.
My 30 year old house came with the most basic appliance package---and the GE top freezer is still kicking (so is the dishwasher, range and dryer! Not energy efficient (according to the guides, it costs 2x as much to run) but for now---I think I'll keep it as the cost for a new purchase and subsequent ones would cost way more than the energy use this one has. Thanks for the videos!
On this type of fridge i usually have to clear drain line and sometimes new gaskets. The defrost heater is well made and rarely go bad. Super easy to check frost pattern and ohm out compressor.
My fridge is a whirlpool from 96 and still running perfectly fine. That's a 28 year service life so far. Pretty good. As much as I love new technology and new refridgerants that are completely friendly to the environment, the actual build quality of new stuff ends up making it worse than something with 113g of r134a that runs most likely 3x longer for lifespan than manafacturing several more new units. Still using an R-22 window AC and compared to a new R32 portable unit.. the old one is probably more efficient due to the actual design. Somewhat ugly often works better.
What worse? A little refrigerant or 100 pounds of plastic buried in a landfill?
I've owned side by side, three door, four door, bottom freezer over the years. By far the best one, is the top freezer with
basic controls. I even think it's just as efficient as any of the other configurations.....
Yes. I have a plain white GE fridge from 1998. Still works perfectly fine
Bought a similar fridge about 20 years ago. Think I'd had to replace one part on it in that time. Is it pretty? No. Is it a bargain? Yes. Excellent video by the way!
I have a GE from 69. Yes, its turquoise, and with gold trim. Its the one with the carousel shelves. Its not the daily use one. That one is also a CPU-less bottom freezer model. Nothing automated on it. Its cool (daumb tschh)
Same with the washer and dryer. They are actually from the 80s.
But its my landline I love the most. Its a Comdial 2500 from my unit in the military. Its from 75, and still works great, with awesome sound. Not a transistor in sight
Glad to see more stuff like this. We dont need computers in everything. Dont need internet connected everything, collecting data and recording you doing your thing in your own home!
I bought the equivalent GE, the garage ready version, and added the icemaker accessory to the freezer. Under 800 bucks and it's working great. Hardly anything to go wrong.
I was using a soviet fridge made in 1967 until a couple years ago. It even had old school mechanical lock instead of a magnetic strip. It never needed refrigerant refill, lived through a house fire, survived very erratic power fluctuations and donated it's parts for a 1980s fridge I'm using currently before getting recycled for being too small. And somehow I never looked at it and thought "Damn, I wish it was running Android and needed it's own app to function properly" XD
I bought a Sears 12 years ago and went with the Consumers Report recommended plain model. Its fancy feature is self defrost. It has a never used icemaker because the well water would kill it. It was plain and affordable. I clean the coils since our wind blows dirt in. It has survived blackouts and brownouts so I am very happy with it.
Still running a 1988 Hotpoint that's as simple as this one 😎
Yes, that's what we have, AND our power utility gave it to us FOR FREE. Works great! And the price was good.
The more Bella whistles, the more problems less Bella whistles, the less problems.Great video
Is that a reference to some movie? I'm pretty sure the saying is supposed to be "bells and whistles", i.e. extra unnecessary features irrelevant to the basic functionality of the device, used to justify a higher price.
Who's Bella? 😂
These are simple and reliable, and an ambitious do-it-yourselfer can repair almost everything on it. The only thing I don’t like is the refrigerator on the bottom; as a taller-than-average male I don’t like having to stoop to see what’s in the compartment I use most often.
We have one of these as our secondary / basement fridge and can now rest easier in confidence that it seems to have been a good choice! Even still, it's connected via an electrical surge suppressor to minimize chance of issues caused by electricity spikes.
Thanks for the review. Saving this video for when I need to replace my side by side. Hope you have a great weekend ! Fun fact, the contents of your fridge look almost identical to mine !
we have one of this style slightly different door and a different mold for the controls but it has been our only fridge for over 20 years. in that whole time the defrost drain (the bane of all fridges) iced over once we unplugged it overnight and now 9 years later it hasnt happened again, whereas our newer one has to be defrosted every year or it stars pouring water everywhere
My frigidaire is a 1998 model, flawless except for the defreez module (25$ and 5 minutes to change)...i love it! Some rust on it but it is a tank! if only every other thing lasted that long...Cool to see i could get a newer one for so cheap!
I have one of those LG's with the inverter compressor. After purchasing, I've learned that they commonly fail after just a few years.
Luckily, I have a 2nd fridge in my basement, and it's a cheap fridge like you have there, and should last a long time.. This is my backup when the LG compressor fails.
I can't see the selling point on saving energy when they need to be replaced more often.
I also have a cheap Frigidaire fridge. It's 11 years old and still working fine without any repairs.
Ben- I own this exact refrigerator as a secondary in my garage. My normal refrigerator is a 1989 Whirlpool bottom freezer, same technology. Also have a 1970 G.E. electric oven, 1968 G.E. electric dryer, 1989 Kenmore (Whirlpool built) dishwasher and a 1999 Whirlpool direct drive washer. All fully functional- all simple technology.
BTW- I ran a family appliance repair business for 31 years and worked 42 years in the field. What this refrigerator has is exactly what 1970's auto defrost units had- electro mechanical systems that are reliable and easy to fix.
I'll take them any day over variable speed compressors or multi-phase operations.
By the way- don't bet your life on your thinking that this isn't as energy efficient as a pcb controlled unit. I ran tests when I still had my shop. Compared a 1936 GE manual defrost to my 1989 Whirlpool auto defrost to a 2006 G.E. high end pcb adaptive defrost unit and in the end the 1936 manual used the least energy, and the 2006 the most. Don't drink the energy efficiency Kool-Aid!
On wattage, I did do a test a few years back on 5 or 6 units. Newer ones did better but depending on type, not that much better
I take care of a twenty apartment building. This is what I use. Simple and reliable. Replaced one that was 22 years old only because the door seal magnets were weak. New door seals were $400 Canadian. Crazy
We have an Amana top freezer that is now 30 years old. (no ice maker) NO repairs so far. Best fridge EVER!
Me too ! Mine is 27 yrs old. Great fridge.
For a repair guy / DIY advocate, you are missing the obvious. You can buy generic temperature control units for ten to twenty dollars that not only give you a readout of actual temperature but can be set anywhere over a wide temperature range plus you specify the hysteresis you want as well as any start delay to avoid trying to start the compressor under pressure. You can also get a mechanical dial style with sensor bulb on a capillary. Any 24 hour defrost timer can be wired in and made to work, also a generic programmable timer module could be used to custom set optimal parameters for each scenario. Might as well DIY it right.
Top mount? Doesn't that usually refer to the compressor? I would guess the compressor is on the bottom toward the back. Not the best for efficiency, all that heat bearing up on the bottom of the cooled box.
Ha, I’m sure the fridge I bought in 2010 at my old house which is now our rental and running strong is a predecessor to this one, and I have the same one in my current house in the bar that was installed by previous owner in 2012. Both running strong!
We have had a bare bones Amana top freezer refrigerator since 2012, never had a problem with it. It is not feature rich, but it keeps on going.
past 8 years my dad went through 3 new fridges, he learned his lesson and went to a place that sold used appliances and got one from the late 90s, been working fine so far.
my kitchen fridge is an 03 kenmore side by side. my garage fridge is an even older GE both still running strong. older ones just last way longer
Our 20 year old whirlpool et20dk has finally kicked the bucket - I appreciated being able to diy the repairs myself in the year prior, and I think this (or the 20cu variant) is going to make a great replacement!
Ironically, this replaced an ET14!
Simplicity equals reliability. There is a reason why my 1950 Ferguson tractor still runs great.
Old reliable styles❤. I can make my own grocery list and meal plans myself thank you.
This looks similar to the Frigidaire model that I have had for over 20 years with zero problems. It's not fancy but it works.
I have two Frigidaire basic 18cu analog units, soecifically because we have voltage interruptions and spikes in both locations. One gets hurricanes and the house has ancient wiring. The other is a very modern house but on a rural mountaintop CoOp in a national forest that gets blackouts lasting 1 second to three days on a regular basis.
Rock solid circuitry
My 1990 model ($390) lasted till 2019 when the defrost cycle died, but the unit had started to rust so I replaced it for 450 instead of replacing the two controllers and the circ fan (again)
Reminds me of my 1998 Maytag. Have replaced a defrost element and door seal but still going strong.
Thanks for this man. Fridges don’t need WiFi, Bluetooth, or anything of the like.
i have a similar Whirlpool fridge in our basement we use as a second fridge/freezer. It's been plugged in 2005 and has never given me any problems. It's usually packed full and we get into it on a daily basis. There's no reason for a fridge to need a CPU, have a touch screen, have Bluetooth, or have a camera on the inside so I can see what's in the fridge w/out opening the door. It's like trying to shop for a new washer and asking the salesman "Does it have an end of cycle buzzer?" they are say, 'No, but it will connect to your phone and tell you when it's done." I don't need that. I just a buzzer that I can hear from upstairs.
Not sure how I ended up here but I have almost the same fridge. I think mine is a bit smaller. Glad to know I made a good choice.
I have the same model and size. Can confirm the noise is an issue. The first few months of operation were fine, but the compressor rattles a lot more at start/stop and even during operation. Also had issues with the Recommended temperature level (leafy greens freezing up) and now keep it closer to the 10 o'clock position.
You could probably replace the rubber standoffs that mount the compressor. Mine from 1999 also does it but since it’s in my office break room at work I just live with rattle.
The bins always freeze the produce on side by sides…