GE Profile French Door Fridge Fits the Spot

The layout of our kitchen drove our choice of this fridge, along with past experience with GE appliances (which I admit isn't always an accurate indicator in an age of off-shore manufacturing).

The unit's height of 68.75", width of 32.875" and depth of 45.5" with a door open 90 degrees were about the max possible in the space we have available. Similar capacity Maytag, Kenmore and Amana French door models would not fit comfortably in the space.

OVERALL IMPRESSIONS

The stainless doors with black refrigerator case provide an attractive appearance. French doors (without a hinged center sealing bar that retracts in to one of the doors when opened as in Maytag and Amana brands) seal tightly.

The extra-deep (gallon size) door shelves are cavernous and really helped unclutter the main fridge shelves by holding most all of the small, as well as tall, bottles and jars we regularly store in the fridge.

After having a GE side-by-side fridge/freezer in our kitchen for over 12 years (still running down in the basement), it has been very nice to have a full-width refrigerator with the fresh food section located above the freezer once again. No more "losing" stuff at the back of shelves or in the bottom of the lower crisper drawer any longer. The fresh food compartment is spacious, albeit with shallower shelves than older models, due to the gallon depth doors.

The freezer includes 3 slide out bins of varying width and height, and have proven to be the best layout we saw among bottom freezer models both in the store, and in use at home. A shallow height (but spacious), full width and depth slide out bin above the main freezer basket eliminates digging everything out of the main basket to get to one item, and helps keep small items from getting lost at the bottom of a single large lower basket as many other manufacturers use. The integrated ice storage bin, located in the upper left quadrant of the freezer, is large and easy to access or remove for cleaning.

Both the fridge and freezer are well lighted, and the controls and digital temperature read-outs are mounted at the upper front interior edge of the refrigerator case for easy viewing and access. The “GE ClimateKeeper System” temperature control seems to be quite accurate, maintaining the (recommended) 37 deg F fresh food and 0 deg. F freezer settings very well. A “Turbo Cool” setting, which runs the compressor and fan continuously for 8 hours to rapidly cool the fresh food section, is a neat feature, but we’ve really only needed to use it once, when bringing the unit down to a stable operating temperature immediately after delivery and set-up.

FEATURES

CAPACITY:

Total Capacity (cubic feet) 22.2
Fresh Food (cubic feet) 15.21
Freezer (cubic feet) 7.04
Shelf Area (sq. ft.) 27.66

Keep in mind that volumetric capacities stated by all manufacturers are absolute, rather than usable capacities. A leading consumer magazine has calculated that the usable capacity of refrigerators is typically only 70% to 80% of advertised capacity, depending on brand and model.

As is the case with virtually all modern refrigerators, the unit is self-defrosting. Open door alarms warn of a door ajar for 2 minutes or more. The unit carries the “Energy Star” efficiency designation, using an estimated 493 kWh of electricity per year (only 10 kWh more than the most efficient units in its class, and fully 76 kWh less than the least efficient).

There are 2 fixed-location crisper drawers with individual humidity controls at the bottom of the fridge, with glass shelf tops. Modulating the humidity controls as recommended in the owners manual has worked well in preserving both fruits and vegetables. A reasonably sized deli/meat pan is provided and is adjustable in height/location, but note that it must be in a specific location (as defined in the owners manual) in order to be temperature adjustable (set cooler than the fridge temp.). The temperature controlled mounting location limits shelf height options above/below the deli pan, with a less than fully useful space below.

The fresh food compartment features 4 full depth, height adjustable, half-width, tempered glass shelves, 3 of which are “spill-proof” and 2 of which slide out (about half the total shelf depth). The slide-out feature is handy for retrieving an item at the back of a shelf without removing everything in front of and/or around it. The 4th shelf allows you to retract the front half of the shelf toward the rear of the cabinet to create a niche at the front, allowing the storage of tall items (such as water and iced tea pitchers in our case) on the shelf below, without completely removing the shelf above. This feature has proved helpful. One of the shelf units includes a coated wire slide-out basket that holds two egg cartons, a dozen 12 oz. beverage cans, two 750 ml wine bottles, or some combination thereof. We found little utility in this feature, and removed the bin shortly after delivery to have a taller space available below the shelf.

Refrigerator door storage includes a fixed butter/dairy keeper in the upper right door, 2 fixed height shelves (bottom of each door) and 3 adjustable height shelves (all plastic). All door shelves are “gallon jug” depth, have sealed bottoms and are fully removable for easy cleaning. Two “snugger clips” are included to keep items from rattling around in the door shelves when opening/closing the doors.

The freezer has 3 drawer/baskets as described above, and all are well laid out and easily accessible. Good design here. The ice storage drawer is large and convenient, but the ice cube tray shelf above the ice storage drawer will not accommodate standard-sized ice cube trays, only the odd-sized ice cube trays (2) provided with the unit.

A chilled water dispenser (interior access only) and an automatic icemaker are optional with this style of GE refrigerator and there are slightly different model suffix designations for units factory equipped with these options. This model can be retrofitted with an icemaker, but not the chilled water dispenser.

This fridge has what GE describes as “NeverClean” condenser coils. By that I take it that the coils are inaccessible for cleaning, since the condenser must have air flow over it in order to function. The warranty period is 1 year for the complete appliance, 5 years for the compressor and “sealed” refrigeration system. This product was assembled in Mexico.

SUMMING IT ALL UP

We’ve only had this unit in our home for about 2 months, but we like it overall so far. The interior is bright, spacious and generally well laid-out. Shelves and surfaces are easy to keep clean. Like any product, there are trade-offs in design based on type of unit (i.e. top vs. bottom freezer vs. side-by-side) and layout of features, controls and shelves. Operation is reasonably quiet, no better or worse than our old fridge that we can tell.

Some things to remember are that unless 2 small trays of ice are enough for your household, you will lose some freezer space to ice cube trays, unless you choose the automatic icemaker model/option. We store 3 additional standard size ice cube trays stacked in the upper right, partial-width freezer basket (which still has good storage space remaining thereafter).

The up front controls, temperature displays and interior light housing intrude downward from the top of the refrigerator compartment ceiling about 1.5”. So, while the controls are convenient and easy to see/access up front, something tall stored on a slide out shelf behind the control panel/light housing will preclude the shelf from sliding out all the way, and/or be difficult to remove from behind the control panel. If GE had located the exact same control panel on the ceiling of the refrigerator's case but at the rear, against the back wall, it would have been nearly equally useful and visible, without interfering with access to the refrigerator's contents.

The open door alarm feature is a must, since the tight gasket fit between the doors generally precludes them from closing by gravity. You must manually close the refrigerator doors, and don’t bother to try slamming them, you’ll break something sooner or later. The freezer drawer can be a little sticky to open, I presume due to a bit of frost build up on the drawer slides between defrost cycles. Also, you must make sure the freezer drawer is firmly closed/seated, or frost will build up on the light switch in the frame, holding the switch in the “door closed” position, and leaving your freezer section in the dark when open.

These relatively minor quibbles aside, we are satisfied with this purchase. The neutral reliability rating is due to our short period of ownership, not as a result of any problems we’ve experienced. I’ll try and check back some time with a reliability update.

UPDATE ON FREEZER DRAWER ISSUE (02/2007)

As mentioned above, the freezer light switch would stick occasionally and/or the freezer drawer was a bit difficult to open when this review was originally written. This problem became progressively worse over time, with ice building up on the drawer slides so thickly that it took such excessive effort/force to open the freezer drawer that you could literally move the entire refrigerator trying to open the freezer. Effectively, the freezer became nearly impossible for my wife to access.

The problem apparently lies in the freezer drawer track and slide assemblies. Either there was a flaw in the manufacture of the drawer slides, or they were assembled using the wrong type of grease. The problem with incorrect grease application is apparently not limited to GE products, because the service tech who repaired our fridge confided that Sub Zero refrigerators he worked on had recently experienced the same problems. (Perhaps the drawer slide supplier is common to both Sub Zero and GE?)

In any case, the retailer from which we purchased this unit replaced the drawer slide assemblies under warranty. Since this repair was accomplished some 60 days ago, there have been no further problems, and the freezer drawer opens and closes effortlessly.

If you have problems with ice build up on the drawer slides and/or light switch, have difficulty opening or closing the freezer drawer, or the drawer doesn't pull itself closed with spring tension when pushed to within 2-3" of the closed position, on this or any bottom freezer refrigerator with a sliding drawer, I suggest that you have the drawer slide assemblies replaced.