Just Chillin' Out with My Haier Compact Refrigerator

Introduction
So here’s a story - It was December 30th, 2001. I was a single girl who had decided to lay low for the New Year as I had just returned from a mongo bash with a bunch of my friends in Key West for the Christmas holidays. I had been living La Vida Loca for a little while and I woke up on the 30th dog-sick with the flu.

It was a painful, horrible and vicious stomach flu. It was one of the worst flu bugs that has hit me in a l-o-o-o-o-ng time. For about fifteen hours I couldn’t crawl out of my bedroom. I just lay on my cold, tile floor and worshipped the porcelain god. I was dehydrated, but lacked the energy to move.

It was at this time that I had a vision. I had a vision of a small, dorm-room style refrigerator in my master bath. It could hold things like water and Gatorade. Why, even sick and single I would still be able to take care of myself without having to haul my butt down the stairs and all the way into the kitchen.

I stared at the empty space where my gleaming white refrigerator could fit longingly. Sick and dehydrated, I would have willed it into existence if I could have. But I couldn’t.

Instead, I called a nurse practitioner who is a friend of mine. After hearing how sick I was, and that I couldn’t keep anything down she insisted on taking me to the emergency room. That’s where I discovered that some wonderful drugs can be given intravenously to quell the symptoms of the stomach flu.

After a 10 hour visit there, they sent me home. The first thing I did after my friend dropped me off, tucked me in and left, was to get out of my bed, go into my office, get on my computer and pull up the Office Depot website. Then and there, I ordered the Haier HSP03WNA Compact Refrigerator for home delivery.

Arrival and Setup
My Haier Compact Refrigerator arrived a few days later. I was over my flu bug by then and unpacked it from its sturdy box, moving it up into my bathroom straightaway. I had it plugged in and ready to go within a few short minutes.

It took about a half day to get cold enough to begin using it properly as a refrigerator. I quickly stashed all of my Gatorade juice boxes, bottled water and ginger ale in the refrigerator in case I felt sick again.

The manual is small. And flimsy. It doesn’t need to be big. It’s a relatively small refrigerator we’re talking about here, not a technical wonder. You plug it in and watch it go. Every so often you unplug it and defrost it.

Using the Refrigerator
I know, it seems so decadent to have a small refrigerator in the master bathroom, but it fits snugly under my sink counter and in the two years that I’ve owned it, it has been incredibly useful. I still use it for storing Gatorade and ginger ale and bottled water, but I’ve also supplemented it with iced coffee and chocolate milk.

And I don’t stop at just drinks. I keep the Solarcaine in the bathroom refrigerator. When you have a bad sunburn, nothing – but nothing feels better than pre-chilled Solarcaine! I also use it to store my Flaxseed oil supplement, which should be kept chilled so they don’t spoil. It also chills one of those gel eye packs and I keep ice packs in the freezer section – great for a pulled muscle. Anything you can refrigerate anywhere else, you can refrigerate here.

Unless it’s huge. Which brings me to the next topic:

Space and Size
The refrigerator is, as its name implies compact. It provides plenty of storage as a secondary refrigerator, and would probably be fine in a dorm room, but don’t expect to be shoving pizza boxes in this puppy. It’s just not big enough. It also won’t hold gallon-sized beverages. Half gallon bottles and two-liter bottles fit, just barely. But you’d better make sure you have enough space before you decide to store them.

Soda cans fit best in this little refrigerator. I have fit two cases of soda in the main body, stacking the cans on top of each other. The middle shelf can be removed, which aids in stacking drinks. Bottles don’t fit as well as cans, in my experience.

The freezer is tiny It only holds small ice packs. They ship the freezer with a teeny, tiny ice cube tray that looks more like it’s designed for Barbie’s refrigerator than anything real. The ice cube tray is useless. I chucked it pretty much immediately.

There’s a tray with a lip underneath the freezer. You can remove the tray but I wouldn’t recommend it. When the freezer defrosts, and it will during say, a power outage, the tray catches the liquid.

Maintenance
About every six months I have to defrost the refrigerator to allow the ice-build up on the freezer unit to dissipate. It’s a simple task, I just stop restocking the fridge until it runs out (or mostly runs out) and then I unplug it overnight. The next morning, the drip tray underneath the freezer is filled with water. I dump that in the tub, plug the refrigerator back in and it’s ready to go for another six months. The lip on the tray isn’t very tall though, so you’ll probably spill some water on your way to dump it out. Just take a towel along with you.

Warranty
Haier offers a one year limited warranty on their products. Warranty information comes with the refrigerator and you can also find it online at http://www.haieramerica.com. The refrigerator has been so simple to use and reliable that I haven’t had to call customer support or take advantage of the warranty offered by the company.

Summary
I haven’t had the flu since that December, and since I got the refrigerator. My Haier Compact Refrigerator has moved into our new bathroom and is still working as well as ever! I kind of superstitiously view it as my “good luck” charm – now that I have every liquid I could possibly ever need within easy reach, I of course won’t ever need it in that way again. It helps that I’ve gotten married and now have someone living with me in case I get sick as well.

The Haier Compact Refrigerator still really comes in handy, though. It’s just nice to have sodas and water so close at hand when I’m in a rush to get ready for work or to go out. I can highly recommend this mini-refrigerator to everyone, just so long as you keep in mind that it is specifically called a Compact refrigerator.