As Cool as it Gets

Recently we replaced all of our kitchen appliances (gulp--may have to go back to work!) in our 58 year old home. To be honest, our appliances were not THAT old. We chose Whirlpool because of the patented ice storage located in the door rather than under the icemaker in the rear of the freezer compartment. This gave us much more freezer storage it seems as we seldom kept much in our old freezer door. The storage bin lifts out at the push of a button so you can pour out the ice contents into a cooler or you can use the outside access of ice cubes, crushed ice, or water. When we tried to get a glass of water we had trouble stopping the flow of water after removing the glass. Water ran down the shoehorn shaped lever onto the floor. I think we have figured out how long to hold the glass under the spigot now.

There is a lockout button on the door to keep little ones from playing with the levers and flooding the floor which happened to my daughter-in-law and our grandkids. What a
mess without a lockout. Other buttons let you choose cubed or crushed ice and activate a light near the levers.


Talk about easy viewing of foods both in the freezer and refrigerator compartment--there are lights in both, with lights at the top and lower area of the refrigerator. With the clear lucite drawers, you can see what you need at a glance. The adjustable bins in the door holds gallon jugs, half gallon juice boxes, loaves of bread, and other large size bottles. Rather than having small hooks on the bins that fit into slots, these bins are more sturdy with nothing that could break off like on our old extra refrigerator, a Maytag, that we keep in our lower level for beer, pop, and wine. We replaced two of those shelf racks only to have them break again.

I really like the snack drawer where we put cheese and sandwich fixings. Our old one was much shallower so did not accommodate larger hunks of cheese. The larger drawers below this drawer are for produce and/or meats with an adjustable lever on one drawer for choosing how cold you want it. Somehow the produce drawer keeps humidity high.

It is much easier to see into the main refrigerator section because the large bins in the door mean that the main shelves are not as deep as in our old refrigerator. I keep seldom used bottles like hot sauce or browning liquid in a plastic bin that I kept from the old one and push it to the back of the refrigerator. It is out of the way until I need something. There is a large butter storage compartment on the top of the door with a clear cover. Wouldn't it be nice if it kept it at spreading temperature instead of rock hard?

Our doors have handles that are about 5 ft. long or longer. They do not show fingermarks and are easy to grasp. The doors and side walls on the outside are a textured black that do not show any marks either. I read that the filters cost quite a bit, but compared to bottled water, they are no doubt a bargain. Our city water is pretty good so we may not have to change it often.

This refrigerator cost less than our 18 year old model GE (which still worked) and has a little more space even though we are limited by our cabinetry. We no doubt spent lots on electricity as the gaskets were getting soft.

I like the energy savings we should have as it has an energy star rating. Both sections keep right degree using the factory settings. I put an indicator into the refrigerator and it showed an ideal temperature setting. Although the manual said the factory set the setting on the middle setting, when I look at it, we had to set both on what they should have started out with. This was a simple adjustment with lighted indicators on the front of the refrigerator inside. I am so tired of writing the word "refrigerator" now that I am going to quit. I hope this one lasts as long as our old one. Then I will be nearly 90 years old so maybe this is my last purchase!