Refrigerators

Refrigerator rows were organized by where the freezer sits and by interior volume. A top-freezer cabinet, a bottom-freezer cabinet, a side-by-side, and a French-door cabinet were different shelves.

Where the freezer sits

A top-freezer puts the coldest compartment above the food you open most. A bottom-freezer puts fresh food at eye level and frozen food in a drawer. A side-by-side splits the width, so both doors are narrower, which is the one that fits a tight galley. A French-door cabinet uses two fresh-food doors over a freezer drawer. Built-in bottom-freezers and built-in side-by-sides had their own rows, separate from the freestanding cabinets of the same shape.

Volume bands on the old shelf

Frost-free top-freezer models were filed in bands of a few cubic feet: under 10, 12 to 13, 14 to 15, 16 to 17, 18 to 19, 20 to 21, and 22 and above. Several bands were split again into glass shelves and wire shelves. Manual-defrost compacts ran from 2 cubic feet and under through 8 cubic feet and above. Those filters now open this page.

The cubic-foot figure is the whole interior, freezer included. A 20-cubic-foot top-freezer and a 20-cubic-foot French door do not hand you the same fresh-food space. A water dispenser and deep door bins come out of the fresh-food number. Measure the doorway, the hinge swing, and the depth with the doors open before you treat the band as a fit.

Compacts and wine coolers

Compact refrigerators and wine coolers were separate rows, not sizes inside the full-height list. A compact often needs open air at the back and sides. Closing one into a cabinet with no vent can cook the compressor. A wine cooler holds a drinking temperature, not a food-freezer temperature, so it does not replace either compartment of a kitchen refrigerator.