Prompted by the latest posts here, we paid a visit to our local distributor who in the past, has been super helpful and nice to deal with. They did not have the new columns yet. But did show me some of the capabilities in their freezer bottom unit. Note that I am just passing on what we were told :). The Mastercool controls look both cool and not so cool :). On the positive front, you get to set the temp and humidity of each bit electronically. I seem to recall on the Bosch, etc it is those plastic sliders. Those sliders donÂt seem all the functional to me as they are easy to bang into/change. On the down side, she had to touch the controls multiple times to get the system to detect. A real switch to control them would have been better than a touch control that is fussy. The main thing my wife liked, and someone should verify that Bosch series donÂt do, is that you there is a bucket where the ice falls into that can be slid left and right. In doing so, you can then use the entire larger slider under it to fill with ice for parties and such. On doors being easier to mount, she said that once the panels are mounted to the door grid, they are hung and then can be adjusted in that way using some mechanism on the door. She said the time to do this is 75 minutes (!). With the other units, she said the panel needs to be taken on and off to adjust the panels and that is what takes a lot of time. The door panels had heavy stainless rails into which the glass buckets hung. You could push the glass bucket up and remove them without removing the slides which hold not. Seemed nice to have them be this way. On wifi connection, in our case, it is a useful thing in that it can detect unit failure or door being left open. We will be having the unit in our vacation house and hate to come to it after a month of being gone, just to find everything gone bad due to unit failure. Not a huge deal mind you, but useful. I asked if there is a charge and she said "not currently." Not sure what that means as far as them charging in the future. I asked her the cost and she gave me an MSRP of $12,000 for dual 30 inch units. I seem to recall that the Gagg was less than $10K so this is quite a premium for the few features. Availability apparently is pretty poor for the freezer. She said someone just ordered a set and the freezer is scheduled for October! Yikes. Overall, it seems that they have done some homework on refining everything around the core of the unit. I donÂt feel that they have created enough value to go beyond the Gagg unit. But for people where price is no object, I think they should seriously consider Miele. We are not quite in that category although close when it comes to our kitchen remodel :).

The thermador columns are also my leading contender and after looking at the 18" freezer in person (and bringing some empty containers with me to test out) I am going to try to adjust my kitchen design to fit in the 24". I've never had a side by side before but its been drilled into my head from my sister (she has a smaller sxs) that the freezer space is terrible. I have 3 children 13, 9, 7 (2 of whom are boys but the girl can certainly hold her own eating wise - especially when friends are over). We currently have a "regular" sized fridge and also have an additional freezer which is currently packed. one trip to Sam's or Costco and I'm creatively stuffing frozen items into any available nook and cranny. My opinion is to try and fit the larger freezer into your space. As you said, your kids will only get bigger and eat more and have more friends over! Good luck.

Every install is a little different. If the units are already delivered, cabinets are done correctly, are square and your getting the standard S/S doors the install only takes me around 90 minutes. If the units need to carried up flights of stairs, the cabinets are installed badly or are not square. If the panels are Highly Customized, etc. the install can take longer. As to cost there are other contributing factors that can make the costs go up. Is the installer picking them up and delivering? How far away is the delivery. Is it in a high rise building or condo where the elevator use is restricted to certian hours? Were the custom panels built correctly? Of course each of these items will make my price go up. The main thing I can't stress enough is that the instructions MUST be followed . I learned that on the 1st set I installed and I haven't really run into any problems since. If it's the 1st time for an installer I would say the actual install will be 2-3 hours if they follow the instructions. It will be much longer and more frustrating if they don't read and follow the instructions. For your part make sure your cabinets are correct and the power and water lines are in the correct place as per the instructions and spec sheets. Also read the instructions yourself so you know they are installing them correctly.

I didn't like the Thermador options either. The question to ask is if the SS door panels come with predrilled holes. If not you can use anything you want (though use an appliance rated handle - we had to get new handles because our cabinet rated handles broke). If the panels come predrilled figure out how far apart the holes are (go to an appliance store that has the configuration you are looking at and measure if Thermador doesn't state it). Then figure out how far apart the holes are on the handle you are looking at - you just have to find a handle that needs holes drilled at the predrilled spots on your doors. We have custom panels on our columns but we are using handles from Cliffside Industries. They are great.