The manufacturers have different ways of measuring and accounting for space -- like one measures to the wall and one measures to the end of a shelf. I'm told they don't necessarily reflect usable space. Even if they did, you are talking about a tiny fraction of an inch down the back or side. When you are talking about a cubic foot or less, you may well find that the one with the smaller stated size has more usable space. I think that's what you ought to look at -- how well the space looks like it will hold the things you need and make them easily available to you. You do lose a little space in the columns because you have basically one more wall -- one on each side of the fridge and the freezer (all exterior walls) as opposed to a wall on each side and one (sometimes thinner) between the fridge and freezer.

I have the Thermador columns. Mine are 30 and 18. If you have the space for a 24" freezer, I'd go for it. I'm happy enough with the 18" in the kitchen, but we do have another freezer.

The Thermadors are great looking, well-lit, well arranged -- love the higher bottom drawer. They are virtually silent, chill well, have a super chill that is great. I love the full-extension drawers and that the door only has to be at 90 degrees open to allow the drawers to open fully. I think the space is very well designed and utilized. I didn't like SZ's ice maker at the very bottom - not good for a tall person with a back and neck issues and Texas summers. I really like the ice drawer in the Thermador right in the center although I wasn't sure about it when I first saw it.

I didn't have the option of 54", so I didn't really compare a pair of SZ 700's. They were the only SZ'z I liked and the choices I had didn't work as well for me. I can't say anything negative about Thermador though. I really love mine.

eleeny- do you need a water filter for your icemaker? If you're concerned about the water you could probably put a filter somewhere on the copper feed line and conceal it in a cabinet. Our copper line comes up underneath the freezer from the basement so we could put a filter down there if we wanted. Or maybe you'd prefer to install a filter on the cold water line coming to your kitchen that way the cold water coming out of your kitchen faucet is filtered too.

lascatx has good advice on usable space as opposed to total volume. I don't know if things have improved but one dealer told me a few years back that some manufacturers measure the interior volume of the refrigerator by calculating how much liquid it would hold if filled to capacity.

I look forward to commenting on how my Thermador's perform. Right now, as I wait for the project to begin, all I can comment on is why I bought them (30" frig and 18" freezer)...

Like Lascatx, I didn't want to give up 54" to cold storage. I wanted a good sized frig and a small-ish freezer (will add a good manual defrost deep freeze at some point for long term food storage if we need it. Right now, we don't). I figured I could get that with the 30 frig and 18 freezer (no ice/water in door). So I didn't really look at the 27" SZ columns much.

The Thermador 30" frig has lots of space for produce. Many models essentially only have one level of drawers (plus a thinner drawer on top) and they are often less than full depth. The Thermador has two good sized drawers plus a thinner drawer on top and the two bottom ones run the full depth of the frig. And like lascatx says - they are full extension! If we start overflowing these drawers, we'll be the healthiest family west of the Mississippi!

The drawers are higher up than nearly every other frig I looked at bar the bottom freezers. Some frig's even put the handles for the drawers at the bottom of the drawer rather than the top, so you have to bend over even further to open it. Duh! We're tall, and this mattered to me a lot, especially after having a bottom freezer frig in our last place where I never had to bend over for a carrot.

I nixed all the sxs models because I needed my frig on the left and the freezer on the right, both with hinges on the right. Strangely, there are no sxs's like that. =)

And a few other reasons: quiet, don't have to wrestle the door to open it, good lighting, shelves go high, hadn't heard of a lot of service issues.

These are the appliances I am most excited about!

Thanks so much for the info on the Thermadors! I'm liking them more and more. They really are beautiful sleek machines. It's great to hear that people are happy with the interior too. I think they've just risen to the top of my list.

Another stupid question from someone who's never owned a built-in: Do you have to vacuum the compressor of all the built-in refrigerators/freezers? Every 3-6 months?! How much trouble is it? I noticed that the Thermador columns' compressor is inside at the bottom. I think the SZ's are exterior, right? Does that make a difference in how easy/hard they are to clean? Does the interior compressor stay cleaner than exterior? Does the task blow dust up over your food if the compressor is interior? I assume that I can do this myself, right? (It's not some type of maintenance that I have to hire a company to do periodically?) What about a standard 48" built-in side-by-side like the GE Monogram -- do those have compressors that need regular cleaning too?

I'd stay FAR, far away from the GE Monograms. Ours had to go back JUST AFTER the warranty was up.

We have the Miele columns and I LOVE them