rubyvine, Summit has fridges from various sources (relabeled) so it will be hard to ascertain loudness unless you go by each individual model and even then you may not find someone who has bought it and installed it in a typical kitchen and is signed in somewhere reachable. Fro example, I know the tall thin bottom freezer CP-171 model fridge is quiet. I've heard it operating ful blast and under various other conditions. ((Btw, this one was also available from Home Depot as a Vestfrost 350 or 375 model, and is available also from ConServ)) Ask which make the 3 drawer fridge is; whose design it was. Just for fun, ask which compressor it uses (Embraco, Danfoss, etc), and how much the fan runs. You'll get an idea how solid the design is. The real answer sought after is user-experienced noise, the sum of many small noises, and that may be what Mark will talk about, if he has ever spent time alone with one in a closed room together. : - ) Or else he will tell you that the fridge has the same guts as some other one, which he knows better. Etc. Etc. Etc. Some manufacturers discuss their fridge noises freely and openly. On the Fagor web site you can locate the PDF for their tall 24" wide fridge and see what they say about all the possible noises. Since fridges move a coolant liquid through tubing, they can make sloshing noises, and since they have compressors they can make humming buzzing noises. Etc, etc, etc. Fagor is very open about their fridge noises. Most other fridge manufacturers are very guarded. Hoping you can locate some similar information for the 3-drawer one. HTH. -david

One thing to consider is the proportion of your total wealth that your house represents. Does the bank own the greatest portion? If so, can you cover that easily? Will the cost of a new kitchen set you back if life gets weird and you have to sell immediately? Since you're talking Perlick, you may be in the category of people who aren't worried about the price they get if they have to sell their houses in an emergency. If that's true, go ahead if it makes sense to you. If not, you'll be better off with a recognizably shaped fridge. Some people do use only undercounter refrigeration, but that tends to be in high design, minimalist spaces, where convention is out the window anyway. Perlick is known for being quiet. I have Marvel, which is not quiet. Not bad for a working kitchen, but not quiet. I don't know about the other brands, but you can stand up most bottles of wine, even opened, and big pop bottles, in the bottom drawer. Some brands have much shallower drawers. I actually think you could manage for two people, no entertaining, no buying a week's worth at a time, in four drawers/48", especially if you live where you can keep fruit and root vegetables (onions, potatoes, carrots, etc.) out of the fridge. That depends on the configuration, however. Will at least one drawer be a freezer? Two? I'm not sure that 24" is enough for refrigeration. If you go through enough chilled beverages to need a separate unit in the dining room (other than wine storage, or similar), you probably can't make it on just the 48". Also, keep in mind that you'll have to stack things, and there will be a lot of shifting things around to find them. Plus, heavy goes on the bottom. Example: Recently, I made a large dish of enchiladas. They don't do as well in containers, so I covered the baking dish and put it on the bottom of a drawer. I also bought bought vegetables to make soup, so had celery, leeks and carrots on top of it, which had to be shifted to get the dish out to put together lunch then shifted to put it back. There are some bottles of ale in the bottom drawer. Vegetables live on top of them. Stuff like that. It's fine for my secondary fridge, which is used for transitioning projects, ale, and stuff I need at the stove. It could get really old if that's all there were, however. I love my fridge drawers, but I also love the glass shelves and great lighting in my Miele all fridge that allow me to see and get at everything easily. The people who have done it are happy enough with it, but, again, they tend to be style first kinds of people. It's a no-go for function first.

No one ever commented on this. curious to know whatbyou got, how you like them, and what you use them for. also are they quiet? i am thinking about getting some for oveflow items in my kitchen remodel…

I've decided to do the same. Getting a 36" Bosch counter depth and adding in one or two drawers, which gives us all the space we need without getting into $10K+ refrigeration costs. I have never had a Kitchenaid appliance or small appliance that was durable or that performed to satisfaction, or where replacement parts were not exorbitantly priced. So I generally avoid KA/Whirlpool products. Do you need panel ready? If not, GE Café seems like a good, lower-priced option. For panelled or for a larger size, the Fisher-Paykel looked really good when I saw it in the showroom. It is 34", roomy and nicely laid out inside IMO with interior sliding compartments and temperature configurations for each level (you can even convert it into a deep freezer). It comes as a single drawer, but costs as much as GE's double drawer for less cubic feet (3.1 vs 5.7).