I thought it was pretty clear what you were asking about in your OP (but perhaps the title was a little confusing for people), so it just goes to show you never know where an internet discussion will roam. I think sometimes people just read the title and don't bother really reading the post or other responses and just fire away. Oh, well. Anyway, yes you are on the right track. And right to come to the permaculture forum with your quest(ion). And reading that thread has actually given me some good ideas for where to look for free stuff. My garden is new and it will need quite a bit of input for a while as far as mulch, etc. before we can be growing our own all the time. We can get truckloads of free mulch at the city dump, but that is about 20 miles away and my husband's little pickup can barely handle the weight. But the other day I watched the "greens" collection truck go by. It scooped up the cans, emptied them into the hopper, and it looked as though stuff was being chewed up as it went down. It didn't just go down, it kind of went in gradually and was turning and churning a bit (my house is slightly above street level, so my vantage point allowed this observation). So now I'm wondering if they would stop at my house and just empty their truck in my front yard if I asked 'em. We pay so much for our waste service, and we barely take out the trash twice a month, so they should give us something for our money, right? Anyway, I'll be on the lookout for free organic matter from now on! Jeanne

I've had my SZ since '99 when the price tag didn't bother me. Now, its up there. I have a few friends who are realtors who tell me I've added to the value of my house as SubZero has such a great reputation. Even with the mechanical complexity of the ice on the door, I really haven't had any failures once I figured out that you have to switch from a Culligan Reverse Osmosis water purifier to a Kinetico Quickflow for the Ice maker to keep from overflowing. With the low water pressure of the Culligan, I had to manually defrost the icemaker when I tested to see if the freezer really can go below zero. Back in those times, the SZ was the only fridge with ice on the door that consumed less than 900Kw/H a year thanks to the air lock on the door dispenser and having two separate compressors for fridge and freezer. My house is solar, so that was very important to me. If water on the door dispenser stops flowing, you set the fridge temp below 34 and it froze. You can't leave salad stuff outside the crisper even at 34. It will freeze and decay quickly. Same thing with fruits like strawberries. They go bad faster if they start to freeze. My beer has never been as cold and delicious since it started resting in the meat drawer. Your mileage may vary. My other appliances are a beloved F&P dishdrawer and an AGA cooker. But, thats another thread.

Well, I must admit that your SZ sure preserves "Horse Feathers" well, and it is kind of you to share your "More than adequate supply of same, with those of us here In GW! SZ mentions as one of 3 things needed to "keep food fresh" is precise temp control and they mention their +/1 degree F~~~~~well that's just half as good as the JA which is +/- 0.5 F. One can not control the temps of the various compartments, (meat, veggie & Chrisper) in the SZ as they can with the JA, (at least my model of JA), and in fact Consumer Reports mentioned that fact, as other fridges do have that capability besides my JA. CR also mentioned that the SZ is more noisy than some other fridges, (maybe that goes along with the horse feathers)? I grow my own boysenberries, and they keep very well in my JA fridge. The JA fridge3 has the "Climatezone" storage has automatic humidity control which does not require a $50 filter that must be changed every year (a la SZ). My JA also has "Built in" diagnostics. It checks every fan, thermistor, defrost sensors, compressor speeds, etc etc, sooooo if I ever do have a problem, I can "Nail it down" to which part is giving problems and not call a repair company to first "come out, look see", then make a guess as to what part is needed, then order the part and then come back. Well, It used to be SZ was , as you posted, "in a class of its own"~~~~but that was "Pricewise ONLY"~~~~now the other fridges have caught up with SZ's prices, as I posted here, probably round 7 years ago, ~~~so now folks hafta pay thru the nose on just about any built in fridge, thanks to SZ! Gary

hvtech42 - I'm looking at refrigerators now and agree with you. My situation is my almost 20 year old KA side by side is still working fine (has some very minor cosmetic issues). But I'm replacing my kitchen floor. So - if I ever want to replace the KA before it dies - now's the time to do it. When I look at the build quality of refrigerators (at least the stuff I can see and handle - drawers - shelves and the like) - the current SZs seem to have the build quality of my old KA. The new KAs are a lot worse. Some models of some brands like Samsung and LG seem to have better build quality than KA. So I am confused at this point. Also - when I got price quotes - the cheapest SZ quote was $7400 for a 36" side by side. Is that reasonable? I find it kind of maddening that getting price quotes on these things is like pulling teeth. Nothing on line or over the phone. I don't have problems getting price quotes on $75k cars or $1000/night hotel rooms. I think the notion that if you have to ask what something costs you can't afford it is ridiculous. Most people who wind up having money to spend didn't get there by being cost-oblivious. I live in a somewhat higher end house - but don't give a hoot about resale. I'm in my late 60's - and figure my next stop is a nursing home.or grave. My primary concern is build quality that leads directly to reliability. In the end - a refrigerator isn't a design statement. It's a utility stream. I have never had a refrigerator fail. Not even the low end harvest gold one in my first condo. That I gave to my late mother in the mid-1970's when I remodeled my kitchen (it was still humming when that house was sold in 2005). Or the super cheap ($175) bare bones absolute bottom of the line 20 year old one from Montgomery Ward that we use in our garage to store things like beer and water. Have needed some repairs on ice makers over the decades - but that seems to be par for the course with any brand. Refrigerators that fail seems to be a new phenomenon in recent years. Is my perception wrong? Finally - when I moved where I live now (almost 20 years ago) - there was no outfit that serviced high end appliances in terms of warranty work. Now there is. And it's the same outfit that will do the warranty work not only on your $10k SZ - but someone else's $800 Whirlpool. First come - first served. This alone would give me pause about a SZ (the repair outfit in question isn't the worst in town - but it's far from the best either - the best today IMO doesn't do any warranty work at all now). It's kind of like paying for concierge medical care - and having to wait a long time in waiting rooms to see doctors who are also seeing lots of Medicaid patients. Perhaps this sounds snobby. But - if I paid such a large amount of money for an appliance - I would expect not only a superior product - but superior service as well on the hopefully few and far between occasions when I needed it. Robyn