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Need help with Beverage Fridge....

7 years ago

Hello all! Well, we received our pricing info for our home build and almost fell over when we received our appliance budget/estimate (well, heart attacks almost ensued following each allowance). We are looking to cut some costs....one area is with our beverage refrigerators. We have two planned- one in our basement design and one in an upstairs bar area.

Questions:

Can you recommend your favorite, built-in, won't cost an arm and a leg beverage fridge-- this one is for upstairs bar.
Basement bar- bev fridge here will go under the bar, but doesn't necessarily need to be be built in. We can vent the space/wall behind it and on the sides. Best, economical bev. fridge for this area? I'm thinking this one can come from amazon, costco, best-buy, etc.

Any recommendations are greatly appreciated!

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Comments (4)

5birdy
7 years ago
I really wanted a beverage fridge when we were choosing appliances for our new home build a couple years ago. Discovered they were very costly, and the reviews were horrific. We ended up choosing a french door fridge that has the extra external pull out shelf underneath the doors (above the bottom freezer). Love it! Use it exclusively for beverages. Then chose a simple inexpensive top freezer fridge to store in garage with no ice maker so freezer portion is as large as standalones. Tall beverages fit well in fridge section. Just throwing out other outside the box ideas. HTH
rococogurl
7 years ago
Built in refrigerators are very expensive. There are no inexpensive solutions for built in.

If you're not going that route there are brands like Marvel and others. Some of these can look built in. Price also depends on whether you have zones and want to store wine plus drinks or just wine.

Here's a link to the AJ Madison under counter fridge offerings.
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I should add that I'm talking about undercounter appliances in both cases. The only combo full size units I've seen (which we could put in the butler's pantry / wet bar) are very expensive. Thx!
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I know there are folks here who love Liebherr, but the one DH and I drove an hour to go see did not impress either of us at all. My favorite built-in fridges are SubZero and Thermador. I got Thermador before Subzero introduced their new line and I'm very happy. If you get an icemaker, look at where it is located in that model. Subzero puts the ice bin at the bottom in some of the freezers and I did not like that at all -- we use too much ice here in TX. I would not chose Viking for a $500 rebate. You might look at whether you can buy a package of Subzero and Wolf and qualify for a package discount -- or get your dealer to make a deal on another part of your package. As far as a beverage center, that can mean a different things to different people. Again, you might look at Subzero if you can get a package deal. I went with Perlick for fridge drawers that would be really cold for milk and juice, not just cool for sodas. They also have higher BTUs and quicker recovery of the cold temp which was important for frequently opened drawers. The drawers also make it easy to reach things -- they come to you instead of having to dig into an undercounter cave.
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I'm somewhat confused by your terminology. Typically a "wine fridge" is designed to keep red wine at ideal serving temps--somewhere between 55 and 60 degrees. Certainly some also are dual zone and thus can also cool white wine to a lower temp, usually in the mid-40's. This is different than a wine storage cellar or cabinet, designed to allow wine to age properly over long periods of time. They are usually run in the 55-60 range, for reds and whites alike. This contrasts to what you'd want for pop, water, juice etc--there you'd want typical refrigerator temps, more like 35-37 degrees. That is too cold to server any kind of decent white, though certainly some folks like whites that cold. So first job would be to decide what you're looking for.
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A cooler cools, but not really cold enough for beer and soft drinks. They are designed to just cool things down, like wine. If you want something that will really chill down other beverages, you will need a refrigerator instead. The cost is WAY higher, but it's because they have actual refrigeration capability and not just cooling.
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plllog
7 years ago
One thing to keep in mind is noise. The less expensive the fridge, the noisier it'll be.

I agree that the biggest cost savings will be to avoid built-ins. For your bar, you can put in a free standing bar fridge in a space made to accommodate it. You can add some trim to make it look really nice. Some can also be placed behind doors. That might or might not save on costs depending on how deep your cabinets are (if they'll be deep enough without adding expense) and the price of the door vs. panels vs. built-in stainless. You do need some air venting, so check the specs, but you can probably just have a on the bottom edge for that.

Definitely, if you have room for at least a small fridge in the basement, like an "apartment sized" one, or even a full sized one which could accommodate overflow for a big party (or just deli platters), it will save you a lot of money. You can get that at the big box store. :)
smm5525
7 years ago
We purchased an expensive bev fridge and it was still noisy. Ended up returning it. I gave up and will just use the regular fridge and outside fridge

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