Great question in the title. Great thread so far. When you encapsulate a computer, heat accumulates (temperature rises) since air flow cannot convect and take heat elsewhere. Same for a fridge, but worse by several orders of magnitude because Humidity in your room's air prevents the fridge from using evaporation efficiently as a cooling mechanism in combination with moving air, convecting or fanned. When the fridge is surrounded by a five-sided box, i.e. built in. I agree with the above posts, all of them. Plllog was the first to point out the heat capsule effect. Clinresga was the first to point out that substantive differences exist. The big one is that you are creating a moist hot greenhouse (dark, not lit up) if you enclose a fridge, since it spills humidity out from its guts as per design. Humidity enters the fridge when you open and close its door and high RH room air enters, gets cooled and drops its humidity inside the cooled compartment -- and this has to be spilled back out into the room air. Managing moisture is the dilemma. How to get rid of h2O, in a five-sided box. Heating and cooling are easy to do. You still need to plan for the excess heat to escape somewhere, and that ALSO costs more money when the fridge is built-in or fully integrated. Cost of raw materials is a minor concern, as in many situations where systems are complex. I have a long post in another thread that answers some of the technical questions about how heat is exchanged. Linked to below. These are my findings, and I am not a refrigeration engineer. I am signed in to a refrigeration engineers forum and have participated in discussions there. I agree with the basic question, as to trying to know what a built in does that how, so that we as buyers can pick and choose and Also Help Design the Devices we want next to have. HTH -david p.s. a few other threads: "Volume of air needed to operate a small manual refrigerator" at http://ths.gardenweb.com/forums/load/appl/msg031555471649.html "Cheating the system: fridges" : "...if you box in a fridge, you may be asking for trouble..." at http://ths.gardenweb.com/forums/load/appl/msg0822321916417.html Can I Panel a Samsung Refrigerator?" : "...frost on gaskets..." at http://ths.gardenweb.com/forums/load/appl/msg1212390218791.html Here is a link that might be useful: technical answer, why fridges re-generate humidity

I had a horrible experience here in Canada with Cemrco Home Depots extended warrenty plan. will keep this as short as possible but may write way more than I should cause I am still angry over the way that I have been treated and am still being treated by Home Depot and their outsourcing to other companies to deliver merchandise and cover the extended warranty. It started wth the washer on a washer dryer combo breaking down. It took three weeks to get the first repair person in the door after taking several days off work to have it serviced. After that it took another 4 weeks supposedly to have parts ordered to fix the appliance. The parts arrive but because of holidays the repair person is on vacation. When scheduled to come in the repair person's technician's truck breaks down. The main repair person promises to come the following day. He apparently has a heart attack. His wife arranges for another technican to come in on the sturday He comes in and does not have all the parts. He shows up on the moday and cannot get the machine started but tell us to wait a half hour and it should reset. He leaves. We wait the time and try it it does not staert. I call for the 25 time to cemerco. I state the machine is not working They say they need to contact the technician who tells them it is working. I complain to home depot the following week and get a call from comerco that they will replace the unit. It takes time for me and my wife to schedule time off to go to home depot to reclaim the credit. Comerco needs to be open and their hours are 8am-5:30pm. This is my four day off work. Comerco is closed for a provincial holiday. the service counter help says that he will give it to the supervisor to look after. My wife shows up the next day to pay for delivery and the old unit to be taken away and the supervisor knows nothing of this and says she and I need to show up in the prescribed hours. She gets pissed but gets things resolved. To rub salt into the wounds the day the new appliance is to be delivered it does not show up. Moral of my story if you live in Canada do not buy from Home Depot.

A better name for The Best Home Furnishing Company is "The Worst Home Furnishings Company" when it comes to customer service and standing behind their products. Don’t walk away from this brand, RUN QUICKLY! My wife and I live in Minnesota, but have a park model home in Estero, FL. We purchased a Best Home Furnishings recliner in February of 2016 from Kanes Furniture in Naples, FL. Our home in FL is only occupied for two weeks in November, and the months of February and March each year. When we arrived in November of 2018, we noticed that the fabric was cracking on the headrest. Our home is air conditioned all year round, has proper humidity, the windows are tinted, and we have shades that are closed when we are gone. Furniture could not have a better environment to sit in. I took the back of the chair off in November of 2018 and took it to Kanes Furniture where we purchased the chair. My goal was to simply replace the back. We were informed that model had been discontinued so no back was available. That should have been my first clue to how Best Home Furnishings handles a chair that has problems……just discontinue it. The next thing we were told is the chair is out of warranty. I explained that I understand there is a calendar warranty, but further explained how little the chair had been used. I felt that the company should stand behind it due to the little wear and tear this chair had actually incurred, and I was sure there was a problem with the material used to cover this model chair. I totaled up the number of days that anyone could have sat in the chair, and it was 189. We had two Flexsteel recliners in our home in Minnesota that provided over 30 years of trouble free service. Speaks volumes to the old saying, “you get what you pay for”. Kane’s Furniture at least listened to me and provided the phone number of manufacturer of the chair,The Best Home Furnishings Company in Ferdinand, Indiana. (at least this was where my call went) When you call with a complaint the first thing you will find is the people who answer the phone have been trained to get rid of you quickly. They have no intention to let you talk to anyone of authority. After a firm back and forth with the lady that answered the phone she finally told me “I am just doing my job”. Really? Discarding a customer with a concern about your product is your job? Fortunately, I was able to push through to someone up the ladder named Pat. Three voice mails and a week later Pat did call me back. From their website and years in business I was sure I would find Best Home Furnishings a reputable company that would be concerned about this product’s failure and would want to have a discussion and find common ground…... NOT THE CASE. Once on the phone with Pat, I repeated what I told Kane’s Furniture and assumed Pat would be familiar with this problem and work with me to find a fair solution……not a chance. Pat is very well trained to hear your concern and then repeat "sorry, it is out of warranty and we can’t help you” multiple times until the discussion ends. He made no effort to keep us as a customer. It was obvious he just wanted to discard us as quickly as he could. The lack of finding a phone number on their website should have been a excellent indicator to me of their customer service. If it is there, they have done a good job of hiding it. Speak with a customer, good heavens, that’s a concept from the 20th century!! The only manner of contact I could find on the site was to email them. Before you purchase any product made by The Best Home Furnishings Company from a furniture store, you may want to visit the Better Business Bureau website and read about them. The BBB shows 32 complaints about this company for various reasons. In addition, on Google they are only able to achieve a 3.6 star rating. I have been self employed for over 40 years, am 65 years old and do not make a habit of writing negative reviews. The Best Home Furnishing Company brags about being in business since 1962 and quality of their furniture building process. It is obvious to me that the original owners of this company are no longer active as I am sure they would have met this problem with a completely different attitude….the attitude that cared about customer satisfaction, quality furniture, and allowed The Best Home Furnishings Company to grow and prosper. Lastly, I will “venture a guess” the reason they took the “cut & run” attitude with me is there are probably hundreds or thousands of customers across America just like me that have a Best Chair with the same defective cover. Class Action Lawsuit time? Let's band together and send a message. When a quality company has a problem with a product, they either extend the warranty or have a recall to make sure people get taken care of. Not run from the problem like The Best Home Furnishings Company is doing. Most successful companies want repeat customers. Shame on you! Dave Nolander, Albert Lea MN

@rpsinfoman, that's exactly the point. Everything I've said is just my opinion. It doesn't include a million dollar research budget, or extensive testing... All of my opinion is just based of my thoughts of using their washing machines. I wouldn't say LG, is the worst washing machine in the world. And any machine will clean clothes to some level. However... If I was buying a machine for my family, I'd go with anything but a LG based off what I've seen from using one. Nothing can frustrate someone more, than a washing machine that constantly fills with Cold Water for at least 1/4 of a cycle, no matter what temperature is selected. Or... A machine, that can cause massive cotton pilling by using a Permanent Press cycle for a load of T-Shirts. Or... A machine, that somehow manages to drip water into a fabric softener dispenser, causing it to dispense into the main wash. Honestly. I bet a lot of people are more than happy with there LG Machines. Most people could care less about the Launduring Process, and simply set the machine and walk away... Never observing what's happening. I think 99.9% of the LG Owners probably fit into that mold. And that's fine. Laundry is a chore for most people, and they couldn't care how the final result is. But.... If I was purchasing a machine to clean clothes for my own family. I'd avoid the LG if I could. I have higher standards than most. I just wouldn't want one. I know I probably sound spoiled saying that... But I think they are inferior to other brands. From time to time at Lowes... A 2.2/3 Cubic Feet Whirlpool or Frgidaire front-loader will appear. I always tell myself... I bet those do a pretty damn good job. They remind me so well of Asko & Miele machines. That's what I'm talking about. You don't have to spend a million bucks for quality. It's out there, but... In my mind, LG isn't it.