Refrigerator follies

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Joined: 14 Feb 2006
Age: 50
Gender: Male
Posts: 614

26 Dec 2006, 2:53 pm

It's amazing, you walk into a store with $600 cash in hand, and nobody wants to sell you a fridge!! !

Well, I spent all this morning searching for the refrigerator I wanted. Being obsessive about appliances, I had specifically determined what I wanted. I didn't just go in a store and say "gimme a fridge" I looked at several makes for a 16-14 cubic foot fridge that was energy star compliant, and found several models that were...only problem is that nobody carried the models in their stores!

First stop, Best Buy, who was actually advertising the Frigidaire model in their flyer for $449. The flyer even said a free ice machine with a mail in card. Bust! They were out of them already, and couldn't order anymore till mid January, and by then, the free ice machine offer was no more good.

Second Stop, Sears: They had all three fridges I had picked out, GE, whirlpool/kenmore, and the Fridigaire, but none were the energy star compliant model. The sales rep, instead of asking if I wanted to order the model I wanted, actually just told me to go to Lowe's...so I did!

Third Stop, Lowes: They had a non-energy star whirlpool on the floor in black with stainless-steel doors...looked good That one was only $399 and had an ice maker. But it wasn't energy star compatible, and had a bottom coil, not a rear coil. I thought for sure they could order the energy star one, but I waited close to 45 minutes for a sales rep, but nobody seemed to want to help some longhair hippie looking kid in a t-shirt and jeans.

4th stop: Sears Scratch N dent: Well, they had LOTS of refrigerators, again, all three I picked out, in every offered color style avaliable. At least I got to take a good look at the ones I wanted and figure out which ones had the rear coils, ice machines, etc. but none of them were energy star compliant (some even used more power than the larger 18 & 20 cu/ft models)

5th stop: Home Depot: Total bust! They didn't sell anything between 8cu/ft and 20 cu/ft, and wouldn't order anything for me either.

6th stop: Lakeside Appliance. The good 'ol stanby that's never let me down comes through. I talked to Tammy there, and she answered all my questions. The G.E. model has a bottom coil, not a rear coil, so it was the Frigidaire or the Whirlpool that were left in contention. Both of those were in stock I have an ice machine for my old whirlpool I could transfer over to the new one, so we started negotiated pricing. The whirlpool 16 cu/ft was $629 without the ice machine. She was able to get me the Frigidaire 15 cu/ft for $449 (same price as Best Buy), and with delivery, and an ice machine, we worked it out to $499. It gets delivered Friday Morning I have got to install the ice machine myself, but that's no big deal.

She even let me connect my "watts Up" power meter to the store sample model. I saw that the startup surge was only 1600 watts, which means my inverter should be able to run it when the power goes out!

Gotta love locally owned and operated shops : :lol: