'found' room in my freezer....

**sabrelvssammy** · 02-19-2009, 11:26 AM

so i just finished cleaning out the fridge and freezer....(i know what i got...YEA!)...

so anyway...while i had out all the drawers and bins and stuff i noticed all the 'wasted' room these 'bins' were taking up (i'm talking the freezer here...not fridge...i NEED my fruit/veggie bins)...

my freezer (side/side) has a 'giant' ice-maker (that we don't use...heck...it's been here a year and i never managed to even hook it up...dh HAD to have it...do you think he used it??? haha....it's not even hooked up....what a waste...oh well)....and a big bin at the bottom that pulls out and is kinda 'curved' to fit the shape of the bottom of the freezer...

so while these things were out i'm looking at all the wasted space these things are taking up....and i decided to not put them back in... now with the 'giant' ice bin gone that was sitting there with a single ice-cube tray in it that NOONE used anyway.... i have a top shelf that is double the height as before...and with the bottom bin gone i have an actual 'square' space of usage (almost like a whole other shelf) instead of this 'rounded slide-in bin' that was bigger and bulkier than totally necessary....

so i put all the food back in (it was over-stuffed before) and there-in was the problem...i couldn't find anything and was having to stand there with the door open way too long.....well i actually had to add 4 water jugs to take up space...(hey-it's a big fridge...dh was trying to throw around his 'manlyhood' when we made this purchase...) ugh....

moral of the story....check out those bins if you have them...they are really space-wasters.....

**Early Bird** · 02-19-2009, 12:10 PM

MY DH also insisted on an ice maker. It gets used sometimes, but I really don't think it's worth the space it takes up. However, that's one of the battles that I'll let DH win...

**Spirit Deer** · 02-19-2009, 12:15 PM

We don't have bins in our side by side. What we found is if things got too crammed in on the shelves, the air did not circulate correctly and things didn't stay as cold as they needed to. So I went the opposite route you have and ADDED bins. I was very lucky some years ago and found two aluminum drawers in an old fridge at the local recycling center. They're lightweight, sturdy, have straight sides on all four sides, and won't crack from the cold. I used one to corral stuff like bags of cheese and other things that tend to slip around where they shouldn't and block air flow, and also to keep all that stuff together so I don't have to stand there searching. Our fridge has a door alarm to alert us if the door stays open too long, and it's annoying to have the thing beeping at me. I like the drawer I added because I can take the whole thing out easily and set it on the counter to look for something. The drawer is the perfect size to allow air flow on all sides while still letting us use as much room as possible. We lose a little bit of space but feel it's compensated for because things stay colder and the air flow is better.

I had the second drawer from the 'set' under the kitchen sink for ten years but finally got a wire pull-out installed there so I could put the aluminum drawer into the side by side. (Don't ask me why it took so long. I had good intentions.

} Now it's keeping stuff like bacon packages and fake seafood packages under control. Love that!

We love our ice maker, use it almost every day, and would never buy a fridge without one!

I love reading forums to see how differently others do and see things than how we are. Neither of us is wrong, just have different approaches to the same thing.

Congrats on freeing up space. I love when that happens, too.

**sabrelvssammy** · 02-19-2009, 01:00 PM

well i am talking about only removing the bins in the freezer....the fridge still has its bins.... and you're right the fridge needs to be 'full' but not packed where there is no air-circulation....

the freezer however..more is better is the rule.... stuff that can stay packed against each other will stay cooler longer ..as long as you don't cover the vents you can pack away to your heart's content...

that's where i took the bins out...and i actually started with trying to put baskets in there (like you said-so i could pull them out) but i found that they take up way too much room...so i went back to the stacking method but i changed it around to make much more sense....now i know exactly where something is so i can just grab it.....

**Spirit Deer** · 02-19-2009, 03:44 PM

I'm talking about our side by side freezer, too, not the fridge.

The problem we have in there is if things slide to the back. Our shelves don't go all the way to the back of the freezer, so when things slide against the back wall, it blocks the air circulation. I can always tell when that's happened because the stuff in the door gets too soft. The drawers I added stop things from sliding around. Bags of cheese seemed to be the biggest offenders, since they're slippery and don't stack that well. I also like the drawers because for me, it's easier to stand things up instead of stacking them, so they're easier to find when the drawer gets pulled out to look through.

I'm sure a lot depends on how each fridge is designed, and how the air circulation is intended to work.

I've started drinking ice water with every meal. We've always used our ice maker a lot, but now it's especially appreciated. The ice maker tray also makes just the right amount for the small cooler we take every every time we go out of town, to keep our pop and lunch cold so we save money not buying meals and pop while we're gone. And we use it to make ice for camping, transferring the ice from the ice maker tray to bags that go in the chest freezer till we have enough for our camping coolers. Are you sure you wouldn't use yours if it was connected? NOT saying you're wrong to take it out, just wondering.

**sabrelvssammy** · 02-19-2009, 05:14 PM

no I wouldn't use it definately...i hate cold water and i hate ice...(i drink my water lukewarm...(gross right?)

we had an ice-maker on our last fridge and i bet i didn't use it once in the 10yrs we had it....
we when pack a cooler i just throw in the jugs of frozen water...(i have all kinds of sizes)....

dh doesn't care either...he just grabs water from the tap or tea from the fridge....

it's not like i couldn't just stick the tray back in if we ever decided to hook the contraption up...i didn't rip out the guts or anything...just took the tray out and i have it stored in a nice safe place high up on the laundry room shelf...

**Spirit Deer** · 02-19-2009, 08:24 PM

Interesting about the ice.

Sounds like your new arrangement is going to work out great for you.

**sabrelvssammy** · 02-19-2009, 08:55 PM

i think so....it doesn't hurt to try it out....

**Debbie-cat** · 02-19-2009, 08:57 PM

I had a freezer/fridge like that before and I HATED it. There was so much wasted space with those darn bins. Good for you for finding a solution!!!

**gardening momma** · 02-19-2009, 10:12 PM

When we had a side by side, it just had shelves, and maybe a bin at the bottom. It had an ice and water dispenser, but I used the ice much more than the water. Now we're at a different house and have an ancient fridge with freezer on top, with ice maker (no water) and I don't miss the water at all. I also don't miss the side by side because we had problems with it--things in the fridge next to the divider wall would freeze, but I was afraid to turn the freezer down and have things get too warm in there.

We use tons of ice daily, so I'd hate to have to go back to refilling ice trays.

**gardening momma** · 02-19-2009, 10:15 PM

Oh, and thanks, Spirit Deer, about the mention about the air circulation at the back. It's something I hadn't thought of checking. Our freezer is divided pretty evenly by one shelf, plus the ice maker is there, and everything is pretty much just shoved in.

**sabrelvssammy** · 02-19-2009, 10:26 PM

make sure you don't cover the vents in the back...mine has vents at the top (behind where the ice tray went) and at the bottom....

i shoved 2 water jugs in the bottom all the way to the back...they don't go all the way to the top so the air can get out of the vents and shoot over the top of them....

i have accidently covered vents in the freezer before too and it can really mess up the freezing.....

**phoeny_moonstar** · 02-20-2009, 02:59 AM

Where I used to live I had a side-by-side freezer, and for the life of me we could never find enough room for anything. We eventually went out and bought an upright freezer in addition to the fridge/freezer combo just to be able to stockpile food.

**Spirit Deer** · 02-20-2009, 08:10 AM

We love our side by side! The one we had prior to this one didn't hold much, it's true. It was enough when we only had two or three kids, but when we added the last five it wasn't nearly big enough. When that one died, I didn't even shop around. I found an appliance dealer and told him I wanted the biggest side by side on the market, and that was the one. (There are much larger ones available now.) Then I asked if I could get one without the drop-down door in the fridge door, because it was an extra $50. He said we could, but it would take two weeks. We could get the one with the door immediately. I told him I'd take the one they had, with the door in the door. At that time, we had eight kids, no fridge, and were buying milk ten gallons at a time. We needed that fridge, more than we needed that $50! So they brought the fridge and now we love having the little extra door. It's so handy for milk and other beverages and then we don't have to open the big door to get that stuff out. Funny how things turn out sometimes, when the thing you never wanted turns out to be one of the things you like the most. Kinda like my walk-in pantry, but that's another story. (I got a million of 'em!)

We don't use the water dispenser on ours either. It's supposed to dispense cold water but it has to run so long to get cold it's not worth it, particularly since there's no drain. But the ice maker does get used.

We have a chest freezer to go along with the side by side. We bought that eons ago when we were still buying beef and pork on the hoof. It's sure been reliable, especially considering how many times the poor thing has been moved. It's been in constant use since 1976. I don't think the new stuff is built to last that long.