Best Whirlpool Bottom Mount Fridges / Refrigerators

Very efficient 5.5 star fridge with 5 year warranty for parts and Labour – I got this fridge from Joyce Mayne in Darwin, Adam was very helpful and they had to get it on special order as they don’t normally stock it. … Read more

ELECTRICITY CONSUMPTION My real world testing after one week with a Watt Meter shows 3.295Kw used, which works out to be about 0.47Kw per day, or 171Kw per year, 24Kw LESS than the fridge rating of 195Kw. (The fridge is performing better than what it is rated to.) This is in Katherine during early May with no Air cons in the house, overnight no lower than 17 degrees and during the day about 30 degrees, so if you live down south and have an Air-con going all the time, or it's winter, you could see as low as 140kw per year. At it’s current rate it will only cost roughly 40 dollars to run per year at 24c per kw. The fridge never draws more than 195w at once, and only draws this much when it runs it’s defrost cycle. When in day to day use the compressor only draws 30-40w intermittently.

TRANSPORT INFORMATION The fridge in it’s original factory box is 70x85x175cm, a fair bit bigger than it’s unboxed size, take this into account when moving it. It can be transported lying down, but it *must* be transported so that the suction line of the fridge is facing upwards. The box has a small printed label with writing that says “If transporting horizontally, this side must face down.” This also results in the lying down box being wider than it is high when transported horizontally. Be conscious of this or your fridges evaporator will fill with compressor oil, and the compressor will die early.

OBSERVATIONS It is a 'Product of India' rather than China, (although the compressor is a Chinese Jiaxipera VNB1113Y.) The box and sticker inside the fridge door says India, probably pretty hard to know how much of the parts are made where.

The general build quality seems really nice, it runs quiet and infrequently due to how well the walls are insulated. I can hardly feel any coldness on the walls or doors of the fridge. The door hinge is on the right, and it opens from the left. It doesn’t appear to be changeable to the other side. The shelf layout is nice and can be adjusted to fit a Brita water filter jug in between two shelves in the main section.

One poorly designed aspect of the fridge is that a refrigerant line coming from the condenser coil sticks out past the condenser at the back of the fridge. This means once it is out of the box, if you roll the fridge up against a wall, you can easily break the line and cause the fridge to be basically worthless. This is very bad design on the part of Whirlpool! it doesn’t appear to be necessary for it to stick out so much, and even if it was, they could make a bumper or cage that sticks out from the back of the fridge to protect it. This should be addressed in future models!

WARRANTY Make sure to register your fridge on Whirlpool’s website within 30 days of purchasing it to get your 5 year warranty! If you don’t they probably won’t give you a warranty.

FINAL THOUGHTS Great price for this fridge considering it’s warranty and limited power use. The only fridges on the market that have a higher star rating are Hisense, and they die all the time. Even Hisense know they die all the time because they only have a 2 year warranty. One of the Hisense fridges at work just died after only a couple years. Avoid Haier, Hisense, and Chiq. (The picture of the front of the fridge may look scratched but I hadn't taken off the plastic protective film yet)

I will update this if I have any issues with it.