white goods

Our fridge freezer has so many new ways of giving.

It came with the house and was/is a high-end Siemens device. The original one lasted about 5 years and 2 days, so it was out of warranty when it failed. The refrigerator part stopped making things cold. It's my first ever fridge failure. We had a Zanussi for 25 years.

The expensive man who we'd called out explained that the cost of fitting a new compressor was almost the same as the cost of a replacement fridge unit. And if they replaced the compressor they could not warranty the resultant device. So much for making repairable white goods.

We looked at replacements and because our fitted kitchen uses 'hinges' instead of 'sliders' the choice was very limited, particularly as we needed the doors to align on the replacement. 

We found a choice of one device that could fit the bill and we had two very nice technicians from John Lewis come along to fit it. I'd wondered about doing it myself, but when I realised how long these two industrious guys took to puzzle it all out, I was relieved to have paid the extra to have the new machine installed.

The thing is, it's a stress purchase. If I'd somehow got a new device which had more functions / lights /shelves then I could have persuaded myself that it was an upgrade.

But no, it's a downgrade. The shelves look cheaper. We actually reused some inserts from the older fridge for purely cosmetic reasons. It's impossible to stand milk upright in the main section. The moulded-in shelf stays are not suitable for sensible shelf spacing.

At Christmas we had the drama of not being able to fit everything inside. It has a smaller capacity than the one we replaced. The Munich-based manufacturers advertise on telly with a bearded man fitting a large marrow into a fridge. 

It's all lies. I want to shout at the TV.

The fridge just doesn't have the capacity. I could understand if they'd built it to be more energy efficient (e.g. with thicker insulation) but no, it's still got a terrible energy efficiency rating.

So every few weeks we have a little therapeutic rant about it. And today, I couldn't even get a litre of gold top milk to stand up in the door. 

It was too tall.