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Hotpoint RF175B
by bluebell190
I bought this Hotpoint refrigerator nearly three years ago now, when I moved into my first house. We bought it from Tesco direct and paid around £250 for it. It is actually a fridge freezer, with the fridge being at the top, freezer at the bottom. The colour is white, and hotpoints logo is at the top in the middle of the fridge ... door.
I am generally quite impressed by this fridge freezer, this is the first proper one I have owned myself so cannot compare it really to others, but I have had no problems with it. It is quite basic really, no special features like ice dispenser etc.
The fridge has three shelves, which are glass and these slide out really easily, so they are so easy to clean or just wipe down. In the bottom of the fridge there are two drawers which I use for my salad and veg. They have a clear front, so you can see what is in them. They are very spacious and these drawers also pull out completely and are so easy to clean. This is one thing I really love about this fridge, it is so easy to keep clean. In the door there are also three shelves, and you get a holder in the top too for your eggs.
The freezer is made up of three drawers, which are quite deep and spacious, but I think if you like stocking up on food this is not the freezer for you. We have a couple of loafs of bread in there, our frozen veg, meat, ice cream and desserts etc. But there really is only enough room for a weeks worth, not good if you are a big family. There are only two of us, and we like to stay well stocked up, but it is hard with the limited space in this freezer. The drawers feel strong, sturdy and well made, and they slot back in so easy when you take them out. There are no special features to this freezer, it basically consists of three drawers and there isn't really much else to say about it!
One thing that I don't like about this fridge freezer, is the seal on the door. Sometimes when you get something out the fridge and shut the door behind you, you will go back to it and the door will be open! The seal is not very good at all, it just doesn't stick well enough, You have to be really careful every time you go in the fridge or the freezer, and check the door actually stayed shut! Quite a few times now I've got something out the freezer for tea at night and gone to bed, got up in the morning and the freezer door hadn't stayed shut! It is so annoying as everything defrosts and ends up ruined!
As long as you are careful to make sure the doors are shut properly I have no other problems with this fridge freezer. It keeps all my food cold and fresh, and just does exactly what I need it to do! This fridge freezer has an A+ efficiency rating, the width of it is 60cm and the height is 175cm, so it is a nice size to fit in any kitchen. Mine does look nice, even though it is basic, the actual fridge freezer does not look from the outside or inside basic at all. It looks really modern and is a nice bright white colour.
I would definitely recommend this fridge freezer for a couple, but for a family I would recommend a bit bigger one! If it wasn't for the seal on the doors, I would have rated 5 star!
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Hotpoint HM315NI
by karlsm93
When we bought our house several years ago, the builder have left room in the kitchen for an integrated fridge freezer to be installed. Although we had both always fancied a large refrigerator with plenty of storage room, we had to accept that our options in terms of an integratd fridge freezer would be somewhat more limited. ...
Thankfully we hit it lucky, before we had moved into the house, when we spied an offer in our local B&Q for this Hotpoint HM315NI fridge freezer that could be integrated for a very reasonable 337.33, which in comparison at the time, was the cheapest deal around for a decent fridge freezer. If you take a look online now, you can pick up this fridge freezer for less than £300, but we were very pleased with our deal at the time.
Instructions for integrating the fridge freezer came with the product and my husband along with some other family members were able to easily and successfully install this appliance into our kitchen, without too much fuss.
Within the fridge part of this appliance, there are 5 main shelves, the bottom of which contain two large storage boxes, aimed primarily at fruit and vegetable storage, and which we use exactly for this. On the top shelf, on the wall of the fridge, there is a temperature regulator, which at one point we accidently knocked and couldn't understand exactly why things such as chicken that we had left overnight, hadn't thawed when we went to use it the following day. We found out from that, that the temperature regulator really does work at keeping you fridge at the particular temperature you wish. The temperature is at its warmest when at 1, and 5 at its coolest. The manual that came with the appliance recommends a medium setting, which is what we have it currently on. On the inside of the door of the fridge, there is a bottle shelf, and well as trays for butter and eggs etc. Along with the fridge we also got other plastic boxes such as that for butter, which to be honest I don't bother using, because I simply think it takes up valuable space. Even with all the available shelving, after a weekly grocery shop, there really isn't much room left within this fridge area, and it sometimes takes a lot of re arranging to get everything in. Thankfully the shelves aren't overly deep that things can get lost at the back. The shelves are also easily removed it you wish to give them a good clean, as they do tend ot get grubby, and the shelves are also able to adjusted to various heights, although we have never changed them.
The freezer compartment of this appliance has 4 main drawers, although one of these is slightly less deep than the others. Although we find having a freezer within the kitchen very handy, things can be a tight squeeze at times, especially when we go to freeze some of our home grown produce, or soups that have been made with spare vegetables. I don't really have anything to compare this model to, as this was the first and only fridge freezer that we have ever bought, but my husband has had to defrost the freezer a number of times over the years, with the build up of ice.
The only negative thing that we have noticed over the past few years is that there is sometimes a noise that comes from the appliance that seems to build and them stops. Now, this is quite possibly due to its location, and I know that the instruction manual that came with the appliance does say that the fridge freezer will make some noise, which is supposed to be normal. At the same time this is not loud enough to really disturb anything, and is only really noticeable when everything is quite, such as when I am in the house on my own.
As I already said, we were somewhat limited in the size of fridge freezer we could get, given that it had to fit into the space that the builder had left, however, we have had this product for almost 5 years now, and I have to say that bar the little bit of noise, we have had absolutely no problems with it. If you are a large family, there is no doubt you will find this fridge freezer quite small and you may need a chest freezer as another means of storage, however, it is perfectly fine for us, and will be as long as it keeps working and for as long as we live in our present home.
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Servis Electra E7316CR
by zombieflesh
My fridge freezer is something that I totally rely on but mostly don't give a second though to - it just does what it needs to do and I carry on using it. I selected the Electra model by Servis as I was on a budget and this was a generously sized fridge freezer that came in at an affordable price of around £280.00. I bought this from ... Comet who also delivered and set it up for me so this was a very nice and easy way to start before I began using it. I bought this as I was moving into my first house and had to buy a lot of other appliances and products at the same time. Something that I discovered when I was shopping around was the energy rating score that is now given to all electrical goods. I was keen to purchase a product that had a high energy efficiency rating as this was good for the environment and also good for saving money on running costs. The Servis Electra has a top class A rating meaning that it uses power efficiently, and along with the other requirements that I had in mind I was sold on this.
There are several modes that the fridge freezer can run on and this includes a variable setting that you can use to adjust the temperature of the fridge and the freezer. These controls are handled independently of one another so this is great as you can customise exactly how you want your fridge to run and exactly how you want your freezer to run. There are 5 temperature settings for the fridge that I can control by turning a button from 1 (warmest) through to 5 (coldest). The freezer section also has a separate temperature control that features a "super" function to provide a quick freeze that runs for 24 hours, and an "eco" function that regulates the temperature to the ideal amount across the compartments to save energy. I found it very easy to use these settings, although now I am happy with how it runs I have not had cause to adjust it.
The fridge freezer is a large and bulky appliance which is to be expected, and it takes up a considerable amount of space in my kitchen. The appliance is designed so that the fridge section is larger and sits above the freezer section at the bottom. The fridge and freezer are accessed by separate doors that pull open on hinges. The design inside is useful for keeping organised. In the fridge there are 2 adjustable shelves as well as a base level shelf that is permanently fixed above the 2 salad drawers at the bottom. Inside the fridge door there is a tall shelf compartment along with a small shelf compartment and a further lidded shelf compartment at the top. This gives plenty of spaces that I use to sort my food items into and this makes it easy to use as well as allowing me to clearly see and retrieve things when I need them. Keeping my fridge organised really helps me to take stock of what food I have and lessen the amount of waste or unnecessary purchases as I can keep on top of what I have and nothing gets shoved to the back and forgotten about! The freezer section has four different compartments with one fixed shelf at the top and three sliding drawers underneath. These sections are all covered with a plastic front, and although these seem fine on the drawers as they are fixed, the plastic cover over the top shelf was hinged and this broke away very quickly. I didn't bother to replace it as the plastic seemed very brittle and fragile and I have been using the shelf since without any need to have a cover over the front of it.
There is also a large amount of storage space inside the fridge freezer with the fridge section containing a volume of 220l and the freezer section containing a volume of 100l. This gives a total volume of 310l storage capacity which is more than enough to meet my needs seeing as we are a 2 person household. Within this space we always have a little extra space in the fridge, but the freezer stays stocked closely to the brim so a larger household may require something larger again. However, we do tend to rely on quite a lot of frozen foods and there is a whole drawer dedicated to ice cream and ice lollys so maybe if you eat more fresh food and manage your space better this would be adequate for your household as well!
Servis was not my first choice of manufacturer but I was happy with the features and the price I paid. I did have a problem with this fridge freezer within the first year of purchase, where the temperature went totally out of control and my fridge was actually heating up! As this was within the period of the manufacturer's warranty I got this fixed for free which was a relief seeing as the problem was with the printed circuit board (PCB - basically the 'brains' of the machine) and this is usually the most expensive component to buy replacement parts for. Since then I have not had a single further breakdown problem to report and it has given me a consistent and reliable performance. The only little niggle that I have is when the freezer gets a bit too iced up then it can be hard to fully push in the drawers which means that the door seal occasionally has issues where it does not provide a complete seal as it has not closed correctly. I try and keep a close eye on this to avoid leaving the door ajar and this problem disappears once the freezer has been defrosted.
The Electra fridge freezer is a frost free model which I naively assumed meant that I didn't have to manually defrost it. Thankfully my other half knows better in these sort of areas and he gives the freezer a check over and defrost once or twice a year. This is quite a messy business and can take a matter of hours before the freezer is ready to use again. The fridge section has a drip tray collector at the back of it which catches any condensation, and this seems to fill up quickly. It also gathers crumbs and can get clogged up which creates a big mess if I haven't been vigilant enough to spot it, and there have been several times when it has overflowed. As the outside of the fridge freezer is white it can be quite tough to keep it looking spotless, as it shows up marks easily and has actually stained in a couple of places. Scrubbing with diluted bleach helps to keep it clean and tidy for the most part but after 5 years of constant use I can accept that it has a few stains as it's been through a lot!
Overall I can highly recommend the Servis Electra Fridge Freezer. It was great value for money, gives plenty of room and organised storage inside, has proved to be reliable and to top it all off it has an A level energy efficiency rating. 5 stars all round from me :)
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