A Great Second Fridge
Written: Nov 01 '09
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Pros: Cheap, basic, gets the job done.
Cons: Noisy, basic, wire shelves, not EnergyStar compliant, no freezer control.
The Bottom Line: Great second fridge for outdoors/garage/basement. Not recommended for primary fridge except if on tight budget. Would struggle to hold family of four's food.
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| jcare's Full Review: Hot point: 16.6 Cu. Ft. Top Freezer Refrigerator H... |
When we moved house a number of years ago we took our fridge with us, and placed it in the Garage as an overflow/drinks storage fridge. Sadly, a couple of months ago it finally went to that big junkyard in the sky and we had to buy a replacement. That replacement was the HotPoint HTS17CBT. The model number followed by BB stands for BBlack and the WWhite model is surprisingly enough WW!
This is a basic, bottom-of-the line, no-frills refrigerator, available for around $400-420 at a number of stores. It makes for a great outdoor or storage fridge, but for reasons I will explain later I would not recommend it as your primary indoor fridge. You are better served, if you have the budget, to spend an extra $75 or so and climb up the model and features line.
The Basics
The HTS17CBT is a top-freezer refrigerator, which means the freezer sits on top of the fridge, as opposed to the bottom or side-by-side. Total capacity is 16.6 cubic feet, of which 4.1 ft3 is the freezer. The doors are reversible, so can be mounted to be opened from the left or the right. The inside of the fridge contains two movable wire shelves, which can be set at five different heights based upon guides on the side. At the bottom are two sizeable side-by-side plastic crisper/vegetable boxes, leaving a minimum of 4 inches between the top of the boxes at the bottom of a shelf mounted on the lowest setting.
The inside of the door provides a butter drawer at the top left, along with a half-shelf large enough for cans of soda. Built into the remainder of the door are two large non-adjustable inset shelves, about two soda cans or beer bottles deep, which provide secure storage for a lot of drinks or bottles. There is no specific egg storage available - those little circular indents which mainly collect crud anyway.
There is only one control for the fridge, which controls temperature from 1 to 9 - meaning that there is no independent control for the freezer (and no light). The fridge control and light unit restrict a little storage on the top shelf, but it's not too bad. The depth of the unit is just enough to keep a pizza box, or those rip-off-the-front cardboard soda 12-paks on the shelf.
The freezer contains one single-step fixed wire shelf, about 6 inches high on one step, and about 12 inches on the other side. There is no icemaker or water unit/water filter available.
My Experiences
The unit does its job of keeping things cool. It is not the quietest fridge in the world, which is another reason I would not recommend it for indoor use. It does not have an EnergyStar complaint sticker, but despite that it is rated at 464 kWH per year - which equates to about $1/week.
As far as the manufacturer's warranty it is 1 Year Parts and Labor · 5 Years Parts and Labor (Sealed System).
Unless you are on a very strict budget I would not recommend this fridge for indoor/main refrigerator use. That's because it is noisy, has no icemaker or water supply, no meat drawer, no adjustable shelves and definitely doesn't have spill-proof shelves. As an outdoor/second fridge it is a star. Since that is what we bought it for - we got our money's worth. My rating is for an outdoor/second fridge.
Recommended:
Yes
Amount Paid (US$): 419
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Epinions.com ID:
jcare
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Location: Southeast Pennsylvania
Reviews written: 269
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About Me:
Bullets can hurt people. Both in guns and PowerPoint.
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