Refrigerators

Dorm Size Refrigerator Buying Guide - How To Buy The Best Without Spending Big

Is a dorm size refrigerator what you’re looking for? You need to know that it also goes by the names of compact refrigerator, mini fridge, or dorm refrigerator. But, whatever you might call it, the dorm size refrigerator type is specifically designed to easily fit right into your dormitory room, RV, wet bar, or any small space areas. Here are a few guidelines on choosing the best one for you.

Before pushing through with your plans of buying a dorm size refrigerator, you need to make sure this is allowed by your college or university. You might find that many universities have different policies about these appliances. There are universities, such as Harvard or UCLA, that impose certain construction measurements for your refrigerators. Others would allow it, but you have to rent it out from them (it’s quite affordable, but not practical). If you’re unfortunate enough, there are really some institutions that wouldn’t allow any types of refrigerators in your dormitory.
Set a minimum and maximum budget when searching for a compact refrigerator. There are units out there with prices that range from cheap to very expensive, approximately $50 to $1000. If you’re planning to stay for many years, it’s more practical to go for high-quality brands (e.g. Hotpoint and Avanti) because it’s durable and comes with a lot of features. But if you’re only staying for a short time, you should go for the less expensive ones – the performance is acceptable although the features are lesser.

The two distinctive types of dorm refrigerators today are those with and without freezers. So, you should always decide in advance what grocery items you’re going to store inside. Are you just going to use it to store some snacks, bottled or can drinks? Or will you also be purchasing frozen food items, like ice cream and frozen dinners? Some people go for the freezer-free units because they eat out most of the time, so they don’t really keep frozen food products.

The more details and features, the higher the price would be – that’s what you should also expect when purchasing mini fridges. So, it would really work for the best if you decide on features you find necessary and eliminate the unnecessary ones. Some of these units are built with big freezer compartments, auto defrosting or frost-free systems, easy glide and spill-free stacking shelves, ice shelves with ice trays, humidity-controlled fruit and vegetable crispers.

There are other things to think about when going for compact refrigerators. Just remember that assessing your needs and requirements is important to get the possible units without dealing with pointless product details. Besides, there are so many designs and models to choose from that it wouldn’t be too complicated to find the best dorm size refrigerator for you.