Sorry...make that an upright freezer. Sheesh!

What about two drawer units, one a freezer and one a fridge, installed as a stack? I think it would be expensive upfront but you could turn off the unit you didn't need, independent of the other unit.

We have fridge drawers waiting to be installed in our kitchen and plan to have a regular bottom freezer, top refrigerator in the nearby laundry room. It will be a while before they go in so I can't say how well the drawer units work but our decision comes from reading about the drawer units on this forum and the appliance forum. Several people have been positive about their units.

A plain ordinary top freezer fridge will use less energy than a 100 watt incandescent light bulb left on all the time, so it's not really going to cost you a lot to run an overflow fridge. Plus, fridges and freezers get yucky smelling when not used and closed up. Your hubby is out in left field alone on this one.

That's interesting on energy usage...it would cost us about $100 per year to operate if it's a small 16 cu ft self cleaning.

I hadn't thought about drawers...that might be worthwhile exploring as undercounter would give us more folding space seeing it's next to the washer and dryer.

Thanks!

I know you can stack 2 Perlick undercounter units on top of each other, they make a special kit to do it...but the units are pretty expensive, so I am not sure it would make any sense. Not sure about other brands.

Thanks for theses suggestions, jsceva and lee.

I suppose we could get an undercounter fridge and an undercounter freezer and just build a "counter" for it to go in, one on top of the other in the space that we have, making them de facto stacked.

I've not heard of Perlick...will have to investigate.

I googled and found this in a 2004 article
http://phys.org/news2269.html

would this be something useful?
It is a fridge that can convert to freezer if space is allocated differently.

It sounds like you sometimes need more fridge, sometimes more freezer, and sometimes both at once...if so, then 2 units are probably the best way to go. I would point out, though, that many small fridges/freezers are significantly less efficient than their larger brethren....2 small units will use more power than a single big unit, most of the time, so if your concern is energy efficiency/cost it may be more complicated than it first appears,

If you never need both at once , there is one other really good option - the Fisher Paykel "Cooldrawer" unit. Its an undercounter drawer which can be set as a fridge, freezer, wine fridge, "chill" (extra cold refrigerator, for meats and fish, etc), or "pantry" (for things that need cool and dark, but not true refrigeration). It might work for your needs...

It sounds like you sometimes need more fridge, sometimes more freezer, and sometimes both at once...if so, then 2 units are probably the best way to go. I would point out, though, that many small fridges/freezers are significantly less efficient than their larger brethren....2 small units will use more power than a single big unit, most of the time, so if your concern is energy efficiency/cost it may be more complicated than it first appears,

If you never need both at once , there is one other really good option - the Fisher Paykel "Cooldrawer" unit. Its an undercounter drawer which can be set as a fridge, freezer, wine fridge, "chill" (extra cold refrigerator, for meats and fish, etc), or "pantry" (for things that need cool and dark, but not true refrigeration). It might work for your needs...