I'd find out who's fault that is in case you need to return the fridge (if Samsung listed it incorrectly) or in case your cabinet maker goofed up. Cutting into the broom closet sounds like a good idea. It wouldn't be much - but remember that the manual says to give the fridge some breathing room on all sides. Not sure if one or two inches, you'd have to look that up. Warrantees might not be honored if they find you didn't give it space - though I could be wrong about that.

Here is what I, found. Maybe it will help you.

To ensure proper ventilation for your refrigerator, allow for 1/2" (1.25 CM) space on each side and at the top. When installing your refrigerator next to a fixed wall, leave 2" (5.08 CM) minimum on each side (depending on your model) to allow for the door to swing open.

a filler piece? sounds like fairly good news.

Post your model number.

Prepare a logical case in order to call Sears to get money back. Samsung too. As shar-az said, you need that inch, which is now missing.

For our Samsung we allowed 1" clearance on each side and allowed for 2" on the top and back.

I was worried about our Samsung FD fitting, too! When the delivery guys arrived to install it 3 weeks ago in our new house, they measured the cabinet before bringing in the fridge. One guy shook his head and said he "didn't know". The back part of the cab was right at 36" in most spots, but at the bottom, it was slightly less. I didn't know how they were going to get it in, and I had to leave it in hubby's care and go hide, praying the whole time. Anyway, it's in--a VERY tight fit. Looking from the front, the side trim pieces are touching the fridge. I hope there's enough ventilation within the cabinet itself (and there's 3" on top). Bad thing was, the water/ice didn't work, and the following week they had to pull it back out and had a very hard time getting it back in far enough.

Anyway, I simply told the kitchen cabinet guy the fridge I was buying (as with all other appliances); it was left to him to get the right sized cabinet for it. I would've assumed that your cabinet guy would've done the same as mine.

I'm betting that Sears would take it back if it's their mistake. But I'd also suspect that you're likely to have a width problem with most refridgerators...

I have a Samsung FD too. It's a 36" frig (OK, a little less). I gave my specs to my KD and it's a tight fit on the sides for me. I do have more room on the top and gobs of space in the back (we recessed it). I also looked at the specs and thought the KD should have allowed more space on the sides but he didn't.

the other issue is the cabinet above the frig - if you move over your "sides" the upper cabinet would not be big enough (unless you add a filler too).

sounds like its pretty clear who is at fault here, why are you "getting ammunition" for the cabinetmaker?

you could ask him to see what he can do to fix the problem, but at the end of the day, sears had something mismarked on their site, the fix shouldn't come out of his pocket.

Hi-
I just wanted to chime in.. I moved in my house in January when we had our ref. delivered on the day we moved in. THe cabinet maker was given the specs and when the fridge came It just barely fit, but was not sliding all the way back. It always bothered me but I had so many other issues going on that I kind of ignored it complained about it to my Dh, but sort of let it go.. In my mind it was the cabinet maker's fault.. but he was so good to me I didn't want to complain to him

Until the other night when I saw your post. I emailed my cabinet maker the next morning- explained what I think happened and yesterday morning one of his guys happened to be at my neighbors house (it is a new development). He came over looked at it and said it looks like the fridge is meant to be a built-in fridge (not sure exactly what that means but ok.) but they don't mention that on the specs. So what he did was cut off a about 1" off the bottom of the cab. above the fridge. Then he made 10 small holes (about 1" in daimter along the back bottom of the cab for ventilation for the fridge. Now the fridge fits perfectly in the cabinet and it also is getting more ventilation- OUr cab. above the fridge is huge and goes up to our 9' ceiling but he said it should be venting well now! HTH

The standard size for any full sized fridge is (almost) 36" W x (almost)70" H. The reason I say almost, is that they are all made to go into a 36" x 70" space in your cabinetry because they all breathe out the front. No more coils in the back that need ventilation. Now, there are a few that are a skosh taller, like a Maytag that's 71", but that's not usually a problem because the cabinet above the fridge's bottom alignment height should be 72" and any gap filled in with light rail or filler.

So, even though Samsung's size was misstated on the website, the actual size of the fridge you're dealing with will be pretty much the same unless you go with something other than a full sized fridge like a 33" wide one. And, most fridges that get cabinet surrounds are perfectly fine with a 36" x 70" opening--and they are all constructed with the same type of ventilation as the Samsung. That leads me to believe that their 1" space requirements are CYA type rather than actually truly needed. Of course, it's not my fridge or my kitchen, but I personally wouldn't remake the whole fridge area with a 39" cabinet. If you're concerned about the manufacturer's warranty, call them and ask them personally. If they say no go, then I'd just switch to one of the many full sized fridges that are OK with that 1/4" clearance on the side. Most brands will be just fine with that.

There are a couple of counter-depth 33" fridges (Samsung and KitchenAid, I think?) that we looked at briefly, plus Fisher & Paykel's 31" fridge. So there are some options---but agreed that it's better to find a way to adjust the space.

We are using a narrower fridge but asked our cabinetmaker to build our enclosure to fit an "average" 36" refrigerator in case there are no more fridges our size by the time it needs to get replaced. I suggested 37" as an inside width for that, and he recommended 36 5/8" as the clearance he most commonly sees. Looked up a few fridges for reference, and indeed, there are a *lot* of 35 5/8" wide fridges that need a half inch on each side. So---that's what were going with. Weird standard to have, since it seems like they should just build fridges to fit 36" enclosures...but ah, well. If you can pick up enough space to hit roughly that number, seems like it would be a good long-term solution.

The half inch clearance has nothing to do with ventilation, but more to do with the fact that the back and front of the fridge measures 35 5/8, but in the middle of the belly of the sides, it can bow out as much as a half an inch. Like livewireoak says, its just CYA for a bowed out sides.

I learned the hard way that you also have to allow for any base moldings on the floor along the side wall. I had to pull the moldings off to get my 35.75 W fridge into what I measured as a a 36.75 space without allowing for the moldings. Still the fridge had to be so tightly squeezed into the space that I can't imagine ever being able to pull it out.