Anyone have a Fridgidaire or Whirl Pool wine cooler storing 38-50 bottles? If so, for how long and are you happy with it?
We are looking for recommendations on a wine storage unit of between 35-50 bottles. We occassionally buy wine, a few bottles when we like something we've drunk, and mostly reds, but have had no cool enough place to store them... and it gets over 100 in the summer by us, house temps hitting 80 sometimes. We probably drink a bottle a week, or every two weeks. I thought it would be a nice thing to get a wine cooler for the house (cooling to 55 degrees, mostly for red wine) but have had surprising difficulty.
I thought it would make a nice Christmas present. My husband now calls this the 'wine cooler saga' . My first idea of storage in the garage, where we have the most room, crashed when I read the instruction manual for one of the units: the small coolers 50 bottles and less, around $500 and lower, have to be indoors in a more accomodating temperature range. Larger units appear to run $1300 and way higher, storing 100 bottles or more, much more than we would ever want to store.
So I got used to the idea of modifying a closet in the house. We bought and tested 2 Danby units and found their temperature range to be 41-46 degrees (not the 41-60 degrees advertised, and too cold for red wine) - we are waiting for Bestbuy to pick them up.(too cold for red wine). We then bought a Magic Chef 50 bottle unit which had good reviews about price and quietness. It tested at 55 degrees when we first plugged it in downstairs, but once in the upstairs closet with bottles in it, never cooled to less than house temperature even though the unit was running (at least making noise). That unit got returned , and a Home Depot customer volunteered that there were a lot of complaints about Magic Chef, which we then verified. In fact there were 4 pages of complaints about the condensers failing in the first or second year. (Now we google 'complaints' and 'recalls' as well as 'review')
So we are now looking at a Lowes Fridgidaire or Whirl Pool unit. We've looked them up on line, but can find no reviews on them, good or bad. Which makes me think no one buys them.
Any wine drinkers out there that could recommend a unit around $500 or less for 35-50 bottles?
Thanks for input,
Kathleen
We are looking for recommendations on a wine storage unit of between 35-50 bottles. We occassionally buy wine, a few bottles when we like something we've drunk, and mostly reds, but have had no cool enough place to store them... and it gets over 100 in the summer by us, house temps hitting 80 sometimes. We probably drink a bottle a week, or every two weeks. I thought it would be a nice thing to get a wine cooler for the house (cooling to 55 degrees, mostly for red wine) but have had surprising difficulty.
I thought it would make a nice Christmas present. My husband now calls this the 'wine cooler saga' . My first idea of storage in the garage, where we have the most room, crashed when I read the instruction manual for one of the units: the small coolers 50 bottles and less, around $500 and lower, have to be indoors in a more accomodating temperature range. Larger units appear to run $1300 and way higher, storing 100 bottles or more, much more than we would ever want to store.
So I got used to the idea of modifying a closet in the house. We bought and tested 2 Danby units and found their temperature range to be 41-46 degrees (not the 41-60 degrees advertised, and too cold for red wine) - we are waiting for Bestbuy to pick them up.(too cold for red wine). We then bought a Magic Chef 50 bottle unit which had good reviews about price and quietness. It tested at 55 degrees when we first plugged it in downstairs, but once in the upstairs closet with bottles in it, never cooled to less than house temperature even though the unit was running (at least making noise). That unit got returned , and a Home Depot customer volunteered that there were a lot of complaints about Magic Chef, which we then verified. In fact there were 4 pages of complaints about the condensers failing in the first or second year. (Now we google 'complaints' and 'recalls' as well as 'review')
So we are now looking at a Lowes Fridgidaire or Whirl Pool unit. We've looked them up on line, but can find no reviews on them, good or bad. Which makes me think no one buys them.
Any wine drinkers out there that could recommend a unit around $500 or less for 35-50 bottles?
Thanks for input,
Kathleen
