Side by side water dispenser drain

[fan-of-fans]

This week I was in Sears and decided to have a look in the appliance section for fun. Last year the MOL Kenmore side by sides got a redesign so I decided to have a look. These are basically just rebadged Whirlpools with no real difference that I know of. What I noticed first is while the older models had a little cover over the drip tray with a slot in it, the new ones no longer have the cover. They just have a large recessed area about 3/8" deep.

Looking at comparable Frigidaires, I see they still have a tray which is just smooth plastic with a few grooves which is removable.

I did not look at any french door units with dispensers to see if they have any sort of cover over the spillage area. I think GE do have a metal cover on some of their high end models like the Cafe line.

I wonder why Whirlpool/Kenmore did away with the lid. I thought it looked better, but I think this new design is easier to keep clean.

It seems like the older side by sides in the 80s and 90s tended to have a much deeper spillage area with a grate with squares in it, sometimes chromed plastic. This seems to have started with the GE Americana in the late 60s.

But in the late 90s the grooved trays started to replace them and now we just have these recessed areas. I did not like those grooved trays at all, they held water and would mildew. A friend of mine had a GE side by side with that design. The grooves in the tray were very deep and would grow algae, and for some reason under that tray there was a deep well that would always get water in it somehow. I had to use a sponge to bail it out. It was always full whenever I would take the tray out.

 

[daveamkrayoguy]

Can't really win--it won't contain a spillage for ve

Here is what is under my water (& ice) dispenser, unremovable and very weak at containing any water:

-- Dave

 

[superocd]

Because of the fact that ice/water dispensers are too hard to clean to be hygenically acceptable and the fact that nobody has figured out the drainage situation beyond having to carry the drip tray to dump down the sink (which I think would be easily solved, routing some PVC tubing from the bottom of the drip tray, through the door and down to the condensate tray would be a starting point), I intentionally sought out a fridge without a dispenser. I get my water from my sink-mounted reverse osmosis filter tap anyway, and my wife and I do without ice.

As for icemaker in my bottom-freezer French door, it's not hooked up (even though there is a nice little water supply box behind my fridge) and I took the ice bin out to free up a little space. I'd like to be able to take it out completely, but I'm not sure if that's possible on a French door. If so, I'd love to be able to take that thing out and sell it/give it away.

My next pet peeve of fridges are the glass shelves. I'd rather have chrome commercial-grade shelving, or heck, even the landlord-special white wire shelves (now, even the $399 specials have glass shelves!). I don't like the glass shelves because I think they are harder to clean (the haze drives me crazy) and are a potential thing to break (if not the glass itself, the plastic frames holding the glass in place are notorious for cracking).

I could live without all the plastic bins, dividers, gizmos and widgets as well.

 

[lorainfurniture]

The older sxs fridges had a little heater under the tray that evaporated everything.