Top-freezer refrigerators: what 670 certified models measure

What this page measures#

Every number below comes from fw_models certified registries: 670 catalogued top-freezer refrigerators from 84 brands.

A certified-product listing is a manufacturer filing, so this is a census of what is CERTIFIED — not of what is on sale, not of what is installed, and not of every brand on the market. Read each row as "of the 670 top-freezer refrigerators in this corpus", never as "of all top-freezer refrigerators". Each row states its own count, because not every listing fills in every field. Method: /methodology.

The short answer for top-freezer refrigerators#

The 670 top-freezer refrigerators catalogued here come from 84 brands — the widest brand spread of any cut on the site — and all 670 state every spec in the table. The middle listing is 29.5 inches wide and 66.5 inches tall with a total volume of 18 cubic feet, and annual energy use has a median of 362 kilowatt-hours a year. What makes this corpus different is the reach of its lower end: widths start at 18.5 inches, heights at 19.5, and volume at 1.5 cubic feet. A cabinet nineteen and a half inches tall is a countertop or under-counter unit, not a kitchen refrigerator, so this catalogue plainly holds more than one class of appliance under a single configuration label. Read the medians as describing the bulk of the listings and the minima as describing a genuinely different kind of machine.

How top-freezer refrigerators measure#

Lowest, middle and highest value stated by the top-freezer refrigerators in this corpus. The middle value is a median, so a real listing holds it.

Every row above is a claim about one corpus — fw_models certified registries: 670 catalogued top-freezer refrigerators from 84 brands (a certified-product census is not a census of units in service, and not every brand on the market is certified). Not every listing fills in every field, so the "Models stating it" and "Brands" columns are that ROW's own denominators: they count the models that state THAT spec, never the corpus total. Method: /methodology.

How to use these numbers#

Because of that mix, the median is far more useful here than the range, and the gap between them is the point. A median height of 66.5 inches against a minimum of 19.5 tells you the distribution is not spread evenly along its span: the great bulk of these listings are full-height kitchen units, with a tail of compact and under-counter models pulling the bottom of every row down. If you take the low end of the volume row as "what a small top-freezer looks like" you will be picturing a dorm fridge. Take the median as the ordinary case and read the specific listing for anything else.

For fitting a kitchen, width is the binding constraint and it is well behaved: a median of 29.5 inches against a top of 33 means most of this catalogue lands in a narrow band, which is why standard cabinet gaps are the size they are. Height is the second check, and the top of the range at 75.6 inches will foul an overhead cupboard that a median unit clears. Neither figure includes door clearance, and this table carries no depth column, so the opening is measured but the swing is not.

The two volume rows do different jobs. Total volume is the physical interior; adjusted volume weights the freezer portion upward, because freezer space costs more to hold, which is why the adjusted numbers run higher for the same machines. Comparing one listing's total against another's adjusted is the easy error, and it flatters the second.

Energy use is a comparison instrument, not a bill forecast: it comes from a standard test protocol with an assumed pattern of use, so no household will match it exactly. Its value is that every listing was measured the same way.