Planning to buy a fridge?

Much is made these days of planning your life and planning for the future. Many organisations are trying very hard to move towards project, program and portfolio management. There is an enormous amount of emphasis on the development of integrated products, on things working together and on the reduction of costs.

When was the last time you had to buy a new refrigerator because your old one packed it in?

This is my second time. I learned from the first time that to wander around the shops looking at refrigerators is a waste of time.

Why? Simple, the space that is available for your new refrigerator and the location of the space will determine what you can buy and how the door will have to open.

People who design kitchens and make up and install all of those wonderful built in furtniture that can hold the dishes and pots and pans and the drawers that can hold all of the cutlery also design the spaces into which things like the stove, refrigerator, dishwasher sinks etc can fit. There is absolutely no guarantee that the original appliances around which the kitchen built in furtniture was modeled will be anything like the appliances that will replace them.

So when your appliance packs it in spend a lot of time measuring the space that is available to hold the next iteration of the appliance and then explore how the appliance will be used. This will determine things like which direction doors should open on your fridge.

Then when you have managed to get the sizing written down and decided in which direction your doors should open get on to the Internet or into the catalogues and find the one or more refrigerators that can meet your requirements and then and only then approach appliance stores and find out whether they have what you want and if so at what price.

Doing a deal on the phone is really the cheapest alternative you have – otherwise you will find the costs in shoe leather or petrol and wear and tear on your car increase the price of the item you are trying to buy considerably.

I wonder how much easier things would be, not to mention how much cheaper things would be if there were standard sizes for refrigerators and standard space sizes for such items to be agreed. Kitchen appliances should really be like clothes, built to standard sizes at a cheap price and then, if some people want to have a made to measure set of appliances they should have to pay for the privilege. Alas this will not happen until we also have standards for buildings and rooms within buildings and THAT is unlikely to happen for some time.

So much for planning. Then again there is something to be said for diversity.