Hotpoint RFA52 > Reviews (15)

When I moved into my house, there was a fridge/freezer already in the kitchen and came included with the house. At first I thought this was great as it saved me having to shop for a fridge soon after moving in. However, after having switched the fridge on and waiting for 24 hours, it was obvious that it was not going to get cold. Fortunately, there was a smaller fridge in the utility room of the house which did work and I could use that while looking for a new kitchen fridge. This was not ideal as 1. It was small for 3 people using it, and 2. It is downstairs from the kitchen so the milk kept being left out!

There are so many fridges on the market and looking for one was a nightmare. I did manage to narrow down my options because the space for the fridge is built into the kitchen units, meaning that I had to get one with specific dimensions. The space is quite tall and narrow so I looked for a fridge that was narrower than standard.

We got this fridge from John Lewis and ordered it online. This was great as it was delivered to the house. The delivery men were amazing and carried the fridge up the stairs and into the kitchen. They also took away my old fridge. The fridge was great because it is only 54cm wide so will fit into small spaces. It is 174cm in height which means you still get quite a lot of space overall.

The fridge was really easy to install and only involved me plugging it in to the wall. It did take 2 people to do it as it involved holding the fridge near the wall, plugging it in and then pushing it back. I switched the power on and left the fridge empty for 24 hours. It cooled down nicely and the freezer also got cold, but I did leave this for longer before adding food. Luckily for me, the doors open the right way for my room so I didn’t need to try to change them around! You can change the doors around and there are clear instructions supplied with the product.

The product is a fridge/freezer combination with the fridge on top. The fridge has plenty of space in it, even for 3 different people eating 3 different diets (one meat eater, one vegetarian and one vegan!). There are two large vegetable drawers which I love because I eat a lot of vegetables! There are then 3 shelves, 2 of which can be moved around to create differing heights. It is very easy to remove the shelves for cleaning and to move them around. There is the usual shelf on the inside of the door for milk and juice and this easily has enough space for a 2 litre bottle. Above that is another shelf which we usually use for jars of sauce, and then there is a shelf with a lid which is supposed to be an egg and butter tray but I use it for cheese. On the top right of the inside surface there is a dial which you can use to control the fridge temperature. It goes from 1 to 5 and we usually keep it at about 3. 1 is the warmest and 5 is the coldest. I find if you put it at 5 then things start to freeze onto the back wall.

The freezer has 4 drawers, the top of which is the fast freeze drawer which can be used to freeze fresh products quickly.

There really is quite a lot of space in the freezer as the whole thing is taken up with drawer space. One feature which I love about it is the built in ice cube trays in the doors. This means that you don’t waste space inside the drawers with ice cube moulds. They lift out easily and are easy to fill and replace. The only slight problem is that the ice cubes can be difficult to remove. I’ve tried several techniques, including bashing the moulds off the kitchen surfaces and running under water. The freezer is not frost free but it has now been running for about 9 months and there is not a horrendous amount of ice built up. It will need defrosted at some point soon though I reckon.

The fridge isn’t too noisy although it does make a background humming sound which you would expect with a fridge. Sometimes it makes random whirring noise but it only lasts for a few seconds then it goes quieter again. The outside appearance is nice also. It isn’t too fancy, just a plain white surface with slightly curved edges.

The product has an energy rating of A, meaning that it is really cheap to run, saving energy and hence the environment. It costs £249 from John Lewis and comes with a 2 year guarantee. For them to take away your old fridge they will charge you £9, which to be fair is probably worth it.

All in all a great fridge for a reasonable price which hopefully will last me a long time!