We bought this because it was the only counter-depth fridge we could find that had crushed ice; if I were to do it again I would forgo the ice crusher and get a different refrigerator...
Pros: Given the fact that it is a shallow depth design, and its ice maker/dispenser is very large, the thing has a surprising storage capacity. It has one shelf in the door big enough to hold a gallon or two of milk. There are three (three!) crispers--if you like crispers this is the fridge for you. The freezer is narrow but well thought out.
The store display and the salesman were both enthusiastic about the fact that you can slide an 18" pizza into this fridge and still close the door, so if you store a lot of large pizzas you should consider this fridge I suppose.
It is a very quiet fridge and judging from the utility bill it seems to be extremely efficient.
Cons: There are a lot. In order of importance:
The ice dispenser is so poorly designed it is almost surreal. It dispenses these moon-shaped cubes, and it will also chew these up and dispense them as crushed ice. Getting ice out of it is quite an adventure: you push your cup against this plastic trigger thing and then ice EXPLODES out of it. It might not do it right away--there might be a pause--maybe even a long pause--you will hear this rumbling noise--then like a cubic yard of ice will BLAST out of the fridge, fill your cup instantaneously, the proceed to dump ice all over the floor.
I am not kidding. The ice eruptions are so violent you eventually develop an involuntary wince whenever you touch the ice dispenser and you have to psych yourself up and take some deep breaths before you put yourself through the ice agony and violence followed by the inevitable sweeping lots of ice up and putting it in the sink.
The water line to the ice maker is a little plastic tube that snakes up along the back of the refrigerator and enters the freezer through a little fitting. The water line is prone to freeze up, which stops the ice maker from working. This seems to be a common problem with these judging from some internet searches. It is not difficult to pull the fridge out, shut the water off, pull the water line out and knock the ice out of it--but many people will not know how to do that and will require a service call to put it right. Very poor design.
The three (three!) crispers take up about 40% of the fridge space. Maybe that's okay with you, maybe not.
All the plastic bits, drawers etc inside the refrigerator are very flimsy. The plastic door over the ice maker was broken when the fridge was installed, apparently done in by the mere strain of being delivered. The drawers are thin plastic, don't slide well, feel cheap. This refrigerator cost a LOT of money, they can't make a decent plastic drawer for it?
All in all I don't think this appliance is worth the money; I suspect there are better values out there. But it will hold a remarkable amount of food for its size and it does seem to be very energy efficient.
I bought one of these about nine months ago from a large home improvement store (not through Amazon). I needed a counter-depth, stainless steel 'fridge, and it fits the bill. It keeps everything at the right temperature. So it basically does its job.
It is not, however, very robust. The shelf supports break easily, and they are not covered by the warranty. While they are inexpensive to buy (I found them on Amazon), they are fiddly to replace, and when replacing them I worried that the interior cladding of the 'fridge would crack. These supports don't hold up to family usage, with more than a few ounces of weight on the shelves. We certainly don't overload the fridge, but the shelves are full.
Recently, one of the cooler drawers cracked when I was trying to pull it open. Best practice: open the drawers with two hands rather than using one hand in the indicated space.
Previous reviewers commented on "exploding ice": I'd point out that the jet of chilled water is positioned differently to most water dispensers... and it takes a bit of practice to avoid water all over the floor.
Definitely not a high-price, high-quality refridgerator. If you have your heart set on a counter-depth, put a little more money into your purchase. You'll be better off.
(I do not understand why all fridges are not designed to be counter-depth. Who wants a monstrosity sticking out into the middle of the kitchen anyway?)
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I've spent a portion of my life with this refrigerator. It was a great upgrade for us. Everything is good with this frig with some negatives, but it basically does what you want, and gives you a little extra space if you can accommodate its width.
1) The squeaky drawers were annoying at the outset, but loaded with food, they quit squeaking.
2) The variable temp drawer (fruit/vegetable, i.e. crisper) in the refrigerator is the coldest drawer, and even on warmest setting it freezes vegetables, first by the vent, then throughout. The solution is to leave the drawer cracked open 1/2 an inch. Somehow this doesn't touch the door, and gives enough air exchange to beat the problem. The other solution might be to make this the bread drawer, or something besides fruit.
3) The ice maker does blast ice. It does this variably, though, and there seems to be no rhyme or reason to the craziness. My last frig made terrible ice when it made any, so this is not a problem for me. It helps to have big mouth cups to catch all the ice.
4) If you care, the stainless front is very "magnetic", so all the junk you had on your old white frig can go right up on this one.
5) I've never experienced a stoppage on icemaking by line freezeup, but the paddle that swings down after making cubes has gotten a cube caught way up near its hinge point, and stopped making ice. This happened to us twice. Happily easily to fix and a rare occurrence.
All that said, we are pleased with this frig after 6 months of ownership. For the money, this is the frig I wanted.
Read Best Reviews of Gallery FGHC2345LF Refrigerator Here
So I was doing what most home brew enthusiasts do and I was trying to build a kegerator and accidentally cut the freon line, I called around and asked the fridge repair guys in the area and told me it wasn't worth fixing, well I got the mini fridge for free so I thought it was worth trying. I soldered the line and tested for leaks and tapped into the line using this product and had to create a vacuum by using an old air compressor that could reverse the pump then used the standard auto freon refill bottles and its been working for about three years now, now problems. this product works great and fits standard freon bottle refill connections.
