The Earth, love it or hate it, it’s where we keep all our stuff, so we’d better look after it.
That seems obvious, however, there are those who don’t believe in all the science surrounding climate change and are happy instead to stomp around while the world burns. But the rest of us can do our own little bit, every day, to keep this uniquely hospitable orb of sapphire and emerald a viable home for longer.
Making a contribution to not wrecking the place comes down to many things, but most easily it’s controlling the amount of power we consume. While some wind and solar energy is harnessed and used to power the things we rely on, most electricity that gets sucked from the grid still comes from burning coal, a practice which for some time has been doing us no favours. The answer, therefore, to eking out a comfortable life of modern convenience without effectively ignoring The Paris Climate Agreement, is to limit how much power you plough through the prudent purchase of energy-efficient appliances.
So, what do you need to know? Well, every appliance comes with an Energy Efficiency rating that can be anything from ‘A’ to ‘G’, with ‘A’ being the most efficient and ‘G’ being more likely to cost the planet and your pockets in the long run. And that’s pretty much it – as the Jackson 5 opined, “ABC, it’s easy as 123…”. Or at least on the rating side, that’s pretty much it.
As this specific piece is concerned solely with fridge-freezers, in terms of additional tips I can add this: it also helps to buy a fridge-freezer that’s the right size for your household – too big and you’re just refrigerating empty space, too small and you’ll end up overloading, stopping the air inside from flowing properly and, ultimately, forcing your FF to work harder, this using more power. So, consider capacity too.
Finally, as a general rule of thumb, the more doors a fridge-freezer has, such as the French door design, the less efficient it’ll be as it has to work harder to re-chill every time a door is opened and closed. On which ostium-based point, here I’ve largely stuck to 70/30 split fridge freezers as these tend to be the most efficient. However, if I’m feeling fruity, I may throw in one of the few Side-by-Sides that actually come ‘A’ rated rather than the usual ‘E’ or ‘F’.
And now that’s definitely pretty much it; except of course for the following five flawless megaliths of fridge-freezer energy frugality…
Best energy-efficient fridge freezers at a glance:
- Best for sub-£1000 space and savings: Samsung Bespoke SpaceMax RL38C776ASR - £859, Samsung
- Best for ‘A’ class pure class for the deep of pocket: Miele KFN 4795 AD - £2,399, Miele
- Best for getting (and staying) fresh: LG Centrum GBB92MCBAP - £1,179, AO
- Best for larger households/hungrier people: Haier Series 7 HSW79F18ANMM - £1,799, Currys
- Best for smaller households, bigger freezer: Hisense RB440N4ACA - £749, Argos
Samsung Bespoke SpaceMax RL38C776ASR
Best for: Sub-£1000 space and savings
As you’ve probably guessed, the better the efficiency, the more expensive the appliance. But – and it’s a reasonably sized but – paying the extra for a better fridge-freezer is an investment in lower energy costs and longevity, so it pays to pay. But, that said, this slick-looking, free-standing slice of Samsung action, the SpaceMax RL38C776ASR, actually comes priced at a pound under a grand, which forces it into the pleasantly agreeable “affordable” bracket. Or at least it did. Currently reduced by £140 to £859, now you can bag yourself a real energy-efficient bargain.
A type 70/30 with a total capacity of 387-litres split 274-litres for the fridge and 114 litres for the freezer, the Sammy is an ‘A’ class and comes absolutely packed with a wealth of subsequent Sammy tech, including ‘Twin Cooling Plus’ that uses two separate air flows to deliver precise temperature control, a no frost system to save you from the time-consuming tedium of having to hack away ice build up with a dinner knife and a hammer, and this being 2025, it also comes Wi-Fi-enabled, linking to the Samsung Smart Things app so that you can monitor the fridge-freezer’s energy consumption in real-time and receive alerts if any problems are detected.
So, gloriously efficient when it comes to energy, but also beautifully practical too, with the SpaceMax of the name meaning thinner walls for more interior room, while the fridge comes featuring no fewer than 4x shelves, 2x drawers, a wine rack and a sizeable door pocket, and the freezer section 3x drawers and an ice tray, so ample area for all your eats.
Finally, as you’ll be stuck with the thing in your kitchen for countless years to come, it’s important that your fridge-freezer be easy on the eye and the ear. To that end, with a slick silver finish, the Samsung is certainly a looker, and with a running volume of just 35dB thanks to a Digital Inverter Compressor at its heart, no more incessant hum of lesser fridge-freezers for you!
Buy now £859.00, Samsung
Miele KFN 4795 AD
Best for: ‘A’ class pure class for the deep of pocket
Miele, maker of white goods wonderment. Ludicrously expensive. Built to last. Imbued with all the innovation. And that’s me generalising about all their appliances, before I focus fully on its KFN 4795 AD, which – spoiler alert! – is ludicrously expensive, built to last, and imbued with all the innovation.
From the outside, it’s a big box with a stunning ‘BlackSteel’ finish and nicely bold, chunky handles for both fridge and freezer sections. A 70/30 design, the Miele features a full ‘A’ class rating for energy efficiency and offers you, the lucky/rich owner, a capacious 371 litres of space inside, split 268 to 103 litres respectively in the fridge and freezer. And exerting effortlessly precise control over the airflow in those two spaces is ‘DuplexCool’, keeping cooling separate, ‘DynaCool’ to ensure temperature distribution is uniform, and a no frost system to keep you from having to get your hands cold as you chip away at ice build-up.
Storage-wise, there are tons of places to put your stuff in the fridge, thanks to a full 5x shelves, 4x door shelves, a crisper drawer and bottle rack, while the freezer features a further three drawers for all your frozen fare.
With an annual energy consumption of 103.66kWh, at prices as of April, that works out at a cost of £28.02 per year, which shouldn’t break the bank, so you may have spent the lion’s share of 2.4K on a fridge-freezer, but tested to last 15-years but at least you know that powering the thing for the next decade and a half won’t cost anywhere near as much as running a far cheaper, less efficient option.
As with all the best appliances, the Miele also comes Wi-Fi-enabled, letting it link up with your home network for monitoring over the Miele@home app, so that’ll keep the tech-heads happy too. And last but not least, running at a whisper-like 34dB the KFN 4795 AD is also the proud owner of a Quiet Mark award, so the complete package of peace of mind when it comes to both pocket and planet, and peace of ear too – for those with the requisite amount of pennies, it’s worth every one of them.
Buy now £2399.00, Miele
LG Centrum GBB92MCBAP
Best for: Getting (and staying) fresh
A slick-looking 70/30, the the LG Centrum comes in a Matt Black finish, a Wi-Fi-enabled, ‘A’ class energy efficient option that offers an expansive 386-litres of internal dimension, divvied up 233 for the fridge and 107 for the freezer, so ample room for all thanks to the extra space afforded by the LG’s extra height.
Akin to other models here, the LG features a dual cooling system to keep both sections perfectly regulated and a no frost system to stop the build-up of irritating ice, but what it also has is linear inverter motors, which not only last much longer than conventional motors but are far more energy efficient too. In fact, racking up an average energy consumption of 137kWh, running the LG will cost you around £37 per year, which may be quite the rise against the Miele featured above, but then this is more than £2K cheaper in initial outlay.
Now, focusing on the word ‘fresh’, the LG comes with a threesome of fresh ideas, namely a ‘FRESHZone’ designed to keep meat and fish at the absolute optimum temperature, a ‘FRESHBalancer’ drawer in which you can adjust humidity for fruit and veg, and a ‘FRESHConverter’ drawer that lets you manually adjust the temperature to create an ideal environment for meat, fish or veg.
When it comes to shelves and stuff, you’ll find four adjustable such things in the fridge, alongside a bottle rack and ample room in the door pockets, and 3x drawers in the freezer, so space aplenty for medium-sized families to stock up.
Arguably similar in spec to the Samsung we looked at earlier (if now rather more expensive), if your diet leans more towards fresh produce than things fished from the freezer, this may well be the perfect cooking kit for your kitchen.
Buy now £1179.00, AO
Haier Series 7 HSW79F18ANMM
Best for: Larger households/hungrier people
Big old bunch of Hungry Joe and Joannes in your home? Then let’s look to the Land of the Large and up the icy ante with the HSW79F18ANMM American-style Side-by-Side from Haier, a hulking great siler machine with a simply colossal total capacity of some 611-litres and, of course, dimensions that demand a larger kitchen layout.
‘A’ rated for energy efficiency, unusually for this style of fridge-freezer, and freeing you from headache-inducing buzz and hum at a serene 35dB of operational volume, fridge capacity gives you a commodious 391-litres to play around with, whole the freezer section presents an equally immense 185-litres, so the weekly shop will prove no problem at all.
With a ‘Humidity Zone’ to keep fruit and veg extra fresh for longer, ‘Super Cool’ and ‘Super Freeze’ on-hand to get your perishables down to the correct temperature in next to no time, and ‘Total No Frost’ to save you from having to endure a manual defrost and all the chipping away effort that entails, the Haier saves time, energy usage, and unnecessary manual labour.
Throw in Wi-Fi to hook it up to the hOn app in order to alter settings while away from home, and Haier’s colossus of cold is all the larger family could ever need to be eco-friendly while always ensuring there’s something to eat.
Buy now £1799.00, Currys
Hisense RB440N4ACA
Best for: Smaller households, bigger freezer
At the other end of the side spectrum from the Haier sits the Hisense RB440N4ACA, a sleek stainless steel cold box designed for the smaller-sized clan, yet which still offers a sizeable complete capacity of 336-litres, split 238 and 98 between fridge and freezer.
A 60/40 design, this ‘A’ class efficient machine, the Hisense comes in at a considerable amount under £1000, but still has all the features you’d expect from a modern fridge-freezer, including ‘Super Freeze’ to get your goods down to their ideal temperature as quickly as possible, ‘Total No Frost’ to guarantee, well, totally no frost, and a crisper drawer humidity regulator to keep your delicate fruit and veg as spritely as possible for longer.
Featuring 5x shelves, 4x door trays and a wine rack in the fridge, plus 3x drawers in the freezer, the small-to-medium sized household will have little trouble packing the shopping without struggling for space, while the use of a vacuum insulation panel and a highly efficient frequency conversion compressor work to lower energy consumption keep costs down for small-to-medium pocketed families too.
An excellent, energy-efficient option at an equally excellent price, the Hisense provides fridge-freezer perfection for a smaller space.
Buy now £749.00, Argos
