apartment therapy changing the world, one room at a time

I voted a waste of energy, but that's only if you leave it on all of the time. When my parents remodeled their kitchen and got a new fridge, the old one went in the basement. It only gets plugged in for the couple of days leading up to a holiday that my parents are hosting at their house, maybe six days a year total. In that case it makes a lot of sense, but to run two fridges all of the time is nuts!

in college, i lived with 6 professional drinkers, so the beer fridge was an absolute necessity!

My parents have 2 fridges. I think this stems from the fact that my mom was from a BIG family and they had to have 2 just to hold the food for a week (or less)...I think every one of her siblings have 2 fridges, even those who are only couples or singles!

Maybe it's the way I was raised, but a second fridge always seemed like an unnecessary luxury to me, but having a full-sized freezer in the garage was almost a necessity. Maybe for some a full-sized freezer would just be an excuse keep more microwave dinners on hand, but my mom is more the type to freeze berries on cookie sheets and then pack them into the freezer in gallon bags for cobbler or smoothies the rest of the year.

Living in a studio now, I still get the feeling at times that I could eat much more healthily and cheaply if I had more freezer space.

Perfect for the single man. Every man single or not needs a frig to keep all his beer in. :) Us guys who are not single have to try to convince our ladies of the necessity.

the only time a second fridge is needed is for entertaining -- for a big dinner or party, so I'm with elissa on this one

Maybe a waste of energy, but if you brew your own beer, and use a keg system, it is an absolute essential. Check this blog - http://slaphog.com/hogblog/?p=259
Homesteaders FTW!

Regarding entertaining, last Thanksgiving I filled the bathtub with ice for extra cold storage. It worked quite well.

Unfortunately, necessary ... for 3 reasons:
1. Our basement (where #2 fridge is located) is generally the teenagers hangout - having handy milk, juices and soft drinks are a necessity.
2. Milk is bought in BULK. The extra fridge saves extra trips to buy milk (note the teenagers above)
3. My kitchen fridge is a side by side. I was excited about the water and ice dispenser but realized after the fact the freezer is pretty much useless for big items like turkeys (yes, I know multiple, but remember the teenagers)
Yes I shop at Costco but I do try to make my shopping trips count which save extra trips. That's also where I bought the basement fridge with a very high energy star rating! ;-)

oooops, I mean low energy star number which uses less electricity and therefore is a higher rated fridge (teenagers are home from school and my head is spinning!)

i don't know about just plain fridges, but i'm cool with second freezers. how else are you going to store that organic free-range humanely-raised 1/4 of a cow that you bought online?