Almost every UK kitchen plan starts with the same assumption: you need a fridge freezer. One tall unit, a split somewhere around 70/30, done.
For a large number of households that is the wrong appliance — and the reason is simple. In a 70/30 fridge freezer you get a freezer compartment you didn't really want, taking up space you did want, and a fridge that's smaller than the box it sits in.
There is another way to do it, and it's worth understanding before you commit to a kitchen layout.
The three things people mean by "fridge without a freezer"
These get used interchangeably and they are not the same appliance.
A larder fridge
No freezer compartment at all. The entire cabinet is refrigerated. You get shelves from top to bottom, usually a salad drawer or two at the base, and nothing that makes ice.
This is the one most people actually want and rarely get offered.
A fridge with an ice box
A small frozen compartment inside the fridge, usually behind its own little flap. Good for a couple of bags of peas and an ice tray. Not good for a weekly shop's worth of frozen food, and it needs manually defrosting.
Worth knowing: an ice box runs at around -6°C to -12°C depending on the model, not the -18°C a proper freezer holds. Food labelled with a three-star rating keeps for months; in an ice box, weeks.
A separate undercounter freezer
A standalone freezer that sits under a worktop like a dishwasher does. Paired with a larder fridge, this is the two-appliance approach — and it's how most kitchens of any size were built before the tall fridge freezer became the default.
Why two appliances often beats one
You get more of what you use. A tall larder fridge gives you the whole cabinet as fridge space. If your household shops fresh two or three times a week and freezes very little, this is straightforwardly more useful than the same cabinet split 70/30.
You can put the freezer somewhere else. A freezer does not need to be in the kitchen. Utility room, garage, under the stairs — if you have the space, moving it frees a full appliance slot in the room where space costs the most.
When one fails, you don't lose both. A fridge freezer with a single compressor loses everything at once. Two appliances fail independently.
Running costs are not automatically worse. Two modern appliances sized correctly often use no more than one oversized one. What costs money is a half-empty freezer — a freezer works best full, because frozen food holds the cold.
The honest case against
Two appliances cost more than one. A larder fridge and an undercounter freezer will usually come to more than a single fridge freezer of equivalent total capacity, and they take two slots instead of one.
If your kitchen has exactly one appliance space for cold storage, this decision is already made for you. Buy the fridge freezer.
And if you batch cook, buy frozen in bulk, or have a freezer that's genuinely full most of the time, a 95-litre undercounter freezer will frustrate you inside a month.
Sizing: undercounter or in-column
Undercounter units are roughly 82cm tall and sit under a standard worktop. In-column units are full height and sit in a tall housing, the same way a built-in oven does.
The practical difference is bending. An undercounter larder fridge means crouching for everything. Some people don't mind; some people mind a great deal after a week. If the fridge is the appliance you open twenty times a day, height is not a trivial consideration.
Our measuring guide covers the aperture checks in full — but the short version is that you measure the hole, not the appliance.
The integrated door question
Nearly everything in this category is integrated, which means the furniture door is supplied by your kitchen, not by us. Sliding hinge or fixed hinge matters, and getting it wrong is an expensive mistake.
Our guide to integrated appliances covers hinge types, housing sizes and ventilation properly. Read it before you order anything integrated.
What we stock
Tall larder fridges
The Candy CMS518EWK at £548 is the sensible starting point — full-height, sliding hinge, no freezer compartment to waste.
The Hoover H500 HOMS518EWK at £562 sits alongside it.
Step up and the Smeg Integrated In-Column Tall Larder Fridge at £1,189.99 is the in-column option, and the Liebherr IRBbi5150 Plus with BioFresh at £1,911 is the one to look at if keeping fresh food genuinely longer matters to you.
Undercounter fridges
The Smeg Built-In Under Counter Larder Fridge holds 134 litres at £589.99 with no freezer section at all.
If you want a small frozen compartment, the Smeg UKS4C092D with ice box is £530.
Undercounter freezers
The Liebherr FE1404 Pure with SmartFrost at £400 is the value option and SmartFrost means dramatically less manual defrosting.
The Smeg Built-In Under Counter Freezer is 95 litres at £729.99, and the Smeg Integrated In-Column Tall Freezer at £1,189.99 is the full-height partner to the larder fridge above.
So which should you buy?
Buy a larder fridge and separate freezer if: you have two appliance slots, or one slot plus somewhere else to put a freezer; you shop fresh regularly; you've been annoyed by how little fridge space you have.
Buy a larder fridge and nothing else if: you genuinely don't freeze food. Some households don't. There is no rule requiring you to own a freezer.
Buy a fridge freezer if: you have one cold storage slot, you freeze a meaningful amount, or budget is the binding constraint. Our fridge freezer buying guide covers that route.
Frequently asked questions
Is a larder fridge more expensive than a fridge freezer?
Per appliance, usually slightly less. But you're likely buying two appliances rather than one, so the total is higher. What you're buying is usable space and flexibility, not a saving.
Can I put an undercounter freezer in my garage?
Check the climate class on the specification before you do. Many appliances are rated SN-T or N-ST, and an appliance rated only for N will struggle in an unheated UK garage in winter — it can stop cooling entirely because the thermostat reads the cold room, not the cabinet.
What's the difference between an ice box and a freezer compartment?
Temperature and star rating. A proper freezer holds -18°C and takes four-star food for months. An ice box is warmer and is intended for short-term storage and ice.
Do I need a frost free larder fridge?
Fridges don't frost up the way freezers do, so frost free matters much less here. On the freezer side it matters a great deal — manual defrosting an undercounter freezer twice a year is a genuinely unpleasant afternoon.
Can I convert a fridge freezer space into two undercounter appliances?
Sometimes, but not usually without kitchen work. A tall housing is one aperture; two undercounter appliances need two, plus a worktop run above them. It's a kitchen fitter question, not an appliance one.
Not sure which way to go? Tell us your kitchen layout and how much you actually freeze and we'll give you a straight answer.
