Verdict

Pros

• Great flexibility of zone storage options
• Handy middle drawer, wide shelves
• Reasonable running costs
• Great value for capacity

Cons

• Minor build quality issues
• No ice or water dispenser
• Fridge temp a little inconsistent

What is the Servis FD91185SS?

The Servis FD91185SS is a luxurious top-of-the-range fridge freezer at a relatively sensible price. It pays homage to American refrigerators, but has its own unique style and features. Key among those are the two Flexi-Zone freezer compartments, which you can switch to become fridge sections at the touch of a button. This is a frost-free freezer, too, while Servis’ ColdWrap system claims to circulate cold air around the fridge walls to reduce moisture build-up.

SEE ALSO: Best Fridge Freezer Round-up

Servis FD91185SS: How does it look?

This Servis FD91185SS looks every inch the star of the kitchen. With its anti-fingerprint stainless steel front and sleek elegant frameless touch control panel, this fridge freezer certainly has the wow factor. Even the way that the door handles are illuminated with LEDs adds to the space-age look.

On the downside, none of the door shut-lines or handles on the doors line up perfectly with each other, although jury was out on how much of an issue this would be on a day-to-day basis. Have a look in store before you buy. Still, on opening the double fridge doors, you are met with a cavernous fridge space with three 79cm wide tempered glass shelves, two salad crispers and a full width 12cm high pull out chiller drawer. This maintains food at a constant 2-3°C and is also suitable for slowly defrosting frozen foods.

The freezers are referred to as zones on the control panel and can be easily set at a higher temperature, enabling them to act as a fridge. This would be handy if you wanted extra space for parties or somewhere to store only drinks. All of these functions are controlled via the frameless touch sensitive control panel on the front. This is both easy to read and offers various icons that illuminate depending on what mode is chosen.

Each temperature zone is clearly displayed, with handy one-touch features such as the beverage cooling alarm. This acts as an audible alarm timer that can be set to a maximum of 30mins when drinks are placed in the coolest part of the freezer for a speedy cool down. There is no ice or water dispenser but as the Servis comes in at a fraction of the price of some of the side-by-side models we have tested, that is a fair compromise.

SEE ALSO: Best American Fridge Freezer Round-up

Servis FD91185SS: How much can you fit in?

The short answer is loads. Open the double doors and you are confronted with 362litres of storage space, all brightly lit from the back and all easily in view. The middle shelf is adjustable so you can store very large, bulky items with ease in the fridge.
The salad drawers have humidity control sliders allowing you to control the amount of air circulating amongst your veg, keeping it crisper for longer.

The middle pull out wide drawer is a handy addition as not only does this keep the temperature more constant, it is a great place to store the larger, flatter items. Each door contains a large, deep bottom shelf that easily takes two litre bottles of your favourite pop and three smaller shelves, the top one being covered for use as a dairy compartment. The additional width of the top-mount double door configuration means there is enough space to easily store the remains of last night’s family take-away pizza, including the box, and it would really come into its own over Christmas with any turkey storage issues.

The twin freezers offer an additional 164litres of space, either as freezers or additional fridges. The latter might be of use if you also have a chest freezer in the shed, so could use one of the freezer compartments as a dedicated wide/beer/drinks cooler for example. Both compartments have two deep pull out clear fronted drawers so can be fully utilised and with a top shelf, this is the ideal place to stack all those ready meals in full view.

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Servis FD91185SS: How noisy is it?

Although we rated it slightly higher than the 45dB quoted in Servis literature in the official figures, we still only measured a maximum of 47dB, which is remarkably quiet for such a large, twin-compressor machine. Models like the Samsung RF24FSEDBSR are a fair bit quieter but come with a far larger price ticket too. In a standard household, with the general noise of living, it certainly won’t be the noise that makes this Servis FD91185SS stand out – it will be the look.

Servis FD91185SS: What is it like to live with?

This Servis FD91185SS would add the wow factor to any kitchen, although you will need a fair bit of space for it. The sleek and practical stainless steel finish looks great, although the sides are only spray painted silver so the stainless steel look does not continue all the way around. This may be a factor if a side of the machine is in plain view.

The illuminated handles at first are very eye-catching but can be a bit bright in a dark kitchen. There is a way to turn them on or off but not dim them, unfortunately. Interestingly, there is a Night Sensor feature that can be selected to only turn on the LED lights when it detects there is low ambient light – ideal for midnight fridge raids without having to turn the kitchen light on.

The massive interior of the fridge enables you to easily store oversized or long items and the interior LED lighting illuminates every corner. The two salad drawers are deep enough to take all your vegetables with ease and the middle pull out drawer just adds to the appeal.  

The freezers are a convenient two drawer, one shelf configuration, which is much more practical than a standard American fridge freezer configuration that generally offer only shelves so everything is in danger of falling out on opening the door. As for the Flexi-Zone technology and turning the freezer compartments into additional fridges, this is a great way to increase fridge space when required at the touch of a button.

The whole machine can be put into a Holiday Mode for when you are going away and do not require the fridge. As it uses dual compressors this enables the freezer to keep working but the fridge to stop. Clearly this big Servis is not short on features.

Servis FD91185SS: How well does it perform?

Overall, the Servis FD91185SS turned in a respectable set of test results across all three compartments. We set the fridge to 4 degrees, both freezers to -20 degrees and loaded all compartments for medium household usage of 1kg food / 10litres capacity in the freezer and 0.5kg food / 10 litres in the fridge. In both freezer compartments we included 2 litres of room temperature water with a middle sensor to check the fresh-to-frozen and power-off defrost rates of the freezer. We mapped the temperature in four different zones of each compartment over a 48hour period, taking readings every minute for greatest accuracy. And with three separate compartments, that was a lot of readings!

Starting with the freezers set at -20 degrees and there is no appreciable difference in their performance. Both maintained a -20 degree temperature average over the test period with variations of no greater than /- 2 degrees over the compressor cycle. Moreover both compartments brought our 2litres of room temperature water to -18degrees in a very rapid 12 hours. All very good indeed.

The three-hour fail test showed no great surprises with the maximum temperature reached being -8degrees (air temp) at the top of both compartments and a frozen food temperature of -12 degrees. While not the very best we have tested, this would still keep frozen food safe in the order of 12 hours in the event of a power cut.

The Servis’s cavernous refrigerator compartment was nearly as good but not quite so consistent on the top shelf and small drawer. With the compartment set at 4 degrees the top shelf swung between 4 and 7 degrees over its roughly two hour compressor cycle and the small drawer bounced between 0 and 5 degrees over the same cycle. The middle shelf and salad draws remained exceptionally stable however at 4 degrees at just /-1 degree.

Overall the results are very good and biting at the heels of the top-spec side-by-side machines we have tested — not bad for lesser-known brand with a more appealing price.

Servis FD91185SS: How much will it cost to run?

This is a large machine but considering its size and usability this Servis FD91185SS costs relatively little to run, averaging around 521kW per year. This would set you back approximately £78.15 per annum at an average of 15p per kWh. This is slightly more than the Servis quoted figures of 481kW (£72.15), but still a great result and would be well worth the money. 

Should I buy the Servis FD91185SS?

Yes you should if you are looking for a large American style fridge freezer and have the room to fit it into your kitchen.  It is comparatively good value for money compared to others in the market and scores very high on the usability front. The sleek minimalist design and space-age looks would definitely be a winner and with the great storage flexibility this is one of the best around.

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