Why Do I Need To Know How Much A Refrigerator Weighs?

There are questions about appliances you often don’t realise need an answer until your being asked that question. One of these is the what is the weight of my refrigerator. This is mostly from removal people coming to move your furniture to your new house but it is handy to know in advance.

You may need to know the weight of your refrigerator for when you move house, order a new fridge or even when removing an old one. While these may be few and far between times it can be helpful to know the weight to organise proper help and transport as they are often large and very heavy.

In this article I am going to talk about the reasons you may need to know how much a refrigerator weighs and some rough estimates of different size refrigerators on the market.

Why Do I Need To Know How Much A Refrigerator Weighs?

  • For carrying, moving, etc
  • For delivery charges
  • Towing weights or weight capacity in your car

Well, there are plenty of occasions in your life where you might need to know the rough weight of your fridge – even though it might seem like you’ll get a fridge and then literally never move it again. That might not be the case!

There are three occasions that spring to mind straight away where you might need to know the weight of your fridge: when moving, when getting the fridge delivered, and when driving with the fridge in your car.

Firstly, let’s speak about the most obvious and logical time that you might want to know the rough weight of your fridge – when you’re moving home. In that situation, you’ll want to move your fridge from your old house to your new horse, and any number of people might need to be involved in that process.

Whether it’s you and some friends that you’re paying with beer and pizza, or if it’s actual movers, you’ll need to know how much the fridge weighs. There are a huge number of different things that can go wrong on a moving day, and you don’t want anyone to hurt themselves moving your stuff – that’s a blow to a friendship at best, and a lawsuit at worst.

Therefore, having a rough idea of the weight of your fridge will help to completely prevent anyone that’s helping you out from getting injured.

The delivery charges on large pieces of furniture are no joke. While some high street stores can afford to offer you free delivery, even free next day delivery, a large number of other stores simply cannot. Therefore, they will have to come up with a price, usually, one which is based upon how tough it will be to move the fridge around – weight plays a huge factor in that.

Therefore, when you’re getting a particularly large piece of furniture delivered to your house, whether it’s a sofa or a fridge, you might be stung by the delivery charge. Make sure to bear that in mind when you’re looking at fridges!

The final reason that we can think of that you might need to bear the weight of your fridge in mind is if you’re planning to use your car to transport it. For example, you might want to move a small fridge into your caravan or even just transport an old fridge to the tip. Either way, you need to know how much they cost so that you can ensure you’re driving safely.

This is also a good time to point out that you really need to know the correct size of your fridge. This will, in conjunction with the weight, allow you to calculate a rough density, and figure out where within a towing vehicle you will place your fridge.

If an object is poorly placed within a towing vehicle, then the weight distribution will be all off. This will result in a poorly balanced vehicle and, in turn, can be very dangerous. Even the slightest fault with the road surface can be multiplied to be extremely dangerous in a poorly balanced towing vehicle.

How Much Does A Refrigerator Weigh?

Well, that’s a tough question as there are simply so many different types of fridges out there. The best way to explain it quickly is to show you a rough table which gives you an idea of the average weight and size for different fridges.

TypeMeasurements (cm – HxWxD)Weight (kg)
Mini63 x 44.5 x 5117.4
Undercounter84 x 54.5 x 5926.5
Tall189.5 x 59.5 x 71.267
American-Style179 x 91 x 70.598.7

Mini Fridges

Mini fridges are typically exceptionally small pieces of kit that are designed to be used sparingly. At least, they are not designed for heavy use such as you would find in a family.

Most often, they are found to be in offices and similar places – typically holding one or two small things, such as people’s lunch and a little bit of milk for tea and coffee.

These fridges are designed to be small and light. The reason for this is that they are not designed to sit in one place and work there until they break. Instead, they are designed to be moved from office to office if needs be, or even from someone’s home to the office.

They are also designed to be safe for use on a tabletop. This is just because they’re so small – they wouldn’t be very effective at sitting directly on the ground, as you’d have to crouch or kneel every time you wanted to go into one of them.

A weight of roughly fifteen to twenty kilos is typical of a fridge of this size, and that isn’t an awful lot of weight, really. To put it into the context of something that you might have picked up before now – an average microwave weighs roughly fifteen kilos.

The difficulty in picking up a fridge of this weight will not be in the weight, but more so in how cumbersome it will be – all the weight will be at the back of the fridge, where the refrigeration unit is. Of course, that will be the case for all of these fridges, just to a lesser degree as they get heavier.

Undercounter Fridges

Undercounter fridges are typically used by smaller households and in caravans. They can hold quite a lot of stuff while also being small enough to not be oversized, which would lead to wasted energy.

These fridges aren’t designed with being lightweight in mind. While they are sometimes moved around in caravans and cars, they aren’t moved so often that their weight is a factor of concern for people buying these fridges.

A weight range of 25 to 30 kilos is typical for a fridge this size – and it’s a weight that you might struggle to pick up. A large dog, such as a dalmatian, weigh between 27 and 32 kilos, so a fridge of this size is right within that weight range.

That’s quite a lot of weight to pick up, we would suggest having two people pick up one of these fridges.

Tall Fridges

These fridges are probably the most commonly used fridges out there. They’re just the right size (if a little oversized in some cases) to hold a good amount of food for a family for a week or two.

On top of that, they typically come with some additional benefits, such as a water or ice dispenser – this makes them ideal for most households. These fridges do weigh quite a lot – think between 65 and 75 kilos.

This is roughly the same weight as an average-sized adult man, so quite a lot of weight to pick up, even between two people.

For weights such as this (especially ones as cumbersome as a fridge), we’d recommend leaving it to the professionals and their dollies designed specifically for lifting and moving heavy objects.

American-Style Fridges

Finally, we come to the largest of the bunch – American-style, or double fridges. These fridges can be utterly huge and are typically used for large families, or in homes where there is plenty of space in the kitchen.

The great thing about these fridges is that they can hold an awful lot of food, and they’ll stay cool for a long time if they’re unplugged. This means that if your double fridge is full of food and the power goes out, the food will remain cool and safe to eat for a fairly long time.

The average weight of a fridge this size is about a hundred kilos – that’s definitely an awful lot – a tenth of a ton! It’s very hard to put that into perspective, as so few things around us weigh that much. The best example we can give is that a baby elephant weighs somewhere between ninety and a hundred kilos at birth.

Moving a fridge that weighs that much is quite an ordeal, we’d certainly recommend leaving this one to the professionals.