just did a bunch of fridge research myself, I'm going with an LG french door counter depth 36" fridge.
1) yes, there are french door fridges that fit a 36" wide opening
2) Whirlpool/KitchenAid still make good fridges so if you're happy with the brand no reason to leave. I keep seeing great reviews of Samsung fridges and would have gone with them if they had had what I wanted. I chose LG which seems to have a fairly reliable fridge now. Kenmore, Maytag, Amana, SubZero, Jenn-Air (basically almost all the familiar brands!) are all in the runnings with various fridges. The only one that might be worth avoiding is GE, consumer reports show a pretty poor brand reliability with GE's fridges. check out the link to consumersearch website I added and start your research from there!
3) bottom mount refers to the position of the freezer. It's becoming much more common to mount the freezer on the bottom since that leaves the entire fridge space at a more user friendly level. Then you only need to stoop to get stuff out of the freezer which you typically use much less often than the fridge.
Good luck!

Here is a link that might be useful: consumersearch

KFCS20EVMS-Kitchen Aid should fit in your opening. It is counterdepth and 70 and 15/16ths inches tall.
My personal favorite is the KFXS25RYMS four door french door bottom freezer. This is what I will put in my new house.
Donnar, if you want more tech data, email me, be glad to help.

Please consider a single door bottom mount refrigerator. There are several 36" models. French door needs 2 hands to open and it is a pain when you have a couple of gallon jugs of milk. Unless you are super organized and have great memory, you cannot predictably open the side with space for milk. This drove a couple of my friends nuts and made me reconsider. Also single door is more energy efficient as you are not opening doors one after another hunting for X or Y.. Definitely yes for bottom mount freezer.

Many french door models will fit your space. They generally are a little over 35 inches wide and you only need a 1/4 inch or so clearance on the sides.

I purchased an LG counter depth French door refrigerator last year - the LG LFC21776ST and have been very happy with it. The full depth model that is pretty much the same as mine is their 25 cu ft model - the LFC25776ST.

I have no issues with the french door fridge, and don't consider myself a super organized person. I can usually only have to open one door to get what I need. That may be due to the counter depth. It is smaller, but nothing gets lost in the back.

Here is a link that might be useful: LG full size french door

With a 36" x 72" opening, you pretty much have your choice of any free standing refrig. If you're looking for more freezer space, unfortunately the side by side will give you more freezer space. I always ask my customers what's more important to them, freezer or refrig space, and 99% will say fresh food, so I'll show em bottom freezer models. Even the 28 cu ft bottom freezers only give you about 9 cu ft of freezer space, where as a 25 cu ft side by side gives you about 10 cu ft.

As for brands, Electrolux makes an excellent unit, providing you can do without the thru the door ice and water dispenser, as they've had major issues with that. But if you really want the water and ice thru the door, Bosch makes a nice unit. I'd avoid LG, as they have been difficult as a company to get parts for at service time. The big box store love selling those Korean brands, because they don't provide any service. They'll just tell you to call their customer service. But my place has their own service dept, and when you have to tell a cust you can't get the part for 3-5 weeks on a refrig, because it has to come over from Korea, well let's just say my customers aren't happy. In most cases, I demand my rep get me an RA on the model, and get them out a replacement unit, which sucks, but that's how some of my LG repairs are handled. Feel free to look this up on the internet, as I have many customers that research this themselves before they walk into my store.

We love our KitchenAid Proline CD french door fridge. Has internal water dispenser so the door face is less cluttered looking, we've gotten used to a pull out drawer freezer (wife actually now prefers this over our last swing door bottom mount) and the counter depth just looks sweet.

Full 36" wide and close to 72" high. Your opening will fit most 36" wide fridges perfectly.

I agree with what Lalitha said, and am NOT a fan of the french door style. This is obviously individual preference. Before you make up your mind, you must go to a store that has them on display and try for yourself, and see how you like them. You may find you like a single-door bottom-freezer style instead. You didn't mention whether door clearance is an issue. The single-door fridges need more door clearance, so be aware of that, but nevertheless I like them better.

You don't mention a budget. Anyway, I recommend Kitchenaid fridges. EZWilder wrote a very informative post, and I have read several other posts on this forum from Electrolux fridge fans, though I don't have any personal knowledge of them.

As for budget - - we see this refrig as something we better be prepared to pay for within a year, so we're watching. I'd like to keep the price under $2K if possible.

Door clearance - there's an island that is in the middle of the kitchen. The doors on the current side-by-side have no problems opening all the way, and we put this fridge in AFTER the island was installed. So we know there's room.

The way we put things away from the grocery store is to dump everything on the island as we are unpacking, and then loading it into the fridge or the pantry type cupboard that is next to it.

We looked at the Samsung models at Lowe's, but they seemed very pricey. I can't remember what other models we looked at. Lowe's had mostly stainless steel fronts, but our kitchen (4 years old now) is done with black appliances. Lowe's assured us that they have black ones in stock.

Donna

Just, got a KA french door std depth 26.6 cf and really love it I liked the smaller ice maker as it leaves more room in the fridge. Now after having it awhile I find that the cubes are kind of small and melt faster than the ones in our old Whirlpool side by side, which I only replaced because it was white. One pitcher of margaritas takes about half the ice too. If you use a lot of ice get one with the bigger ice maker. Whirlpool, Maytag, Jennair and Kitchen Aid are all Whirlpool brands and there are models with both styles of ice maker in each. Even though a side by side may be larger freezer wise, you can pack more in the french door. The ice maker is also in the refrigerator section so it doesn't take up a fourth of the room in the freezer.

lalitha -- I prefer the single top door also, but I haven't found a full depth 36" wide one anywhere. The original poster will be losing space if they go down to counter depth.

We don't need to go to counter depth. We were only worried about the 72"x36" opening. The current side-by-side sticks out about 6" or so from the opening, which is not a problem to us (and we prefer the extra space).

"Even though a side-by-side ay be larger freezer-wise, you can pack more in the french door." That's what my husband thought, too.

I didn't know that Jenn-Air and KA were both made by Whirlpool, though I did know about the merger of Whirlpool and Maytag. Unfortunately, the old adage about the Maytag repairman being lonely has not been true for us. Our OTC MW has had at least one professional repair in 4 years, and I just Super-Glued the handle myself so that we wouldn't have to buy a whole new door for it.

Donna

Jenn-Air and KA are the top of the line models and are built accordingly. The new 4 door KA has a 10 year warranty on some parts. Rare to see in appliances.

Any French door should fit. Most of those listed at 36" wide are actually about 35.5 so if you have a 36" space it will just clear. If not there are 33 inch models but you usually would not have ice and water dispensing (which some people don't care for anyway). 72 inch height clearance will be no problem. You might want to take a look at some of the double pullout drawer models, some of them give you two freezers while some give you a ref pullout which is good for produce, kids drink boxes, deli products etc. I'm in the business and I regard LG, Samsung and Kitchenaid as the best brands but Whirlpool and Frigidaire also have some nice offerings and are more budget friendly.

I love our GE Profile French Door fridge. Ours stores a gallon of milk in one of the side doors. You can see everything, even though ours is one of their largest capacity fridges. We have the bottom mount freezer, which I love. One annoyance, and I don't know if this is the case with other french door fridges: you can't just let go of the door and expect it to close itself--it needs a little push. Fortunately there is also an alarm that sounds if the door is ajar.

Ajmadison dot com is a great place to look at appliance specs. Their search features help you narrow down your choices by styles, features, and price range you want. Each appliance lists its dimensions also. Good for research.

You may want to consider a cabinet depth model although it will cut down on the interior size of the fridge. We just had a Jenn Air French Door put in this week in an area sourrounded by cabinetry and it gives it a built in look without the cost. Only the actual doors are outside of the cabinet depth.

I just had a KA French Door frig. installed and it's part of our new cabinetry with pantry cabinets on either side. It all looks beautiful! I love this frig. and don't mind having to open both doors sometime. I love to look at everything at once in the frig and it's all in front, easy to see and get to. Also, am happy with the interior ice cold filtered water dispenser! Very happy with this French Door model.

We love our LG FD counter-depth refrigerator. Ice maker works great, and I like the reduced depth / increased width and height because you can see more of what's in the fridge. Also I like having the freezer drawer below because we use the freezer less frequently than the fridge. Cost around $1,500 I think (about 3 years ago).

Any other complaints or things to be cautious about with the French Door fridge? Do they use more energy? Thanks!

I've had a FD Samsung for two years. I've been happy with FD design and interior layout; VERY unhappy with both the reliability of the unit as well as Samsung customer service. My freezer stopped working last weekend, followed by the fridge early in the week. I've gotten a runaround from both Samsung and their authorized repairer, attempts to deny any warranty service, and conflicting stories from Samsung and their repairer as to what to do before the repairer finally shows up next week. The icemaker also stopped working in the first year and after several calls on my part, Samsung did replace it. Apparently, some Samsung models have a history of early failure of the cooling system.

donnar

We have the JA CD FD fridge x 5yrs now - LOVE it -

I would suggest you make certain that the door swings on both sides have clearance to fully open - Too often I see kitchens where the FD fridge is hitting something when opening one or both of the doors

good luck