There has to be a better layout.

Nope unfortunately there isn't. 82 year old brick center hall colonial, doing the best with what I got. Busted through a closet just to get this far. Previously fridge was a 36" fridge over freezer drawer oriented counterclockwise to this layout. Things get lost in a drawer hence the side by side desire. Smaller side by sides don't make sense for us. A 42" French door will require an off center placement and you still would not have enough space to the right for the full door swing.

Ted, I haven’t got any experience with push-to-open, but what about choosing an all fridge and using integrated freezer drawers elsewhere?

I don’t have SZ push to open but I have thermador columns. I really like it but it doesn’t open the door 100%; it just opens it a few inches to help you overcome the door seal and weight of the door. Ours is paneled. So I can walk up to it with my arms full, nudge the door with my hip, and it will pop open. I can then get my elbow in to open it all the way with my hands full. I also like that it also auto closes; so if my kids nudge it or bump into it, or try to open it, it will auto close. Ours

I just looked up the options and the undercounter is woefully small. I have very limited upper cabinets due to an existing large window and rangehood.

Thanks, NYCish. SZ requires custom panels and no handles. They say opening it manually will break the PTO. Do you notice any particular wear on panel paint, assuming yours are painted?

I’ve only noticed wear from after my mother in law came to visit and she dinged a panel with her ring (she is a little careless). I’d imagine your biggest thing with lacquer is the quality of the lacquer, ability to clean it from repeated touching, etc. but with lacquered millwork that is going to be the case all over. We had stained wood at our last place and you can see wear much more with Our painted cabs.
With our thermador you can set pull to open assist or push to open assist. Perhaps you can just opt for handles and choose pull to open? The doors are heavy; the assist is nice either way.

We originally looked at a SubZero push-to-open integrated fridge column, but eventually decided on getting a built-in fridge that we mounted flush. I personally like the look better, and it gives slightly more capacity. But it isn't available as push-to-open, so we put a panel on it and installed a handle.

In hindsight, I am very happy with my decision. At the time, there were comments on Houzz that home owners didn't like the push-to-open mechanism on their SubZero refrigerators. But that was a year or two ago. So, things might very well have changed.

My daughter likes the look of super tall stainless steel doors with the handles. I might be able to go that way but I would need to limit the freezer door to 90° max open. With PTO I could eliminate the 2-3" handles take up and probably get the full 105° opening.

We are getting SZ push to open 36” Fridge, 24” freezer and 18” wine cooler at the end of the month. I was in a accident last summer and have some shoulder and neck issues so I am looking forward to not having to open those heavy doors. Our KD recommended always pushing to open in a different spot so we don’t wear out a spot on the doors.

I was considering integrating a decorative push plate like what you frequently see on swinging doors at restaurants. Kind of like directing people to "push here". Obviosly something more stylish and not commercial looking.

Haha

Now that I’ve gotten my chuckling out of the way, will you be able to remove the ice bin if you can’t open the door past 90 degrees? Btw, I have a 48” so if you need any real-life data, just ask.

Sammy, they say the drawers are fully operational at 90°, just a bit more inconvenient to get them fully out. I am not Mary Poppins in the cleaning department so I can honestly say I don't remember the last time I took the drawer fully out. If you limited your doors to 90°, would you lose your mind? PTO is looking better and better.

If you limited your doors to 90°, would you lose your mind?

Freezer side? Definitely.

good to know!

Hey Ted, sounds like an interesting project. I'd love to see images or layouts if you feel like sharing. RE: fridge, I'm pretty sure if SZ makes it, it'll be great

The hand oils from push to open will wreck your finish over time, so the medallions are a good idea. It is an industrial commercial touch though. Sprinkling other industrial elements through may help you integrate the look.

This is my barn right now! The ladder is standing in the space of the refrigerator, the white pipe is my archnemesis. In the pic with the window on the left, the refrigerator will go to the right of that doorway which leads into the dining room. Let me look for some plans.

We picked the Waterstone Industrial PLP faucet and accessories. They have a knurled detailing. Looking at knobs and pulls by Colonial Bronze that pick up that detail as well.

here are some drawings. it is a work in progress as with anything old, you have to adjust because you never know what you are going to find behind the walls.

Cool! Well, I'm glad you have the option of pto. Don't forget you'll need an outlet for the servo drive. Keep us posted on how it goes.

sending the plumber's and electrician's kids to college on this one!

Does SubZero's refrigerator need a second outlet to operate the push-to-open door? That doesn't sound right. From what I remember, if was a purely mechanical device. Not electricity involved. Besides, it is installed in the fridge; so, there already should be electricity that is readily accessible.

Or did I misunderstand, and this is a push-to-open mechanism for some other cabinets. We have that in a couple of places and are very happy with it. Typically, it's just a different type of hinge, an attachment to the hinge, or a spring-loaded pin that gets installed somewhere.

But for some of our upper cabinets, we have electrical push-to-open hinges. The cabinet doors open upwards, which is nice because they completely move out of the way. But the downside is that in the open position they are hard to pull down again. They are just too high up. That's where the electrically operated hinges help.

And yes, my wife made the same comment. The cabinets are back-painted glass, and she didn't want to see fingerprints from push to open. The solution was pretty straight-forward. I bought some touch-sensitive switches that I mounted underneath the cabinets. They are easy to access but virtually invisible. I then soldered them to the push-to-open sensor. So, now I can open/close the doors with a gently push, or I can do the same thing by touching the buttons on the underside of the cabinet. And you'll never see any fingerprints.

From SZ:
The Press-to-Open accessory requires a dedicated, 15 amp circuit.
Two Press-to-Open accessories may be plugged into the same receptacle for dual installations.

Thanks for pointing that out. Learned something new today. The showroom made it sounds as if the press-to-open feature didn't need electricity. Maybe, they didn't know.

In any case, I can understand why SZ wants it on a separate circuit. I doubt, it pulls anywhere close to 15A. You could probably safely colocate the opener on pretty much any existing circuit. But they probably want to make sure you don't put it on the same circuit as the fridge/freezer. You really want those to be dedicated circuits so that you minimize the risk of coming home to a thawed freezer.

But that's something to discuss with the electrician. They'll walk through all the requirements and will do the math. And if in doubt, they'll call the manufacturer and ask for more details.

I have printed out every spec sheet and installation manual and have an electrical walk-thru with the contractor on Saturday. Electrician comes Monday or Tuesday. On another note, went to SZ showroom and saw a custom panel with SZ tube handle similar in size to SS panel and it looks like 4" would give good clearance for full open. Maybe I won't have to do PTO.

What about moving the doorway?

Behind the insulation is about 4" of plaster and lathe. This old house is S-O-L-I-D. Kitchen had multiple previous renovations done, layered on top of each other (found some 3/4" knotty pine paneling behind the dry wall. There is a reason why no one ever tried to move that doorway. I demo'd the original master bath a couple of years ago and the amount of plaster and concrete that come off the walls was enough to complete fill the tiny 8' x 8' space and kill my sinuses. No thank you! We will get this fridge in somehow, someway!

UPDATE: Well after measuring, measuring and more measuring, finally acquiesced a 48" of fridge/freezer was not going to fit in the space. Talk got around to moving the doorway 6" to the left and that was a hard stop for me. The symmetry of a center hall colonial is a blessing and a curse, but the view of an off center doorway from the dining room would drive me coo-coo. So the decision has been made to change to the 42" French door model. French door was not my first choice because (in my personal experience) food gets lost and abandoned in the drawer freezer. Upside is that the upper refrigerator will be nice and wide.

Thanks for all the great input, Houzz community!

I have the subzero wine fridge with the push to open feature it has never worked properly i believe it wasnt installed correctly

That is unfortunately an all too common problem across all manufacturers and all types of appliances. We regularly see in this forum when a disappointed home owner complains how poorly their appliance functions and how it needs all sorts of repairs. And it then turns out that the appliance was either damaged in transport, or the installer did a really shoddy job.

I have the Thermador PTO fridge and freezer columns - love the PTO! Realized after a party and someone kept leaning on the fridge door and it kept opening it to disable that function during a party! Love my Servo mechanism in the trash bin too - no more grabbing the handle with gross (or wet) hands to throw something away!