Kenmore 79009 Review

Introduction

There are, of course, some things that keep this appliance from ranking at the very top: a cheap-looking interior, no water filter, and difficulty accessing food stored in certain locations. The price tag, at least, doesn't hurt that much. The Kenmore 79009 has an MSRP of $1,119, but we managed to find it on sale for as low as $780. The large vegetable drawers and easy-access fridge at least make this an excellent choice for fresh produce lovers. As long as you don't overstock, then this appliance is definitely an excellent choice.

Design & Usability

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This fridge takes full advantage of the assets that a clean black finish can offer.

The black front picks up stains and dust easily, but fortunately it’s easy to clean, as long as you don’t get anything gooey on the matte finish. The handle is one of those design flaws keeping the Kenmore set firmly at a mid-range level. Unlike the front of the doors, the handle has a glossy black finish that smudges easily and often; it's somewhat ironic, really, since this is the one part of the fridge exterior that you're going to touch most often.

Speaking of handles, the one on the freezer runs left to right, as is the case with pull-out freezers. The catch? This fridge doesn't have a pull-out freezer; it opens left to right, just like the fridge door—though both are adjustable to suit your kitchen's layout. It's probably as minor an annoyance as you'll find on an appliance, but it's emblematic of some of the other design missteps from Kenmore.

Lots of shelves and drawers in the fridge make the unit look deceptively small. The white plastic edging feels sturdy and durable, and just barely manages to avoid looking cheap. While the layout is standard for a bottom freezer, the two crisper drawers are unusually tall—a good thing for salad lovers, but a potential pain for those who want to take more advantage of traditional storage. Even though the freezer door opens on a hinge, the compartment itself still utilizes a pull-out drawer... at least, on the bottom. The wire shelf on top can slide in and out, but it's really meant to just sit there. The door itself lacks any storage space—like any pull-out fridge—making it truly puzzling from a design perspective.

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Features

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The cramped fridge and low freezer can inhibit access to food.

The fridge feels cramped, with the large drawers compressing shelf space. As such, items at the back of the fridge may be hard to get to, though the large drawers should mean easy access to produce. Everything else is readily at hand, with one small caveat: Like all bottom-freezers, the lower section is rather close to the ground. If you freeze a lot of items, you may find yourself stooping quite a bit.

The Kenmore's controls, located at the top center of the fridge interior, consist of two meters that adjust both the fridge and freezer temperatures independently. With an arbitrary scale ranging from 1-7, it lacks any real degree correspondence. If you want to know the actual internal temperature, you’ll have to invest in a thermometer.

There's an ice maker located inside the freezer compartment, but it can be a bit of a pain to use. The machine itself has a very low learning curve: There's a wire handle used to activate the device, and you get an ice tray to collect it in. Given how low to the ground the freezer is, however, any consumer with back problems may just prefer to use ice cube trays instead of stooping down to deal with the old-fashioned built-in unit.

Performance

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The Kenmore may be a mid-range fridge, but it performs just as well as some of the high-end models.

We set the Kenmore to the manufacturer’s recommended temperature setting of 4, but even so, the fridge ran a bit warm. It's easily fixed by dropping the thermostat, but you won't know for sure what's going on without a thermometer. That said, this Kenmore offered some of the best temperature consistency we’ve seen. The temperature was almost exactly the same from top to bottom, showing minimal shift over time. You can put your food anywhere in this fridge and it will be kept at almost the exact same temperature regardless of location.

The freezer wasn’t quite as uniform in its temperature output as the fridge, but it still did really well. The top was noticeably colder than the bottom, but at its warmest, the freezer was still just above the ideal zero mark. As long as you’re not swapping things from the top to the bottom, you’ll also have very little risk of freezer burn.

Conclusion

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A mid-range fridge that offers high-end performance.

The Kenmore 79009 is a very good buy, offering excellent performance for a very reasonable price. An MSRP of $1,119 isn’t a bad base rate and means you can likely find this fridge on sale for as low as $780. Sale prices may be just a bit hard to locate, as new Kenmore appliances are usually found only at Sears. Regardless of the price, though, you would be buying an appliance that offers superior temperature management, fantastic moisture retention, and high energy savings.

Despite this high-end level of performance, keep in mind that this fridge still isn’t the top of the line. Its overall appearance isn’t the fanciest or sleekest available, and some of the food storage is a little hard to get to. If you don’t typically block shelf access by overstocking, or if you don't mind a fridge with a not-so-fancy feel to it, the Kenmore 79009 is a value proposition worth considering.

Science Introduction

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For a fridge with a mid-range price, the Kenmore 79009 actually did incredibly well. The test results are proof positive: Temperatures remained consistent over time throughout all of the two compartments; food froze fast enough to not damage your items; and the moisture retention in the vegetable drawers was better than even some of the more expensive models we've tested.

Temperature Performance

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Consistent performance across the board... more or less

Once you've managed to bend the ambiguous controls to your will, this fridge will serve up some very consistent temperature performance. With nearly the same degree readout from top to bottom, fluctuation in this fridge stayed within less than half a degree. The freezer, too, was very consistent, keeping the shift over time to under half a degree. In terms of space, though, it did exhibit a bigger range than the fridge: The top averaged a temperature of about -5 degrees Fahrenheit, while the bottom—despite the fact that there's not a huge gap between those two points—averaged a slightly warmer 1.6 degrees.

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Moisture Retention

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A decent moisture retention rate will please vegetable enthusiasts.

We test a fridge’s crisper drawer using the highest humidity setting designed for vegetable storage in order to determine the slowest rate of moisture loss possible. The Kenmore’s unusually large drawers lost an average of just 0.17 grams of moisture per hour over the course of our three-day testing period. This is pretty good, especially compared to other budget models, and even when compared with some of the high-end fridges that we’ve tested. Produce stored here will remain fresh and crisp for an average length of time, making this fridge that much better for consumers who love fresh salads.

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Freezing & Thawing

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Quick chills and slow thaws—exactly what you want in a freezer

The sooner an item is brought down from room temperature to freezing, the better it will be when thawed. The texture of meats and the nutritional value of vegetables are just some of the elements that can be affected by freezing speed. Ideally, food would be flash frozen instantly, and the closer a freezer can get to instantaneous freezing, the better. The Kenmore managed to freeze our test materials in 1 hour and 26 minutes. This isn’t the fastest time we’ve seen, but it’s fast enough to get the job done efficiently. More good news is that the fast freezing time is balanced by great insulation; after 36 hours without power—and without opening the door—the freezer was still quite frozen.

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Storage Space & Energy Efficiency

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It feels crowded, but the fridge is actually fairly roomy. It's also one of the most efficient bottom freezers we've seen.

The tall vegetable drawers make the fridge inside the Kenmore feel very cramped, but the amount of storage space available is nevertheless pretty standard for a bottom freezer. In spite of a small feeling of appliance claustrophobia, you get 9.3 cubic feet of usable fridge space, as well as 3.91 cubic feet in the freezer. Unfortunately, you lose a fair amount of freezer space to the ice maker; keep that in mind when choosing whether to use it or ice cube trays.

The Kenmore offers its services for a very low cost. Using a standard rate of $0.09 per kWh, we determined that it would cost a mere $29.42 to run this appliance for a full calendar year. When comparing that cost to the available space, we found that this fridge uses a mere 0.07 kWh per cubic foot of room; that's exceptionally low, making this one of the most energy efficient appliances we've ever seen.

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Other Tests

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