Will review after we get it hooked up.

We are off grid and needed to replace an older propane fridge. This came quickly and on time. Very easy set up. Very happy with it!

Missing parts. Neither Amazon nor China manufacturer will send missing parts. After trying to get missing part over a month, Amazon refuses return/refund.

Has enough space for the two of us. It does not require a lot of propane. About a month on a 40 lb tank. This is a great fridge if you don't us electricity. This is the 2nd Smad propane fridge for us. I wish it were not so expensive but a must have off grid. Highly recommended.

The refrigerator arrived yesterday and I plugged it in and it worked. I am just running it on electricity and not propane. I have never owned an absorption fridge before.I bought this because I wanted to have a silent refrigerator. So the most important thing for me is that it is almost completely silent. If I nudge it then I can hear a slight hissing sound from the back, as drops of refrigerant are dislodged in the condenser; as I turn the thermostat knob on the bottom, I can hear a relay clicking. But in normal operation all I notice is a faint ticking sound which appears when the electric heating element turns on and various components heat up, somewhat like the sound made by a wood stove. Sometimes there is a faint creaking sound. It is not distracting to me, and goes away after a minute. There is no fan, compressor, or other moving parts, so it does not "hum" like most refrigerators.The pictures on the product page don't really do it justice. It comes with two metal handles, and a retro-font "Smad" logo on the freezer compartment, which together make it look very stylish.The freezer and the top part of the fridge (with the heat sink) are 17 inches deep; the lower part of the fridge is 19 inches deep.It seems fairly powerful - after I transferred all my food from the old fridge, I saw within a few hours that the new one had cooled down to 37 F.Shipping was free, and the delivery crew brought it right inside my door.I tried to order one of these from an American supplier, Superior Gas Refrigerators. Superior was helpful in providing interior dimensions and describing the sound of the refrigerator, but when I told them that I wanted to run it primarily on electricity, they refused to sell it to me. The other option I found was Oasis Montana Inc.; they sell Amish-made propane refrigerators which can be converted to run on natural gas, but which don't have an electric power option. I wanted an electric option so that I could avoid having to install a vent for the exhaust (to make it legal in California; although I've heard that many people run gas refrigerators indoors with no exhaust vent and no air quality issues). As far as I can tell there are no electric+natural-gas refrigerators for sale anywhere at present. I would have preferred a dual electric and natural-gas fridge. But the fact that this one runs on propane may make it useful if there is a prolonged outage affecting both utilities.I was able to get an email response from Smad when I asked them about the interior depth and the possibility of converting it to run on natural gas, but the dimensions they gave me were incorrect, and I'm still waiting to hear back about the gas conversion (is it just a fitting that needs to be swapped out?). In other words, they were helpful but not very helpful. If something goes wrong with this product outside of the return window, then I'm not expecting prompt assistance from the manufacturer. Also, after calling around to various mechanics in my area, it looks like nobody works on absorption refrigerators. However, since there are no moving parts, I imagine that most of these refrigerators are very reliable and require minimal maintenance. I'll update this review if it breaks.The $1700 LG refrigerator that I am replacing claimed to be very quiet (22 dB; I measured it at 34 dB). However, I could still hear it through the doors and drywall of my house. I would turn it off when sleeping, and when I had guests over. But then when I turned it back on, it was even louder, since it had warmed up when it was off. Now I don't have to worry about deciding when to run the refrigerator. It's a big change to not have a whirring, humming monster in the middle of the main common area in my house. It means that I can use the kitchen as an office; maybe it will change the way I can socialize with guests.Apparently absorption refrigerator technology has been around since the 1920s, and some of the early advances were credited to Albert Einstein and his student Leó Szilárd. It requires about five times as much energy as compressor-based technology, which is probably why it is less popular today. From a cost standpoint, gas is usually half the price of electricity per BTU, so it would be cheaper to go with a natural gas version of this refrigerator rather than electric. However, 300 Watts of electricity is less than $2 / day, and since I often have a 1500 Watt electric space heater running, a lot of that is money that I'm already spending. I may be the only person in California with a 300 Watt refrigerator, but nobody who keeps their refrigerator indoors is using it efficiently - and I don't know anyone who keeps their refrigerator outside! The point is that it doesn't matter, since it just subtracts from your heating bill (unless you run an air conditioner, which is another story - but I never do that). The climate where I am is rather cool, and I even hope to save energy with this investment, since now I can do more things in the kitchen and won't have to heat the rest of the house. Besides, life is about more than just spending as little money as possible on energy. Why would you buy a half-million dollar house, and then make the kitchen annoying just to save a few dollars on your energy bill?I measured the actual electricity usage by running the refrigerator on several thermostat settings while plugged into a power meter. The numbers on the left are in reference to the thermostat knob setting which is labeled 1, 2, 3, 4. At setting 2.5 the heating element was almost constantly powered, so that is as cold as it gets. The prices are relative to current San Francisco Bay Area electricity prices of $0.24/kWh (almost twice the national average of $0.14/kWh). Thermo. Energy usage Fridge Freezer 1.5 4 kWh/day $1.00 47 F 16 F 2 4.1 kWh/day $1.05 39 F 9 F 2.5+ 7.1 kWh/day $1.70 35 F 2 FGenerally a temperature of 47 F is considered too high for a refrigerator, while 39 F is close to optimal. So I keep the thermostat on 2 and spend about $1.05/day on electricity. If I was running it on gas, assuming that it uses the same number of "therms" of gas as electricity, then the cost in my area would be less than one quarter of that, about $0.24/day, perhaps even comparable to my old compressor fridge which was loud and "energy efficient".The kitchen is in many ways the heart of our homes. I think everyone should have a silent refrigerator, so that they can get the most out of this central living space, and not have to compete with a succession of different background hums while trying to live and work. I recommend this one - but even if I didn't, there are very few other options. So you don't have to think too hard before buying it. Your life will get better when you do.Update (24 May 2022): Still silent, but one thing I've disliked about the design of this refrigerator is that when it has to be defrosted (which it does every few months), it sends the meltwater down a small tube in the back of the unit, into a 1-cup steel basin which is also hidden in the back. I'm glad that I don't have a carpet, because several times when I have had to defrost the unit, I left it in its alcove, and didn't notice that the basin was full until it overflowed onto the floor and water puddled in front of the refrigerator. A better design would be to send the meltwater to the front of the refrigerator in the first instance, so that it goes into a container whose level can be checked visually without removing the whole unit from its alcove. After enough wet floors, I finally motivated myself to attach a 3/4" PVC pipe with magnets (see photo) to achieve this; now the water goes into a plastic container that I can see, and I can substitute a larger container when I defrost. I'm happy with the refrigerator, but it seems to me that the decision to send meltwater to the back of the unit may have been based on aesthetics rather than utility, so I wanted to alert other buyers.

Our SMAD absorption refrigerator has been set up in our kitchen for a month now, and I LOVE it! I am very sensitive to the hums and electrical noises of most modern appliances, and this SMAD fridge is a dream come true as it is completely silent. The temp at "3" keeps both the food cold and fruit & veggies fresh. As you can see from the photos, in the kitchen in our new house, the former owners had huge Miele built-in freezer and fridge units. They look gorgeous, but the compressors and fans and electrical hums were more than I could stand in our open concept layout. I am working with the same kitchen designers who created this kitchen 3yrs ago to integrate two SMAD units into the kitchen - as we need to accommodate the ventilation needs of the back of the SMAD. I felt it was important to show that these fridges - even though small and old fashioned in their bottom fridge/top freezer design - can still look great in a high end kitchen, and someone like me can have her gorgeous kitchen AND a silent fridge/freezer.

1 pound of propane is a little less than ¼ of a gallon.This fridge uses 1.96 lbs., so that is almost ½ gallon a DAY.

Great frig!! Works perfectly in our cabin. Small but enough room for a long weekend or even a week.