Glass Door vs Solid Door Fridges: Which Does Your Business Need?

Glass or solid is the first fork in the road when you're choosing commercial fridges. Get it right and the fridge either sells for you or saves you power for years. Get it wrong and you're paying to light up stock nobody sees, or hiding cold drinks behind a steel door. Here's how to choose, with real energy figures from matched pairs in our range.

The quick answer

• Choose glass when the fridge needs to sell, or when staff need to find things at a glance: drinks, grab-and-go food, back bars, cake and deli counters.
• Choose solid when the fridge's job is to store: kitchens, prep lines and back-of-house stock.
• Doing both? Split them. Glass out the front, solid out the back.

Selling vs storing

A glass door fridge is a shop window that happens to be cold. Customers see the range, the brands and the price tickets without opening anything, and many glass door drinks fridges add interior LED lighting so the stock stands out. The Thermaster LG-580BP, for example, pairs double-glazed tempered glass with interior LED lights and self-closing doors. If people buy from it, it should almost always be glass: start with our drinks fridges and glass door fridges.

A solid door fridge is a store room. The door is an insulated panel, the cabinet is usually stainless or painted steel, and nobody cares what it looks like inside as long as it's cold, clean and organised. For a kitchen or a prep line, that's exactly what you want: see our solid door fridges.

Keeping the cold in: matched pairs from our range

Glass, even double-glazed, doesn't insulate as well as a foam-filled door, so a glass door fridge has to work harder to hold the same temperature. To see by how much, we looked for fridges that a maker builds both ways, with the same cabinet and capacity. These are the makers' own figures from each listing:

The fairest comparison is the first row: the two 138-litre Bromic models are tested in the same climate class and both rated for rooms up to 32°C. In the other four pairs, the makers rate the solid door model for a hotter room than the glass one (Bromic: 38°C against 32°C; FED-X: 30°C against 25°C), and the solid door model still uses less. So the gap is real, and if anything the table understates it.

What does it cost? Take the middle pair. At an example rate of 30c per kWh, the extra 0.616 kWh a day for the 2-door glass model comes to about $67 a year. Our running cost guide shows the full sum and ten more models.

If you were thinking of no door at all, the gap grows. Bromic's 938 mm full height multideck is rated at 10.77 kWh a day open and 3.18 kWh with doors, so the doors cut its daily use by about 70%.

Seeing your stock

Glass has one energy benefit that doesn't show up in a test: staff can see what's low without opening the door. Behind a busy bar, that means fewer openings and quicker restocking. With solid doors, a little organisation does the same job. Keep the same things on the same shelves, label the shelf edges, and keep a stock list on the door.

Condensation in humid rooms

The outside of a glass door is cooler than the room around it. In warm, humid air, moisture can condense on it, which fogs the view and leaves water on the floor. Makers state the humidity each model is rated for alongside the room temperature: the LG-580BP is rated to 38°C at 65% relative humidity, and the FED-X XR200SG to 25°C at 60%.

If your fridge will sit near a dishwasher, a glass washer, a coffee machine's steam wand or a doorway that's open on muggy days, give it room to breathe, keep the door seals clean, and choose double-glazed glass. Both the LG-580BP and the Thermaster LG-1000BGBM supermarket fridge list double-glazed tempered glass. A solid door doesn't fog at all, which is one more reason solid suits a steamy kitchen.

Locks and security

Glass shows what's inside to customers, and to anyone else walking past. If the fridge sits somewhere public after hours, such as a hotel function room, a school canteen or an open-front café, check the features list for a door lock before you buy. A solid door at least keeps the stock out of sight.

Cleaning

A glass door fridge is on show, so it needs a wipe every day to keep selling: fingerprints and smudges on the glass are the first thing a customer notices. Solid doors get cleaned along with the rest of the kitchen. Either way, clean the door seal while you're there. A seal that no longer grips lets warm air in all day and costs you power every hour.

Mixed line-ups

Plenty of venues run both. A café might have a glass drinks fridge facing customers and a solid door under bench fridge on the coffee line for milk. A bar might pair glass door back bar coolers with a solid door upright out the back for mixers, garnishes and backup stock. Choose each fridge for the job it does in its spot, not for the look of the whole room.

Which one for your venue?

Frequently asked questions

Do glass door fridges use more electricity?
Yes, like for like. In five matched pairs from Bromic and FED-X, the glass door model used between 20% and 61% more energy a day than its solid door twin, even though most of the solid door models were rated for hotter rooms.

Are glass door fridges OK in a commercial kitchen?
They work, but a hot, steamy kitchen is where glass costs the most to run and is most likely to fog. Most kitchens use solid doors and keep glass for front of house, where seeing the stock pays its way.

Is a glass door fridge harder to keep at 5°C?
Not if it's rated for your room and the door stays shut between uses. Check the room rating first. Bromic rates its 2, 3 and 4-door glass under bench fridges for rooms up to 32°C and the stainless steel versions up to 38°C, so in a hot spot a solid door gives you more headroom. Our guide to the 5°C rule explains why that margin matters.

Sources: each model's maker figures (energy, room rating, climate class) in its product listing.