I want to replace my old 30 year old Perlick with a good kegerator since it keeps having problems. I am looking for one that has an air cooled tower and is not a piece of junk. I will be running it in small room and I worry it might heat up the room. Locally, there is one place that sells an Everest kegerator and another one sells a Summit. The Edgestar looks pretty good but I would have to order that online. There are so many choices and not a lot of reviews so any feedback would be appreciated. I do see the Beverage Air being recommended on another thread.
Beverage Air is the Cadillac. True is also top of the line. Summit has a bargain level and also a high end product. It all comes down to budget.
I'd look at the BM-23 if it were me. Others can chime in on noise level and heat, I don't have one, I just wish I did knowing what I know now.
I actually ordered a BM-23 early this morning off of webstaurant's site. After several months of looking around, it seemed to be the right decision. I personally ordered everything else separately so I could have a dual-tower, and I feel that I got pretty decent prices on bev factory for everything except the bm23 itself and the co2 tank. (I highly recommend the "Help! Trying to buy a kegerator for my husband" thread) I went into this purchase as a 'buy it once, buy it right', and the majority had very high praise for the BM23, which speaks volumes being listed around $1250 as I type this (without a tower). Most places start it right around $1500...so shop around and do what's best for you. Good luck! ...now I'm going to go back to facing the very real fears of setting this thing up now that I'll have everything in the days to come.
Let me know how the setup goes. I know I have heard it is a little noisy, which is no problem for me since it is a small 8x10 room in the back of my garage. I would like to know how much heat it puts out. My old Perlick put out a lot of heat and since the room was insulated and did not have a vent, it got quite warm in there.
I picked up a kegerator from beermeister.com about three years ago and have been pretty happy. It's not commercial so is pretty quiet and is customizable in the build so you can add perlick faucets, couplers, etc. I believe it's a Danbu coversion but has worked great and mine came in at under $700
