Every rule, written down.

Dimensions are a containment test

This is the rule that matters most here, and the one most different from how product search usually works. When you enter a frontage, depth or height, BecSpec treats it as the space you have available, not a dimension you want to match. A cabinet is confirmed when it fits inside your figure, and the result tells you how much room is left over.

A cabinet that exceeds your figure by 50 mm or less is reported as a difference rather than excluded, because measurements of an existing opening are often conservative and that gap is frequently recoverable. Anything larger is excluded.

Temperature class

Matched exactly where you name a class. A cabinet in the same duty family but a different band — say M2 against your M1 — is reported as a difference, with a prompt to check the band suits what you are storing and any food safety requirement you have to meet.

A different family is excluded outright. Chilled and frozen duty are not near misses, and offering one for the other would be actively unhelpful.

Climate class

Climate class is the ambient condition the cabinet was tested in, and it is an ordered scale: a higher class means it was proven in a hotter, more humid room. So a cabinet rated at or above the class you ask for is confirmed — a class 5 cabinet covers a class 3 requirement.

A cabinet tested only at a cooler class is reported as a difference rather than excluded, because it may still be the right choice in a well air-conditioned room. You are told plainly that in a hotter room it will draw more energy and may struggle to hold temperature.

Refrigeration type

Integral cabinets have their own condensing unit and can be plugged in. Remote cabinets need external plant and pipework that must already exist or be installed — a difference that dominates installation cost, so the two are never substituted for each other.

Where the register does not make this clear, it is reported as something to verify rather than guessed. BecSpec reads this from the registered cabinet description, because the structured field is populated on only a few percent of registrations; values obtained that way are labelled Derived.

Star rating

Treated as a minimum. Cabinets at or above the rating you ask for are confirmed, with their annualised energy shown alongside; those below are excluded.

How results are ordered

1. Most requirements confirmed at model-specific level.
2. Then fewest differences.
3. Then fewest family-level values.
4. Then fewest items to verify.
5. Then lower efficiency index, then lower tested energy, then manufacturer name.

The same search always returns the same order. There is no hidden score and no commercial weighting — see vendor neutrality.

Specification guide