Help with appliances

[Coldjensens]

Appliances have a lot of fluff factor in their prices. Often you end up paying for what is essentially the same machine with some shiney baubles or gagets/features that turn out to be pretty much useless in the long run. The more features someothing has, the more it has to break.

For a microwave, keep in mind that the works are all pretty much the same. A $1000 microwave is exxentially the same as a $200 microwave the only difference is the package (housing) that it comes in. Do not waste your money on some big fancy thing. Look at the power rating and the capacity size of the oven itself. You will find some huge majorly expensive microwaves that are smaller than a $200 microwave. All of them are likely to fail before two long (some last a long time, but that is luck, not a difference in brands). Mircowave is nto where you want to spend your $. Save it for other appliances, or put it away towards a replacement microwave. Just get whatever brand gives you the higest power and the largest cooking space. If it is ugly or a cheap brand, put it where it is not visible.


For Dishwashers, be careful. We bought the Bosch dishwasher that was C.R.'s top pick or best buy or something for the year we bought it. It is a terrible dishwasher. It does a poor job washing dishes, it does not dry them much at all. It IS quiet and does nto use much water to not clean the dishes, but I would prefer noisey and effective over quiet and worthless any day. Further, find out whether there are service providers in your area. We found that Bosch had no certified repair people in our immediate area. We had to get someone to come from 40 miles away and they could not get to us for 3 weeks. We have had somewhere between four and six different dishwashers. The best ones were Kenmore. UNtil recently, we could nto afford the high end brands like Bosch or Kitchen Aid, so we were mostly using Whirlpool, maytag and whomever makes Kenmore. The very best one we ever had was a portable kenmore that hooked up to the sink. It worked great. We also had mediochre results with a Whirlpool Gold**SoMETHING** or **SOMETHING**Gold. It cleaned ok but it was hard to load and did not dry well. What I would look for in a dishwasher is easy loading and powerful cleaning. Forget quiet and water usage. You are nto going to notice wither one unless you sit around your house in complete silence regularly.

We spent a lot fo time looking at fridges and eventually gave up and decided not to buy one, just keep the one that we have. We wanted a fridge with good freezer space. We always have room in the fridge, but we never seem to have enough freezer space. There is no such thing. Side by sides have tiny impractical sized freezers. An icemaker eats up most of your space. Bottome drawer freezers look nice and big, but if you look at the actaul available space, it is very little. Most of them have a bump at the back and ultimately cannto hold much at all. They are more expensive too. Top Freezer fridges seem to offer the most space. However the amount of space is not that much better. I am not sure who makes good brands. If you look inside them, they are all pretty chinsey these days. Get a good warranty and make sure that there is a service center close enough to you that you do not have to wait forever for service. If you have $10,000 to spend, and you store an awful lot of stuff in the fridge, those big sub zero fridges are really nice. Most of them sit mostly empty in big rarely used homes (if you can afford a $10,000 fridge, you probably eat out most of the time).

Stoves are also pretty much the same. At least Gas stoves are. The guts are mostly the same. Unless you are some kind of super chef, you do not really need a 20,000 BTu burner. Otherwise, you are just paying for window dressing. Most people like Gas stoves with electric convection ovens the best. I prefer Gas/Gas for the simple reason that I am impatient and gas ovens heat up really fast. The new flat top induction stoves are really neat and reportedly work very well. They are super safe since you can only burn yourself by touching the pan. The "burners" do not get hot, they heat the pan. You have to have special pans though. If I was buying a modern stove, I would look at induction if I could afford it, just for the coolness factor.

Stainless adds a whole lot of money to your cost and a whole lot of extra work trying to keep it clean and nice looking. Sheilia Shine is smelly stuff to work with. People are moving away from stainless now because it is so hard to keep looking nice. You can get better quality or features by buying colored applainces rather than stainless.

[Coldjensens]

One other hint. See if you can find a Sears scratch & Dent wherehouse near you. You can save a lot of money and you usually find items with no visible scratches/dents, or something with a scratch or dent on a side that is not visible in your kitchen. You get the same warranty and brands and save hundreds of dollars, or you cna get much nicer appliances than you woutherwise be able to afford.

[skinnercarl]

Help! we took out an old drop in stove, but the fellas didn"t realize it sat ON the counter. Now there is a new counter that is too short. How can I put the stove back - as in can we build a box to set it on, or will that burn? It had only a fake fromt before.

[texdav]

i wouold recomend that for relaibilty and cheaper repair that you stick to mechnical timers and push button and not mimbrane panels of button for controls. Many appliances now days use the same basic parts in many brands except for controls etc.If you can finsd one get a dishwasher that has heated dry as many of the new ones lack it because of energy star.

[dvcgal]

HATE my GE stainless steel fridge! Wish I had gone with the Samsung, but changed my mind to save some money. Big mistake! The ice machine has broken 3 times in the last 7 months! Love, Love, LOVE my Whirlpool 6 burner gas stove/oven combo and the microwave isn't bad either. My Frigidaire dishwaher is horrible! Came with the house and I plan on replacing it next year sometime, but not sure with what yet! Oh, and I LOVE my Samsung washer and dryer! Not sure if you need those or not, but they are fabulous!!!