Seeking advice on new...appliances!

[kexodusc]

Sounds like a great deal!!! Kex, if you don't mind, I'd like to know what kitchen appliances you end up with. We're starting to shop around but it sounds like you're closer to actually buying stuff than we are.

I'll let you know for sure. We've got packages from Whirlpool, Frigidaire, GE and Kenmore priced and are considering.

I talked to the folks at FutureShop and they said the GE stuff is the only one they've had "a few issues" with above the the other brands (don't carry Kenmore). Maytag was not well liked at any of the 4 places I've now visited - 1 even recently stopped carrying them because of lack of support so it looks like the good ship Maytag may have run into an iceberg in recent years.

Price seems to be within $200. On $4000k worth of appliances that's not much really.
Online reviews are about equal for all brands- seems they all have their share of lemons and problems. Not sure what else I can do for "due dilligence" here. The Energy Efficiency might be our deciding factor? Where we buy might be the deciding factor too - the furniture/appliance store will send someone to our home, the other places, Sears, Leons, FutureShop, etc would have us deal with the companies unless we purchase their service plans.

[ForeverAutumn]

Do you have old appliances that you need to get rid of? I was wondering whether anyone bothered with trade-ins?

[ForeverAutumn]

Kex, did you come across any Amana fridges in your wanderings? We found a great deal on one but don't know much about the quality of Amana fridges (I'm always a little leary of great deals...although it is at a very reputable store).

GM, that stove that I was mentioning is made by GE. But we found several other makes also. I think that the style is fairly new to the marketplace. But most of the major manufactorers seem to be making them.

[GMichael]

Kex, did you come across any Amana fridges in your wanderings? We found a great deal on one but don't know much about the quality of Amana fridges (I'm always a little leary of great deals...although it is at a very reputable store).

GM, that stove that I was mentioning is made by GE. But we found several other makes also. I think that the style is fairly new to the marketplace. But most of the major manufactorers seem to be making them.

Oh I see. It's like the range we have but with the controls up front. I thought you were talking about something like this.

[ForeverAutumn]

Oh I see. It's like the range we have but with the controls up front. I thought you were talking about something like this.

Wow. That's really nice, but way out of our price range. The one that I showed you has grooves in the side of the top so that it slides onto your counter-top so that there is no visible break between stove and counter.

[GMichael]

Wow. That's really nice, but way out of our price range.

Ours too. But it's fun to dream. While I'm at it, make mine with the glass type tops. They are so much easier to clean.

The one that I showed you has grooves in the side of the top so that it slides onto your counter-top so that there is no visible break between stove and counter.

That's a great idea. Keeps the crumbs and spillage where you can reach them. Looks good too.

[kexodusc]

Hey FA, I posted a response a few days ago but I don't see anything here?
We bartered the old appliances with the house we sold so I didn't need to recycle or anything.

As far as Amana goes - I know they are owned/made by Whirlpool corporation but still supposedly built separately. The appliance guys I talked to sold only 1 or 2 pieces by them and said they aren't bad, but finding authorized repair centres or parts can be difficult sometimes. Might want to check into that in your area before you commit.

[ForeverAutumn]

Hey FA, I posted a response a few days ago but I don't see anything here?
We bartered the old appliances with the house we sold so I didn't need to recycle or anything.

As far as Amana goes - I know they are owned/made by Whirlpool corporation but still supposedly built separately. The appliance guys I talked to sold only 1 or 2 pieces by them and said they aren't bad, but finding authorized repair centres or parts can be difficult sometimes. Might want to check into that in your area before you commit.

I suspect that we'll end up donating the old appliances to charity. Although I did contact the company that makes our dishwasher to see whether we can just replace the door with a stainless steel one.

I don't know why I didn't think of this before, but I just checked Consumer Reports and they rate Amana fridges quite high. But I will look into repair centres. Thanks for the tip, I wouldn't have thought of that.

[ForeverAutumn]

Does anyone have an opinion on whether a $1,000 dishwasher (Bosch, Mielle) is really any better than a $500 dishwasher (Kitchenaid, Whirlpool)?

[GMichael]

Does anyone have an opinion on whether a $1,000 dishwasher (Bosch, Mielle) is really any better than a $500 dishwasher (Kitchenaid, Whirlpool)?

The Bosch is very heavily insulated for sound. You could sit right next to it while watching your favorite TV show and not even notice that it's on. But we ended up with a Kenmore Elite that is also very nicely insulated. It was about $600. We can barely hear it running when it's on. Full of nice features just like the Bosch.

[kexodusc]

Does anyone have an opinion on whether a $1,000 dishwasher (Bosch, Mielle) is really any better than a $500 dishwasher (Kitchenaid, Whirlpool)?

There's some nice features - but you can even get some pretty cool gadgets on the $500-$600. I'm looking at a $700 one, so maybe I'm splitting the difference.

In terms of cleaning, when we asked the sales lady she claimed to have used both in her home and that the more expensive ones don't clean better, but they might have a feature that dries better, or allows just cleaning one rack at a time etc.

Sounds believable.

[ForeverAutumn]

There's some nice features - but you can even get some pretty cool gadgets on the $500-$600. I'm looking at a $700 one, so maybe I'm splitting the difference.

In terms of cleaning, when we asked the sales lady she claimed to have used both in her home and that the more expensive ones don't clean better, but they might have a feature that dries better, or allows just cleaning one rack at a time etc.

Sounds believable.

Funny, the sales guy that we talked to last night explained how the less expensive dishwashers have a garberator feature that chops up any food in the dishwasher (that's what makes them noisy) which often ends up being sent back out into the rinse cycle (we've seen evidence of this in our previous dishwasher...little bits of food dried onto the glasses). The more expensive washers have a filter that traps large food items and has to be cleaned, but makes them quieter and better at cleaning dishes. That sounded reasonable to me.

We have a Bosch that came with our new house. It's quiet as a whisper, but does a crappy job at drying. We have to open the door after the cycle and let the dishes air dry. We don't know the age of the dishwasher, it could just be malfunctioning.

I'm not sure, however, that the garberator issue is enough reason to spend the extra money. I'm just wondering if anyone has a more compelling argument to go one way or the other.

[kexodusc]

Funny, the sales guy that we talked to last night explained how the less expensive dishwashers have a garberator feature that chops up any food in the dishwasher (that's what makes them noisy) which often ends up being sent back out into the rinse cycle (we've seen evidence of this in our previous dishwasher...little bits of food dried onto the glasses). The more expensive washers have a filter that traps large food items and has to be cleaned, but makes them quieter and better at cleaning dishes. That sounded reasonable to me.

Uh oh, someone's feeding one of us some bull.

We were told pretty much all the models by every brand today, even the cheap $400 ones they carried have self-cleaning filters now and the food bits aren't spit out into the cycle again, and that they've been made this way for a while.

I have no idea if the unit we were using the last 3 years had it or not but it was whisper quiet either way and it was pretty inexpensive. Never had any food bits, but there's only 2 of us dirtying dishes so it rarely got super full.

I am NOT up to date on dishwasher technology so I have no idea what the real story is here.

[ForeverAutumn]

Uh oh, someone's feeding one of us some bull.

We were told pretty much all the models by every brand today, even the cheap $400 ones have self-cleaning filters now and the food bits aren't spit out into the cycle again, and that they've been made this way for a while.

Hmmmm. Our prior dishwasher was only three years old and did sometimes leave little bits of stuff on the dishes, but we knew when we bought it that we would be moving in the next couple of years so we bought the cheapest appliances that we could find and still live with for a few years. It was pretty loud too. Glad to be rid of it actually.

If you're shopping for a dishwasher...we were told to look into Haier. It's a Chinese company breaking into the North American market. According to Wikipedia, they are the third largest appliance company IN THE WORLD! Apparently they are pretty high end but coming in with low prices to get their name known and buy market share (LG used this strategy very successfully a few years ago and now they are priced in line with everyone else). We're going to the appliance store tomorrow to check them out.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Haier

[kexodusc]

Hmmmm. Our prior dishwasher was only three years old and did sometimes leave little bits of stuff on the dishes, but we knew when we bought it that we would be moving in the next couple of years so we bought the cheapest appliances that we could find and still live with for a few years. It was pretty loud too. Glad to be rid of it actually.

If you're shopping for a dishwasher...we were told to look into Haier. It's a Chinese company breaking into the North American market. According to Wikipedia, they are the third largest appliance company IN THE WORLD! Apparently they are pretty high end but coming in with low prices to get their name known and buy market share (LG used this strategy very successfully a few years ago and now they are priced in line with everyone else). We're going to the appliance store tomorrow to check them out.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Haier

Hey I saw that name...never heard of it and just dismissed it.

I sorta have a feeling we're going to end up with all our kitchen appliances from one manufacturer so the colors and trim all match. That's probably not a good idea but oh well.

I suppose at the end of the day it's a good bet anything we pick will work for us.
We're counting weeks now until our house is finished, we should probably hurry up and order.

[ForeverAutumn]

We're counting weeks now until our house is finished, we should probably hurry up and order.

That's very exciting! Did you design the house yourself or is it part of a new development?

Rumour has it that appliance prices will be jumping by 15 - 20% soon, if the price of gas doesn't drop. Transportation is mostly by truck.

[kexodusc]

That's very exciting! Did you design the house yourself or is it part of a new development?

Rumour has it that appliance prices will be jumping by 15 - 20% soon, if the price of gas doesn't drop. Transportation is mostly by truck.

Nah, we hired an engineer/drafter dude to help us, stole a bunch of ideas from free plans on the internet and he turned that from sketches to something realistic for us.

FA, 3 of the places we visited told us they could only guarantee the prices for 10 days because rumour had it the prices were going up very soon (end of July). I thought it was BS at first but if you're hearing something similar maybe there's some truth to it?

We're going to get it tonight possibly, but more likely Monday. Sorta need it soon.

[ForeverAutumn]

I'd love to build my own house! Unfortunately, land is so expensive here, it's just not feasible. Renovating is the closest that I'm ever going to get to a custom built house. But that's fun too!

It makes sense to me that prices for appliances and, really, anything that relies on the trucking industry, will go up. We had a guy come to look at our furnace last week and he charged us a $9 fuel surcharge. If gas prices don't come down they are going to create some serious inflation by the end of the year.

Kex, we bought our appliances yesterday. We don't need them until Sept, but we had to order the fridge early to take advantage of a great sale price and decided to buy everything at once so that we could make a better deal with the sales man.

It was a lot cheaper for us to go with different brands for each appliance, but everything is a brushed stainless steel with stainless handles (as opposed to black handles) so it won't be obvious (I hope). Here's what we ended up with...

Fridge - Amana - Counter depth, bottom freezer, single door for the top. We both liked the french door models but we got such a great clearance price on this fridge that we couldn't justify spending the extra money for french doors.

Stove - Samsung - We love the slide in stoves that I discussed earlier. Aesthetically, they look fantastic. But when we started pricing around we found that those aesthetics came at a very high price. The slide in stove that was in our budget (GE) had four burners and a basic oven without convection or warming drawer. For the same price in a traditional stove we got five burners, one is an oversize burner for large pots, convection (with two fans and a heating element), covered bottom coils, a warming drawer, a steam cleaning feature, a 5.7 cubic foot oven (huge!) and all kinds of other programmable features that we'll likely never use. The Samsung not only offered way better value than GE or Kitchenaid or some of the other name brands (about $300 less) but was the best looking stove for the kitchen style that we're going for. And the reviews that I've read are very good.

Dishwasher - We ended up with the Haier. After doing some research and going over features with our salesman, this dishwasher has all the same features and benefits of a Bosch or Miele and we paid $650 vs. $1129 for the equivalent Bosch.

I hope this helps. If you want prices, PM me.

[kexodusc]

I'd love to build my own house! Unfortunately, land is so expensive here, it's just not feasible. Renovating is the closest that I'm ever going to get to a custom built house. But that's fun too!

It makes sense to me that prices for appliances and, really, anything that relies on the trucking industry, will go up. We had a guy come to look at our furnace last week and he charged us a $9 fuel surcharge. If gas prices don't come down they are going to create some serious inflation by the end of the year.

Kex, we bought our appliances yesterday. We don't need them until Sept, but we had to order the fridge early to take advantage of a great sale price and decided to buy everything at once so that we could make a better deal with the sales man.

It was a lot cheaper for us to go with different brands for each appliance, but everything is a brushed stainless steel with stainless handles (as opposed to black handles) so it won't be obvious (I hope). Here's what we ended up with...

Fridge - Amana - Counter depth, bottom freezer, single door for the top. We both liked the french door models but we got such a great clearance price on this fridge that we couldn't justify spending the extra money for french doors.

Stove - Samsung - We love the slide in stoves that I discussed earlier. Aesthetically, they look fantastic. But when we started pricing around we found that those aesthetics came at a very high price. The slide in stove that was in our budget (GE) had four burners and a basic oven without convection or warming drawer. For the same price in a traditional stove we got five burners, one is an oversize burner for large pots, convection (with two fans and a heating element), covered bottom coils, a warming drawer, a steam cleaning feature, a 5.7 cubic foot oven (huge!) and all kinds of other programmable features that we'll likely never use. The Samsung not only offered way better value than GE or Kitchenaid or some of the other name brands (about $300 less) but was the best looking stove for the kitchen style that we're going for. And the reviews that I've read are very good.

Dishwasher - We ended up with the Haier. After doing some research and going over features with our salesman, this dishwasher has all the same features and benefits of a Bosch or Miele and we paid $650 vs. $1129 for the equivalent Bosch.

I hope this helps. If you want prices, PM me.

Hey FA, thanks for sharing.
We've got a few packages picked out including none of the brands you mentioned but I suspect we'll make our minds up tomorrow night. We've narrowed it down to Frigidaire, Kenwood, and Whirlpool because those are the best deals we've found on appliances we could live with.

We're not going to fancy on the fridge though, top or bottom freezer depending which brand (we have a water cooler we use and don't need the dispenser, french doors are out). Think we'll just get a basic convection oven in the with the flat surface...and I think your guy was right on the dishwasher - the sales lady at telling us about the garberators was contested by a few other sales folk. We're making sure we get a decent dishwasher, no food chunks on my dishware, thank you.

We get some cool energy rebates out here for buying Energy Star rated appliances- up $500 free cash from various sources since it's a new home ($100 for each major appliance, but I don't think any of the stoves we're looking at qualify)- not sure what Ontario's government does, but it might be worth looking into if you haven't already?

My wife's an eco-nut, we added a lot of energy saving/environmentally friendly features...there's some big rebates out there to take advantage of.

[ForeverAutumn]

We get some cool energy rebates out here for buying Energy Star rated appliances- up $500 free cash from various sources since it's a new home ($100 for each major appliance, but I don't think any of the stoves we're looking at qualify)- not sure what Ontario's government does, but it might be worth looking into if you haven't already?

My wife's an eco-nut, we added a lot of energy saving/environmentally friendly features...there's some big rebates out there to take advantage of.

We'll have to exchange pictures when both our kitchens are done!

Our fridge and stove are energy star rated but not the dishwasher. In Ontario you don't have to pay PST on energy star rated appliances, which is worth 8%. What kind of other rebates are you referring to?

[kexodusc]

We'll have to exchange pictures when both our kitchens are done!

Our fridge and stove are energy star rated but not the dishwasher. In Ontario you don't have to pay PST on energy star rated appliances, which is worth 8%. What kind of other rebates are you referring to?

In NB you pay everything in store but there's a rebate process available if you apply for it, we don't get the PST deal though. Each province has different incentives, and some municipalities and cities have their own I see. 8% is pretty good, the more you buy the more you save. Ours is limited to a maximum of $500.

I assume Ontario would have renovation incentives available should you decide to tackle new doors/windows/insulation someday. I dunno too much about it but a quick Google led me here:
http://www.energy.gov.on.ca/index.cf...trofit_faqs#q1

[GMichael]

Sounds like you two are progressing very well. Kex, I think your best bet is to pick one set out and buy soon. Price increases is a very real possibility. They'll hold them till you need them. Getting them all from one source like FA did does help with seeking a discount.
Energy Star is good, but check the ratings. You can save yourself a few bucks down the road. When we were buying, Energy Stars were given out to anything with a rating over 9.5, but many models had ratings well above 10 or 11. This can add up over the years.

Don't forget to share pictures with the rest of us too

[ForeverAutumn]

I assume Ontario would have renovation incentives available should you decide to tackle new doors/windows/insulation someday. I dunno too much about it but a quick Google led me here:
http://www.energy.gov.on.ca/index.cf...trofit_faqs#q1

Hey thanks for that link! I had no idea that program existed. We had a guy come and look at our furnace last week because it was leaking from the A/C. He told us that it looked original to the house and that it was probably only about 55% efficient. He recommended that we replace it ASAP to save money on our gas and electricity bills. I want to do it this summer but Hubby wants to wait until next year. Either way, I'll look into this program first. Thanks!

[Rich-n-Texas]

Well it's nice to know Mr. & Mrs. Suzy Homemaker are progressing towards their ultimate goal of home appliance nirvana!

BTW, my refrigerator's bigger than your refrigerator!

[Groundbeef]

Two things:

1. We have a GE dishwasher. With 3 children, we run it 1x daily (full). We spent the LEAST we could, $327. I has a food disposal, and NO filter. We have no problem with dirty dishes. I avoided the more expensive models because of the "filters" that need to be manually cleaned. I tend to either be lazy or foget little things like that, and I didn't want my washer to smell like a sewer backup if I didn't stay on top of the filter cleaning.

This washer has been in service for 6 years this August. Apart from the plastic changing color a bit, I have no complaints.

Also, a loud washer doesn't really bother me, we usually set the timer to run at night. No one the wiser.

2. Seeing as this is an AV forum, I think we should focus on discussing the Fridge's with flat panel displays on them. I think it's a waste. Anyone else?