Way OT: Kitchen appliances

[sjbraun]

Anyone have experience with Samsung appliances? Local appliance guy says they are the bomb, excluding their dishwasher where is says Bosch is the only way to go. We're starting a kitchen project and appliances will complete the remodel.

We're not looking for high-end (Viking) stuff, just reliable, well designed machines.

Any thoughts?

Steve
Tucson

[joosttx]

We redid our kitchen about a year and half ago. We went with Kitchen Aid for everything except for a Bosch built in refrig (only reason it was the best configuration for us). Kitchen Aid seemed to have all very good products while all the other brands had at least something that was no good. BTW the kitchen aid hood is a rock star.

Re Bosch dishwashers I have heard the competition has caught up.

[Seramount]

remodeled my kitchen 4 yrs ago. dumped all the old skank-ass appliances...had a dinosaur 30-yr old Montgomery Ward dw (!)...thing was loud as crap.

got stainless/black Frigidaire fridge and Whirlpool gas range. nothing fancy, both work as intended. hit Lowe's during a sale and applied for their credit card which knocked another 5% off...made things quite affordable.

the new Bosch dw is way nice. I can't even tell when it's on except for the display lights.

[JLP]

I have a less than two year old Samsung refrigerator that I had hoped would be more reliable than the expensive thing it replaced.

A month ago, I came home to a puddle of water on the floor in front of the refrigerator. It turns out that a common failure is that the drain for water when the thing defrosts gets filled with ice and then it spills water into the fridge and all over the floor.

The fix, which was found on youtube, was to disassemble and use some aluminum fender stays to conduct heat from the defrost heating element to the pan and the drain hole.

Seriously, I fixed my $2000 almost new refrigerator with fender stays? And it's a common problem? ··· What do I expect for a couple grand.

So, yeah, it's the least worst option, I suppose.

[jds108]

I would simply say to think about whether you really want all the fancy gadgets on each appliance - considering that each gadget may fail...

WRT dishwashers - I'd get one with a heated dry cycle and a third rack for silverware. I went with a lower level Kitchenaid as it was the cheapest that fit that description.

The one time I ponied up extra cash for a fancy fridge (a Fisher & Paykel) - it was the most unreliable fridge I ever owned.

So now it's a Kenmore fridge, GE cooktop, Whirlpool convection oven, and the Kitchenaid dishwasher for me.

[unterhausen]

I have a less than two year old Samsung refrigerator that I had hoped would be more reliable than the expensive thing it replaced.

A month ago, I came home to a puddle of water on the floor in front of the refrigerator.
well, that beats the whirlpool we have where the fender stay fix doesn't actually work. Suffering through that right now

[Ken Robb]

You can get a lot of reliable info in Consumer Reports including performance and reliability.

[rwsaunders]

How long are you going to live in your home? I ask as perhaps you might want to look into the appliances that offer the combination of the best life cycle performance and lowest utility consumption if you are going to be there long term. Short term, buy what you like and plan for the next buyer.

Do you have kids? When we didn't have kids, our dishwasher might have been operated 1 or 2 times/week. For the past ten years it has cycled every two days and the washer and dryer run every day. Our GE microwave has been running since 1985...not kidding.

KitchenAid dishwasher, washer and dryer, Thermador double oven and cooktop, SubZero refrigerator...all have operated trouble free for the past 16 years. Keeping my fingers crossed for another 10 years.

[gasman]

Our old Whirlpool fridge has been going great for 15 years. Our appliance repair guy says Whirlpool makes great stuff. We did buy a Meile dishwasher last year, he said it had become hard to get Bosch parts when he needed them.
Second the consumer reports suggestion- you can look at overall repair history for every brand.

[KF9YR]

We bought a Samsung gas range and microwave 6 months ago. They have both worked great. We also bought the Bosch dishwasher which does a great job washing the dishes but doesn't use a heating element to dry them. Any glasses with concave bottoms will have water in them.

I looked this up online and most people use the sanitize cycle so I will try that on our next wash.

Good luck.

[Ray]

Just redid our first floor/kitchen last summer. Had a new-ish fridge and microwave already, but got a Bosch dishwasher and a GE induction range. We went from a separate kitchen, DR, and LR, to a completely open first floor with a huge kitchen island, so the noise level of the dishwasher was important to us (since we're basically living in the kitchen now). The Bosch was the quietest brand of dishwasher - whether it get's dishes cleaner than others I don't know, but it beats the hell out of the old Whirlpool we had (probably 20 years old - was in the place when we bought it 8 years back).

For a range/cooktop, I can't even begin to recommend induction highly enough. It's got the performance of gas (if not better - certainly no worse) and more convenience than electric with incredibly small energy consumption. You may need some new pots and pans - it only works with ferrous bottom cookware - and it's not cheap, but its not near as much as a really fancy gas range either. The stove itself doesn't get hot - it uses magnetic waves of some sort to heat the pot directly, so you never burn stuff onto the cooktop - cleanup is incredibly easy. Once you lift the pot off of the cooktop, you can touch it with your bare-hand within a few seconds - the only heat is the residual heat from having a hot pot sitting on it.

That range has been the best purchase we've made in a long time for our house. Water boils much more quickly than anything else I've ever used. It heats up and cools down INSTANTLY, like gas, but it heats the bottom of the pot more evenly than gas. My wife liked the idea of gas, but I'm the cleanup guy and she's a mess, so I didn't want to deal with cleaning a gas cooktop. Induction was the perfect solution - I won't even call it a compromise because we both feel like it's the best of both worlds. I'm not much of a cook, but I use it some (bacon and eggs, omelets, soup, chili) and I love the damn thing. Every time we show it to friends who come over they're gobsmacked by it. A couple of them have bought them since seeing ours. They've been using them in Europe for about 40 years but are just really starting to sell here. So the selection should get better and prices should come down in time. When we looked into it, GE got the best reviews except for the crazy high-end models, but that may have changed in the past year. But we've been incredibly happy with it.

-Ray

[Fishbike]

Bought new Samsung washer and dryer less than two years ago. They are large and fairly near the top of the Samsung food chain. We like them very much although the first washer we got was defective and had to be replaced. They were very highly rated by Consumer Reports (although I am generally not a fan of CR). The machines play tunes when they are finished; kinda fun and kinda strange.

We also just got a Samsung TV which was highly rated by several electronics review sites. We were talking that Samsung really dominates several markets with quality products. Company has some a long way.

[zennmotion]

Anyone have experience with Samsung appliances? Local appliance guy says they are the bomb, excluding their dishwasher where is says Bosch is the only way to go. We're starting a kitchen project and appliances will complete the remodel.

We're not looking for high-end (Viking) stuff, just reliable, well designed machines.

Any thoughts?

Steve
Tucson
Our kitchen remodel is about 4 years old now. Our GE profile refrigerator from Sears is the bomb. Sear-eously I would like to haul it out to an abandoned quarry somewhere and blow it up, never again for GE or Sears, been burned twice now.

Our Bosch dishwasher on the other hand is working really well and forgiving of our tendency to be lazy with properly rinsing dishes before loading. Trouble free, easy on soap and energy.

The best decision we made was to splurge a bit on the stove- we're cooks. Check out Blue Star stoves, we bought for one basic reason- the range top has a couple of super high BTU (gas) burners that make it possible to do real wok cooking and other cuisines that require high heat. Normal stoves are anemic in this regard, it makes a huge difference. Similarly there is also a burner that does super low heat reliably- for stuff like melting chocolate and butter without boiling or burning. The temperature on the convection oven is also very accurate, we're not big on baking and pastry stuff so we got the standard oven, very good but nothing special. Spending extra on the Blue Star was a good investment, we saved everywhere else, but kitchens are for cooking, not looking at. We got the Campy C-record equivalent for the stove.

[buddybikes]

Talk with a repairman on what he can get parts for, Bosch and LG need to go through their parts system/repair, pain in royal ass. I stuck with GT, Whirlpool.

Most appliances are now made my only couple of makers.

[carpediemracing]

We've had our Samsung fridge for one night. It is working fine so far :)

[dgauthier]

The Korean brands (LG and Samsung) have sketchy reliability histories, but are always improving. How long are the warranties?

For dishwashers, take a look at Miele. Believe me, I couldn't care less about dishwashers, and I love our Miele. It's one of the best anythings we own. Overall build quality is terrific (especially impressive is the tidy finish on the parts of the dishwasher that are hidden once it's installed), the interior design is extremely well thought out and space efficient, and it uses tiny amounts of soap, water and energy. Our dishes come out gleaming -- noticeably better than from the Whirlpool we replaced.

[josephr]

We don't go the cheap route, but don't go super high end either --the Kenmore (Whirlpool) refrigerator is rock solid after 15 years and only maintenance had to do is vacuum out the dog-hair every couple of years. Whirlpool Duet washer/dryer? - 5 years, only once was the drain clogged. We've had other stuff over the years, but Whirlpool has earned my loyalty.
Whirlpools are the Toyotas of home appliances and I'd rather spend time on my bike that dealing with broken down refrigerator.

[Steve530]

...Our GE profile refrigerator from Sears is the bomb. Sear-eously I would like to haul it out to an abandoned quarry somewhere and blow it up, never again for GE or Sears, been burned twice now.

Our Bosch dishwasher on the other hand is working really well and forgiving of our tendency to be lazy with properly rinsing dishes before loading. Trouble free, easy on soap and energy..

Pretty much the same experience we had. Bought a GE refrigerator because it fit the space better. The first time I changed the water filter, the water dispenser flow dropped to a tickle. Put the old filter back in, but flow did not increase. Called GE. They said it was out of warranty and we would have to pay for a service charge to have a technician come out and troubleshoot the problem. I'll never buy another GE.

OTOH, the Bosch dishwasher has been trouble-free, quiet, and works well. The stainless steel tub retains heat from the wash water and dries the dishes without a heating element.

[SlackMan]

Have positive experience with many other Samsung products besides kitchen appliances.

Bosch dishwashers are great. I don't think anything really compares.

I see KitchenAid mentioned above. I have sworn eternal hostility to them after they refused to address a design defect on a wall oven we have. Run it in self-cleaning mode, and it blows a thermal fuse, requiring a $150 service call. Have friends with oven and same problem. Moreover, the problem is very well documented on KitchenAid's own forums, and yet they tell customers to get lost. Thus, if we want to run self cleaning cycle on our oven, we know it's going to blow $150. Never ever will I buy anything else from KitchenAid.