Kitchen remodel, appliances?

We bought a full suite of Frigidaire Gallery kitchen appliances in 2003, including electric range, microwave/exhaust, dishwasher, and refrigerator. Over the past eighteen years, I have had to replace one relay and a recalled circuit board in the range. We replaced our old freezer around ten years ago with a Frigidaire Commercial freezer and have had no problems with it. On the other hand, the Frigidaire Gallery front load washer failed after eight years due to corrosion eating through the drum spider (documented in another thread in this forum.

One consideration when outfitting a kitchen is to make sure as much as possible that you have standard dimensions for any built-ins. Inevitably. one will fail and need to be replaced. Another realization is that for a kitchen full of matche4d appliances, when one fails, you will be replacing them all. When we remodeled our kitchen my wide went so far as to order pulls for the cabinets from Frigidaire to match the pulls on the appliances. I dread the day when one of them fails. I figure if they make it another twenty years, it won't be my problem.
 
Thank you everyone for the responses so far, very interesting. The original dish washer was pulled out, and dumped for more storage space. It still had the owners manual in the top rack from 1989. :grin:
 
Aukai said:
Thank you everyone for the responses so far, very interesting. The original dish washer was pulled out, and dumped for more storage space. It still had the owners manual in the top rack from 1989. :grin:
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My first year in college, I pulled duty on a commercial dishwasher. After seeing the miserable job it did, I have never trusted them. To this day, I have never run our dishwasher. To my mind, just splashing some soapy water on dirty dishes is no way to get them clean. .My wife uses it on a an almost daily basis though. But I rinse any food particles off crockery or cutlery before I put them in.
 
Everything is computerized these days. We moved into our current home in early 2012 and bought a new stove and refrigerator at that time. We went with GE because at least some of their production was still being done in the USA.

Both have worked well until earlier this year (so 9 years give or take). Earlier this year the ice maker and water dispenser quit working. I haven't had the time to track this down, could be simple or not. Otherwise the refrigerator is still going strong. Then back in September the stove just quit working. It is gas but when you turn the knobs an error message flashes (freaking electronic controls, I get it for the oven but stove top burners????). Again just haven't had the time to get a repair person to come in and have a look at it.

Since Covid started I have been at war with rodents. Never so much as a mouse turd in the house before but once the local businesses (restaurants) a couple blocks away shut down, we got invaded by rats and mice. I'm worried they may have got into the wiring so may not be the fault of the appliances.

Up until this year I would have said we were pretty happy with GE. These were not cheap, they were at the higher end of the line, large refrigerator and the stove has high BTU burners and a double oven, pretty sure we paid somewhere around $4000 for the pair in 2012.

I really wanted to get a Wolf stove as I have used them before but my wife wanted a double oven and that put the Wolf options out of the budget.
 
Most of the high end brands I feel are over priced for what you get and these days it is more what you can get as to what you want. My brother purchased a Wolf oven/range and it just got delivered after 3 months. He does a lot of cooking/baking and so far he is happy with the Wolf. We purchased our house 3 years ago, they had all viking appliances, they have all broken/needed repairs since we moved in. In general Viking is just lipstick on other brands. Oven/Range I would look at Bluestar appliances, they have been around for decades and have high BTU and a good burner design. They are not a sealed burner design, I feel they are easier to clean. If my viking range goes out I am switching to the Bluestar.
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Refrigerators, well that is a toss up and also depends on if you are looking at built-in or not. LG has been a nightmare for most people, not sure you do any better with the other HD brands. Might look at the GE Monogram is their high end line, Sub-Zero seems like quite a few complaints about reliability, but then that applies to most appliances these days. I recall Wolf and Viking refrigerators are based on Sub-Zero units. The newer LG had numerous issues with their sealed system and also their variable speed compressors failing. According to LG they have changed the sealed system when I checked a year ago, poor souls that have the models form previous years. I had one on order for the garage and switched to a Samsung.

Dishwasher probably the Bosch or Miele, we have the Bosch it is OK. Had a repair man fixing our Viking appliance (under the Home Warranty), he said skip the fancy ones with all the cycles and also ones with plastic tubes, the models change so frequently it is hard to say if you get lucky or get a lemon. I tend to read the reviews and see if they honor warranty and repair. One again more issues/complaints with the LG/Samsung at least 2 years ago when I was looking at a replacement. Our Viking (made by Bosch) is 10 years old and unless you preclean the plates, they do not get that clean. Newer models might be better. I would check Consumers Report and reviews on whatever models you are looking at.

Microwave, Panasonic has been reliable, ironically Viking re badges the Panasonic with some fancy sheet metal and charges 4-5X the price.

Have had Grohe faucets through the years, they work well, but not inexpensive.

Appliance these days, and also has been posted in he forum, are not designed to last decades anymore, just long enough for their warranty to run out.
 
I have all Kitchen Aid appliances for the last 14 years so far no issues. Had and old Maytag washer for over 26 years it finally gave out, replaced with a new Maytag washer only lasted 8 years. Replaced it with another Maytag with less bells and whistle's
 
I run a remodel consulting business and specialize in chef’s kitchens, so the appliance issue is one of my paramount concerns. You are right to have a pretty dim view of most of the brands at HD and Lowes (Samsung being the worst IMO). There are a few exceptions. But when my clients have the budget, I will consistently steer them to Wolf ranges and vent hoods, Sub-Zero refrig, and Miele dishwasher and laundry components. Yes, they are ridiculously expensive, but they are built to last and are serviceable. For the more value conscious clients, I recommend Liebherr and Bosch refrig, BlueStar ranges (which I have in my kitchen), but stick with Miele for the DW (not cheap, but outstanding performance and longevity). If you don’t want to spend $5K on the Miele laundry, be prepared for a 6-8 year replacement cycle.
 
Thank you Mark, I'm checking on those, not sure of availability, but good to look at what's out there.
Thank you David, I was hoping you would chime in. I have feelers out for the BlueStar range, dw is not a concern. Sub Zero is the fridge I'm looking at, but the new 5 door Kitchen aid is interesting...
 
Aaron_W said:
Since Covid started I have been at war with rodents. Never so much as a mouse turd in the house before but once the local businesses (restaurants) a couple blocks away shut down, we got invaded by rats and mice. I'm worried they may have got into the wiring so may not be the fault of the appliances.
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A year ago, my wife heard a noise when she opened the dishwasher door. It turned out to be some dog kibble dropping out of the door. I took the front panel off and there was several lbs of kibble stored in the door. The mouse had carried it in one chunk at a time trough an opening for the electrical wiring to the front panel controls. Fortunately, none of the wire was damaged. I made a sheet metal baffle to close off the opening which I believed has closed off the passage. We have a constant battle with mice in spite of my crawling around the foundation and sealin any possible entry point. It gets worse in the fall and early winter when they are coming in from the field for a warmer den.
 
Aukai said:
Thank you Mark, I'm checking on those, not sure of availability, but good to look at what's out there.
Thank you David, I was hoping you would chime in. I have feelers out for the BlueStar range, dw is not a concern. Sub Zero is the fridge I'm looking at, but the new 5 door Kitchen aid is interesting...
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Agree - the Kitchen Aid 5-door does look interesting. Of course, this is NOT a counter-depth unit - it's 36" deep and nearly impossible to configure as a counter-flush system (because of the hinges) even if you have the required depth. Unlike the SubZero which can be configured to nearly flush, the Kitchen Aid will always stand proud of the cabinets by a good 8-inches or more. That aspect may or may not be a concern in your situation depending on layout and esthetic preferences.

My biggest concern about the Kitchen Aid unit is the in-door ice maker - especially in humid install locations. There isn't a lot of data on it yet, but the Samsung attempt to employ an in-door ice delivery with the ice maker itself in the refrigerator section has been a total disaster. Massive litigation that went to class action status and has remained unresolved for years - ultimately the lawyers with be the beneficiaries of that suit, not the Samsung owners. There is even a Facebook group specifically dedicated to Samsung ice-in-door refrigerator owners that has 89,000 members all screaming their heads off about it. All those Samsung in-door ice delivery units have an average 2 year mean-time-between-failure, and users are constantly plagued with having to manually defrost the ice maker to get it functioning.

The Kitchen Aid ice maker unit is different in that it resides inside the door, but it is still in the refrigerator section, and thus exposed to constant thermal cycling with the door opening/closing, which causes frost build-up and freezing-over that disables the ice making mechanisms. So I'm leery of it until there is more in-field use and reporting.

David
 
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