Start with the constraint, not with the catalog Furnishing a first kitchen is a different exercise from replacing one appliance. When you buy a single machine you already know what fits, because everything around it is fixed. When you buy…
The field that is supposed to tell you, and never does Listings carry a field named Is Discontinued By Manufacturer. It sounds like exactly the answer you want. In this catalog of 210 products, 66 listings carry that field, and…
The field that is supposed to answer this question usually does not Every listing carries a field called included components. In principle it settles the whole question: here is what arrives in the carton. In practice it is one of…
The only genuinely searchable thing on a listing Almost everything on a product page is written to sell. The title is stuffed with keywords, the bullets are marketing, the description is brand copy, the specification table is generated by a…
What a single review is worth Two televisions in this catalog carry a star rating of 1.0. The Samsung DU6900 series fifty inch set shows 1.0 stars from one rating, and the Sharp AQUOS seventy five inch commercial set shows…
The question hiding behind the voltage field North American outlets deliver about 120 volts at 60 hertz. Most of Europe, Australia and a good deal of Asia run 220 to 240 volts at 50 hertz. An appliance built for one…
Three words that get used as if they mean one thing Renewed, refurbished and open box appear on appliance listings as though they were interchangeable grades of the same idea. They are not. One is a formal Amazon program with…
Two numbers with almost the same name Every appliance listing carries a set of dimensions. What it very often does not tell you is whether those dimensions describe the appliance or the box it ships in. The two field names…
The number in the title is answering a different question than you are Capacity is the most quoted figure in appliance marketing and the least standardized. A brand picks whichever measure makes its machine sound roomiest, states it without qualification,…
The specification table is not the manufacturer speaking Almost nobody buys an appliance from the photographs alone. You scroll past the marketing copy, find the specification table, look for the two or three numbers that decide whether the thing fits…
The repair or replace question is usually presented as an arithmetic problem, and it is usually settled before any arithmetic happens. Prices change constantly, labor rates differ by region, and part availability varies by model and by year, so nobody…
Three of the cooking methods represented in this catalog work by holding food at moderate temperatures for a long time, and one of them works by removing air. Both of those descriptions should make anyone thinking about food safety pay…
Four of the fuels used by appliances sold on this site are stored by the owner between uses, and each one fails differently when stored badly. Propane leaks. Charcoal absorbs moisture and, once burned, holds live embers for far longer…
Appliances do not fail randomly. Each type has a component that is doing the hardest work, and that component is what fails first in the great majority of cases. Knowing which part that is for a given appliance tells you…
The order matters more than the budget A first kitchen usually gets bought in one weekend, in one trip, from one list. That is the expensive way to do it, because half of what goes on the list is bought…
A garage is not a cool kitchen, it is a different environment Putting a second refrigerator in the garage or a washing machine in the basement looks like free space. In practice these rooms fail appliances in three specific ways,…
Appliances are the part of a move that goes wrong quietly Furniture either fits through the door or it does not, and you find out immediately. Appliances fail differently. They arrive at the new address looking fine, get plugged in,…
Count the boxes before you pick up the drill The cabling on a television wall is not complicated, but it is unforgiving of being planned late. Once the bracket is on the wall and the panel is hung, every decision…
A wall mount is a structural decision, not a styling one Wall mounting looks like a finishing touch. It is closer to hanging a kitchen cabinet. You are asking a small patch of wall to hold a heavy, wide, top…
The room decides the screen, not the other way around The usual way people buy a television is to pick a size that sounds right, bring it home, and then rearrange the furniture around whatever they bought. That order is…