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…
Why the breaker trips on the morning you have guests The pattern is always the same. The kitchen has run fine for a year. Then one morning the griddle is on, someone starts the deep fryer for hash browns, the…
Three numbers decide whether an appliance fits, and only one is on the box Product pages give you a footprint. A small kitchen needs three numbers, and the other two are usually missing. The first is the frontage the machine…
What a lease actually restricts, and what it does not Most residential leases say some version of the same three things. Do not make holes in the walls. Do not alter the plumbing. Do not alter the electrical. Everything else…
The constraint in a first apartment is counter length, not budget Most advice about kitting out a first apartment starts with a shopping list. That is the wrong end of the problem. A rented one bedroom typically gives you somewhere…
Noise complaints about appliances are usually complaints about the wrong thing. People blame the motor when the culprit is the countertop it is standing on, or blame a compressor when the sound is a fan, or buy a quieter model…
The purchase is a single event. The consumable is a subscription you did not knowingly sign up for. Plenty of kitchen appliances are cheap to buy and expensive to feed, and the feeding requirement is rarely stated on the front…
Nonstick coatings fail for predictable reasons, and almost none of them are manufacturing defects. They fail because someone reached for a metal utensil, because a basket went into a dishwasher the manufacturer never approved it for, because a pan was…
Two identical kettles bought on the same day can reach very different ends. One is still working in five years. The other is slow, noisy and finally dead, and nothing was wrong with it except the water that went through…
A modern television is never really off. Pressing the power button on the remote puts the panel to sleep and leaves a small computer running behind it, listening for the next command, holding a network connection, and in some configurations…
Every appliance on this site carries a power figure somewhere in its listing, and most of the time that figure gets read as though it were a bill. It is not. A wattage rating describes a ceiling: the most the…