They have just about every appliance you could need – from refrigerators, and washers to trash compactors and range hoods. The supply and variety varies, with more choices in the larger kitchen appliances than others. The savings also vary. At last look, you could save $200 -$500 on a refrigerator, but just around $20 on a ventilation hood.

It would also be a good resource if you are trying to match older GE Appliances already in your kitchen.

Nearly half of Americans, or 46 percent, say they’re dining out less frequently, according to a 2009 Nielsen survey. Also reflecting a trend toward meals served at home, household spending increased on deli items, fresh seafood and meat, and produce for the year ending September 2009. And, as any kid will tell you, some meals at home include leftovers — at least once a week in 77 percent of households, according to a 2010 report by the National Grocers Association.

Regardless of what you’re putting on the dinner table, a key ingredient is convenient food storage. New GE Profile and GE Café bottom-freezer refrigerators not only help preserve your favorite foods for home cooking, they also make it easier than ever for your family to serve themselves — thanks to convenient storage features and an improved ice-and-water-dispenser.

Refrigerators with the freezer on the bottom are increasingly popular, in part because of the convenience they offer in organizing and accessing both fresh and frozen foods. Having the fresh food compartment at eye level allows family members to easily help themselves to frequently used fruits and vegetables, deli items and drinks. In the freezer compartment, slide-out drawers and baskets allow a variety of frozen food packages to be seen at a glance and quickly retrieved.

“Another advantage is that the freezer is wider than in a side-by-side refrigerator,” says Dan Capelle, GE Appliances product manager. “The freezer area is the full width of the refrigerator, providing room for larger items, such as a whole turkey, pizzas, a tray of frozen appetizers, or extra bags of ice.”

Sales of bottom-freezer refrigerators increased more than 40 percent in 2010 alone, according to the Association of Home Appliance Manufacturers. “Consumers love not only the convenience, but also the style and appearance of these models,” says GE’s Jeff Cooksey, marketing manager for refrigeration.

The new line of GE Profile and GE Café models also features more capacity for ice storage, thanks to a new design that places the water and ice dispenser in the door of the refrigerator. In addition, this frees up more usable space in the fresh food area.

The new line of GE Profile and Café bottom-freezer refrigerators will be available to consumers on May 11, 2011.

Models are available in freestanding, counter-depth, and armoire styles.

“Good Housekeeping is proud to honor GE Profile’s Frontloader Steam Washer with Overnight Ready Cycle with a 2011 Very Innovative Products (VIP) Award. This represents an outstanding achievement, as the winners of our VIP Awards are chosen from thousands of products,” says Miriam Arond, director of the Good Housekeeping Research Institute, “Our VIP Award winners are products that are ingenious breakthroughs and solve everyday problems in new and exciting ways. The fact that GE’s product performed so well is extremely impressive.”

The washer’s innovative “Overnight Ready” cycle washes clothes, then removes so much moisture that clothes are comfortable to wear without transferring to the dryer. It’s the first unit in the industry with the ability to wash small loads on an overnight cycle. The cycle even helps prevent clothes from wrinkling compared to clothes that are left sitting in the washer overnight. The “Overnight Ready” cycle keeps clothes moving gently up to eight hours to remove moisture content. Two easy-to-clean filters trap lint for excellent results.

The GE Profile frontload washer and dryer with Steam and SmartDispense technology is white (PFWS4600LWW, PFDS450ELWW, EST: $1,399* each). Additional frontload models include the GE Profile frontload washer and dryer with Steam and SmartDispense technology in champagne (FW4605LMG, PFDS455ELMG, EST: $1,499* each). Optional SmartDispense pedestals in white (SPBD880JWW, EST: $499*) and in champagne (SPBD880JMG, EST: $599*).
*Resellers determine their own resale price.

When synchronized with the local utility company’s home smart-meter, coming into popular use, the HEM acts as the “central nervous system” for monitoring resource usage and controlling energy consumption within the home. The HEM, with the ability to collect data on multiple appliances, provides both real-time and long-term trend information on power and resource consumption and solar generation to the homeowners.

GE’s new Home Energy Manager (HEM) monitors all networked appliances which can include the refrigerator, range, dishwasher, washer and dryer, water heater, and will track all other home energy consumption including microwaves and televisions.

One of the primary goals of U.S. smart grid initiatives is to better use the energy production capacity the country already has. Home energy consumption efficiency can increase significantly when homeowners the option to participate in time-of-use pricing programs, which reward homeowners for lowering their consumption during periods of peak energy demand (usually 2-7 PM).

Simply providing consumers with energy consumption information motivates energy savings. A U.S. Department of Energy study showed that providing real-time pricing information to consumers via a smart meter helped reduce electricity costs 10% on average and 15% during peak periods.

“Knowing what is consuming electricity, and how much electricity that appliances are consuming, can be very empowering,” states Dave McCalpin, general manager of the new HEM business. “People will be able to make smarter choices if they have information. The once-a-month electrical bill provides no insight into your usage habits. We intend to change that.”

HEM’s design is targeted to include:

* Demand Response Integration, supporting communication standards Zigbee SEP 1.0, to enable demand response communication between a utility’s home smart meter and appliances on the home network, enabling real-time load shedding of networked appliances;
* Five-Day Weather Forecasts on Internet-enabled installations (communications supporting Ethernet, Wifi, and Zigbee SEP 1.0 standards);
* Electricity Usage Data Monitoring for the whole home for both short and long terms;
* Power Sub Metering for each GE demand response-enabled appliance;
* Solar Generation Monitoring of inverter output, including short- and long-term data where available;
* Water Usage Monitoring via household-wide data monitoring at 1-gallon resolution;
* Smart Thermostat Interface with full-featured seven-day programmable communicating thermostats that accepts demand response temperature offsets.

Pick any 5. Get $500
Pick any 4. Get $300
Pick any 3. Get $200
Pick any 2. Get $100

Check out the GE site for entry and more details.

Many consumers are looking for smaller digs for a variety of reasons. Some have made a philosophical shift considering a move to a smaller living space less of a down-sizing and more of a right-sizing decision. They choose to use less of the earth’s resources.

Others have made the switch for demographic reasons:

• The 80 million-strong Generation Y, the so-called “millennials,” want to live in exciting urban settings, are interested in value engineering, and consider smaller living spaces acceptable.2 Urban lofts are hits in cities less populated than New York City or San Francisco– including Louisville, Kentucky; Des Moines, Iowa; and Spokane, Washington, to name just a few.
• Aging baby boomers are selling their larger homes and trading them for more convenient patio homes, one or two bedroom homes or condos in communities where shared fees pay for property and landscape maintenance.

“Regardless of why a consumer decides to live in a smaller space, there is no reason to lose upscale features in the furnishings within that space – especially appliances,” noted Marc Hottenroth, Industrial Design Leader for GE Consumer & Industrial.

“Both GE Profile™ and Monogram® lines also offer selections that are perfect for the empty-nester who is moving to a smaller home or condo,” said Hottenroth. Monogram was the first GE product line to introduce undercounter refrigerator modules including wine reserve, double drawer refrigerator, beverage centers, fresh food refrigerator or bar refrigerator with ice maker. In addition Monogram offers a slim 18-inch wide dishwasher with stainless steel door or personalized with customer-supplied cabinet-compatible panel. Both models provide effective, yet quiet cleaning power with a five-level wash system and hidden, integrated electronic. The new Monogram 30-inch chimney hoods with sophisticated bold angles and lines, all hand-finished to seamless perfection, provide powerful venting and a striking focal point that elevates small-scale kitchens into grand statements.

Choose the Profile single double oven wall oven or free-standing range, and, in the same space occupied by a standard free-standing range or wall oven, consumers can have 6.6 cu. ft. of combined oven space. The two ovens can be operated at two different temperatures — up to 450 degrees. That’s twice as much cooking for the same amount of space.

GE is offering their answer to  consumer interest by debuting a freestanding induction range in their Profile series.  GE plans to offer the induction cooking technology exclusively in the Profile Series.

The range comes with a 3700-watt output element and will be available in a variety of colors, finishes and sizes.  This range will be available in Spring 2009.

In the kitchen, General Electric Co. is designing ovens with easier-to-open doors and automatic shut-off burners. A joint venture of Germany’s Bosch and Siemens AG has introduced a glass cook top for its premium Thermador brand designed to prevent boil-overs. Minnesota-based Truth Hardware reports booming sales for its remote-controlled window motors.

“This population is far more demanding and will refocus designers” on individual consumers, says Joe Coughlin, director of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology’s AgeLab, which studies design and engineering for an aging population.

Among appliance makers, Whirlpool Corp. has long tested products with potential customers who are deaf, blind or arthritic. The testing with arthritis patients helped prod the Benton Harbor, Mich., appliance maker to offer pedestals that raise the height of washing machines and clothes dryers for customers with back problems.

Whirlpool

A pedestal beneath this Whirlpool dryer reduces stooping when removing laundry.

Whirlpool also offers washing machines with large knobs that make louder-than-usual noise when they’re set, for customers with limited vision or arthritis. “It’s not one of those little prissy knobs,” says spokeswoman Audrey Reed-Granger. One model introduced last year plays musical chimes to indicate washing temperature or other features.

At GE’s consumer and industrial headquarters in Louisville, Ky., designers use “empathy sessions” to help develop new refrigerators, stoves and dishwashers. Industrial-design intern Joanie Jochamowitz, 22, wraps her knuckles with athletic tape and wears blue rubber gloves to simulate arthritis. She shoves cotton balls in her ears to simulate hearing loss, dons special glasses to simulate macular degeneration and puts dried corn kernels in her loafers to simulate aches and pains. She grabs a walker. Then she tries to peel potatoes.

“I don’t want to get old,” she says, as she hobbles around the kitchen, fumbling with potato peelers and stove controls, and nearly spilling a pot of boiling water.

GE began the empathy sessions last year so its young designers could better appreciate how consumers use appliances. “When you’ve got designers that are 25 or 30 years old, it’s very hard for them to understand what someone in their 60s or 70s experiences,” says Kim Freeman, a spokeswoman for GE Appliances.

The company also arranges focus groups where consumers cook a meal in a GE model kitchen while staffers watch through cameras and one-way mirrors. And GE videotapes appliance users in their homes. The summaries from these tapes are used in brainstorming sessions about design changes.

“We note what they are doing. We see if those behaviors happen more than once and why,” says Marc Hottenroth, industrial design leader for GE’s Consumer and Industrial unit.

These efforts have prompted several changes in GE product designs, including brighter LED lighting that improves visibility inside new models, such as one with a French-door refrigerator atop a bottom freezer. This year, GE introduced a single-wall oven with two cooking spaces that can operate at different temperatures. Its research shows boomers cook and entertain more frequently and like the two-ovens-in-one concept. Some models can be raised off the ground for easier access. “You don’t have to reach in as far,” says Ms. Freeman. She says it prevents people from stooping awkwardly, losing their balance and burning themselves on the hot stove.

GE has new dishwashers and washing machines that allow users to put in an entire bottle of detergent a few times a year rather than a smaller amount for every load. The machines are designed to reduce confusion and make housework less of a chore, particularly for older consumers.

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GE

At an ‘empathy session,’ members of a GE product-development team tape their knuckles to simulate impaired dexterity.

Appliance manufacturers hope these design changes will buoy revenue. Sales and profits in the U.S. appliance industry are down this year because of the housing bust, the stock-market slide and the economic slowdown.  But for the long term, the appliance industry expects big returns because of baby boomers and hopes of a housing rebound.

As we have been following the story here at appliance.net, GE  put its appliance sector up for sale last May.  There have been rumors of purchase offers, including one from Chinese manufacturer Haier who retreated in November as the US economy stumbled.  Now GE has announced its plans to hold off on any sale or spin off, citing the deepening recession.

Company spokeswoman Kim Freeman said GE executives “still feel the strategy is the correct strategy. It is just the wrong time.”

“The challenging economic environment makes a spin or a sale now extremely difficult,” the GE statement said. “Remaining part of GE and staying totally focused on operating the business effectively is the best move for the business as we prepare for what is shaping up to be another very tough year in 2009.”

The company offered no indication of when it might pursue breaking off the division. A statement on the decision said GE would “aggressively align our business with the current market.”

Last week, GE began laying off salaried workers at the division as part of a 5 percent reduction in Consumer & Industrial’s global work force of about 45,000.

GE also said it plans to continue paying a dividend in 2009, offering investors 31 cents per share each quarter.

The company has filed a petition with the Environmental Protection Agency to allow it to use isobutane, a hydrocarbon, in household refrigerators. Hydrocarbons like propane and butane have been used in fridges elsewhere in the world for years as replacements for HFCs (hydrofluorocarbons) and HCFCs (hydrochlorofluorocarbons).

Although HFCs and HCFCs were originally introduced to replace chemicals that contribute to the depletion of the ozone layer, they are thousands of time more powerful than carbon dioxide in contributing to global warming. Hydrocarbons have no impact on the ozone layer and have a much smaller impact on global warming than HFCs and HCFCs.

Ben & Jerry’s recently gained permission from the EPA to test up to 2,000 ice cream cases chilled with butane, and Greenpeace, which developed the GreenFreeze technology used in hydrocarbon-based refrigerators, has been pushing companies to bring the fridges to the U.S.

If the EPA approves GE’s request, the company plans to use isobutane in a new GE Monogram refrigerator planned to launch in early 2010. GE also plans to use cyclopentane, another hydrocarbon, as the insulation foam-blowing agent in place of an HFC foam blowing agents. The development team behind the fridge also plans to seek ecomagination certification, GE’s in-house process for evaluating and labeling energy-efficient products. The company has seen success with its ecomagination line, expecting sales of ecomagination products to reach over $17 billion this year.

You can read the whole story here.

A bid for GE’s appliances business, which the U.S. giant put on the block in May, could be Haier’s last opportunity to buy a household U.S. brand, part of its ambitions to reach global consumers rather than just Chinese, the report said.

According to the Reuters report, a source who worked with Haier executives to evaluate the potential GE deal said the other concern for Haier is how to pay for it, as Haier would rather not borrow from commercial banks.

In May, GE’s CEO Jeff Immelt named companies including Haier, South Korea’s LG Electronics, and Turkey’s Arcelik ARCLK.IS as possible bidders for the second-largest U.S. appliance maker after Whirlpool Corp. No formal bids have been announced yet, and the plans of the other possible bidders have not been confirmed. With sales of $7.2 billion last year, the unit is worth an estimated US$4 billion to $8 billion.