choosing a Kitchen Appliance

Appliances Don’t Last a Lifetime, Neither Does the Warranty

February 2, 2009 By NightOwl

It used to be, back in our parents and grandparents time, that a large appliance was a once in a lifetime purchase. The white, round cornered refrigerator in your great-Aunt’s kitchen was the one she got for Christmas the first year she was married and it was the only one she ever needed.

Boy have times, and appliances changed. Today, you might get nine years out of your dishwasher and microwave, ten from your washer, and if you’re lucky thirteen out of your dryer and refrigerator. We’ve detailed the average lifespan in this article if you’d like find out about a specific appliance.

The other issue today is the reduced warranties that the manufacturers are now providing. Gone are the extended warranties on components. Now one year is all that is being given. Not only that, but the service from these manufacturers has declined as well.

Hometownlife.com reports that a reader called to report that her 12-year-old dishwasher ran all night. Her husband turned it on when they went to bed around 10 p.m., and when she walked into the kitchen at 7 a.m., it was still running. She opened the door and the blast of heat was like opening an oven door. She called the manufacturer who sent out a service technician who couldn’t tell her why the dishwasher didn’t shut off. The manufacturer then told her they couldn’t do a thing for her because it was well out of warranty and besides that, they told her the average life span of the dishwasher was six years. They offered her $50 towards the purchase of a new dishwasher provided it was their brand.

Although the dishwasher was not new, one should expect that it would at the least run safely and that the response from the manufacturer would be more helpful.

Here’s a second situation:

“I am having a problem with my Jenn Air oven. It is a double oven. It is also a convection oven. It was manufactured in 1996. The past two nights the bottom oven has been turning on by itself. This morning the bottom oven broiler was on. I called Jenn Air and a service tech is coming out. Jenn Air will pay for the diagnosis but says that the oven is no longer under warranty.”

A person’s home is their haven; they should feel safe there. Do we have to lie awake at night wondering whether the oven is going to turn itself on and set the house afire? An appliance should enhance and simplify your life, not add to your list of worries and stresses.

Haier’s Compact Little Fridge

January 28, 2009 By NightOwl

Haier is getting smaller and cooler with a new eco-friendly 1.7-cubic-foot compact refrigerator that features an advanced electronics and cellular technology cooling system called NuCool.

According to Haier, the new system achieves temperatures as low as 37 degrees, based on an ambient room temperature of 70 degrees, which was not attainable with prior refrigerant-free models. “Haier strives to be a pioneer in the implementation of new technologies in our product lines,” said Matthew Sekelick, the company’s compact appliances VP. “As a leader in compact refrigeration, we have looked to introduce environmentally friendly improvements such as NuCool that our customers desire.”

The NuCool compact refrigerator, model C-RNU1708, which shipped late last year, features an auto defrost and adjustable thermostat, a reversible door design, and full- and half-width door shelves with 2-liter bottle storage. It is available in black and white and retails for $80 at Wal-Mart.

The compact fridge is the first application of NuCool technology, Haier said. Larger-capacity models featuring the technology are expected to be introduced early this year.

Source: twice.com

Liebherr’s Newest Integrated Refrigerator

January 5, 2009 By NightOwl

Liebherr announces the new HRB 1110 – 24” fully integrated refrigerator with BioFresh and the HF 851 – 24” fully integrated freezer with icemaker. These newest models went into production inNovemer and will be available through Canadian dealers early this year.

Biofresh is Liebherr’s patented system providing the perfect climate for keeping your foods fresh longer. With the temperature maintained at just above freezing and at an ideal humidity level, fruit, vegetables, meat and fish retain their vitamins and minerals, delicate flavor and attractive appearance for up to three times longer than in a normal refrigerator, according to Liebherr.

These two new Premium Plus models have all the unique and green features of the previously released 24” integrated products and more, including:

Revolutionary new LED light columns in the refrigerator

Freezer drawers on smooth, telescopic rails and professional freezing technology (FrostSafe) to guarantee continual circulated air

Easy to install door-on-door technology for better design options

Soft close door system technology (used by high-end cabinet manufacturers)

ENERGY STAR® rating according to new standards effective since April 2008.

To read more about Liebherr’s BioFresh technology, please visit liebherr-appliances.com.

Appliance Manufacturers are Aiming at Boomers

December 31, 2008 By NightOwl

What’s next? The Baby Boom generation is everywhere. As a child of the 60’s I’ve often had mixed emotions towards them – annoyance at how much attention they get combined with gratitude that they cause so many changes that I will benefit from in the future. One of those changes is happening now in the appliance manufacturing business. As boomers age, they are increasingly staying in their own homes and have the income to modify those homes accordingly. Appliance manufacturers want to get a piece of that. According to the Wall Street Journal, changes are being made.

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.

Made in China – PR Problem?

December 29, 2008 By NightOwl

“Made in China” I search for this phrase daily now as I shop for my family. When my son was only three, he would search for it on his toys and we would all joke about how everything we owned was made in China. Now I’m trying to avoid these imported products. I, like so many Americans have become leery of China’s goods. Tainted milk and fish have marked all Chinese products and so even high quality small electronics are being avoided. Tim Somheil of Appliance Magazine writes more:

The appliance industry sources huge numbers of small electrics, consumer electronics, and even white goods out of China. The vast majority are high-quality appliances, well made, certified to international safety standards, and—because they’re made in China—they offer a cost advantage that enables the consumer to get a better product for the price.

Of course,it is a vast overgeneralization by the public to associate well-made appliances with tainted milk, but that association is reality.

China—for the good of all the enterprises that manufacture consumer goods within its borders—desperately needs to take a more honest approach. When there’s a crisis involving Chinese-made products, of any kind, the country needs to embrace that problem immediately and publicly.

Consider how pleasantly surprised consumers would be if they saw China demonstrate willingness to take ownership of a crisis, without hesitation, and provide full disclosure on the problem’s cause and scope.

And consider what the impact would be if offshore consumers saw this approach consistently. The credibility of the government as a spokesperson for the “Made in China” brand would grow—and China would get real credit from the public for its considerable product safety efforts.

Maybe the best possible scenario in the next few years is to move many consumers’ perception from negative to neutral. That’s still a huge step in the right direction for all manufacturers with “Made in China” stamped on their products.

At this point I really have very little confidence in the integrity of Chinese manufacturers. I’m no longer incredulous when I hear of a problem product out of China – instead I sigh and hope for the safety of those effected.

Consumers Like Touch Screen Technology

December 10, 2008 By NightOwl

My Oven has it and so does my new phone – touch screen technology is becoming hugely popular. Apple started it with the iphone and now manufacturers of everything from consumer electronics to white goods are trying to keep up. The cell phone industry in particular wants to compete with Apple’s iphone.

“Consumers are looking for displays with higher resolution, contrast, and more-sophisticated touch screen technology in applications that previously utilized simple LED or LCD displays,” says Gary Olson, director of engineering, Control Products (Chanhassen, MN, U.S.; www.controlproductsinc.com). “Appliance makers have high expectations from their control developers. Expertise in advanced features along with advanced graphics is necessary to keep pace with market demands.”

The latest product offerings from Electrolux feature control panels that appear “dark” and blank until touched to illuminate and reveal a bright and colorful display allowing operation of all functions. The displays on the new line of premium appliances use touch sensors to detect touch and tell the panel to turn on, and when touch is no longer sensed, they turn off to leave a sleek and blank display.

Even as touch screens become more popular, some suppliers are exploring the next advance to provide options that go beyond touch.

It seems uncharacteristic for a control panel to eliminate the need for an actual touch, but smart technologies are enabling it. The answer for WaveOn Technologies Inc. is a touchless sensor, designed to be so sensitive it can detect a near-touch from 3 in. away, even when placed beneath 10-mm-thick plastic.

Although the technology is now common with flat-panel TVs and glass range cooktops, WaveOn’s technology is pushing the envelope further. The company is looking into applications where a detection of movement might come in handy. One example is the kitchen, where hands are commonly messy with food preparation. Here the sensors could help consumers raise or lower radio or TV volume or answer a phone without touching a thing.

“The key concern of many consumers is that if [the control panel] looks elegant, it is likely to be fragile and less durable than systems they’re used to,” says Brenton Judge, engineering director, Defond Group Ltd. Defond in the United States includes Defond North America LLC (Raleigh, NC, U.S., www.dnagroup.com). “By giving customers a system that essentially has an infinite life span and is resistant to dirt and spillages at a minimal cost, we can boost the acceptance of electronic controls in the appliance market.”

To achieve this, Defond is placing smart digital control underneath the facade of traditional mechanical switches that consumers believe to be more reliable. The supplier says its specialty is control systems that simplify use by integrating instructions into the product itself via the display and adding sensors that enable a product to self-adjust according to how a consumer uses the product.

You can read more about this here.

EnergyStar Standards for Dishwashers get Tougher

December 3, 2008 By NightOwl

We have a question on our forums here at appliance.net asking readers to post about their favorite appliance. Surprisingly, no one mentioned their dishwasher. Dishwashers save not only time, but energy and water as well. The Department of Energy (DOE) has not rated dishwashers for their water usage until now. Currently, the EnergyStar rating is based on energy usage. The change could save American families more than $25 million in energy and water bills in the first 6 months the criteria are in effect.

The criteria will go into effect in two phases. The first set of criteria will apply on August 11, 2009, and the second will apply on July 1, 2011. DOE estimates that by 2012, the new guidelines will save Americans 671 billion Btu and 1.13 billion gallons of water per year. With the new water saving requirement, consumers using ENERGY STAR dishwashers will save more than a gallon of water with each dishwashing cycle. Manufacturers are also eligible to receive tax credits for the production of dishwashers that meet the new ENERGY STAR dishwasher criteria under the Emergency Economic Stabilization Act of 2008.

In the first phase, ENERGY STAR qualified dishwashers will be required to be at least 48% more efficient than federal energy efficiency standards require, saving the nation over 71 million kWh of energy and more than 500 million gallons of water per year. Stricter federal energy efficiency standards take effect January 1, 2010. In the second phase, ENERGY STAR qualified dishwashers must be at least 13.5% more efficient than the 2010 federal energy efficiency standards, saving the Nation over 95 million kWh of energy and more than 830 million gallons of water per year. The ENERGY STAR criteria for dishwashers were last modified on January 1, 2007.

Size is Important When Buying a Refrigerator

November 21, 2008 By NightOwl

One of the benefits of replacing an older refrigerator with a new one is knowing that you will be saving energy using the new model.

Jame Duley at the Columbus Dispatch writes:

The energy savings from a more efficient compressor and insulation should pay back the cost of a new model over its lifetime. My refrigerator is about 16 years old. We had a power outage, and my food warmed within eight hours and had to be trashed. My neighbor has a new model, and the insulation kept food in his refrigerator safely below 40 degrees for the same time period.

When selecting a new refrigerator, the size is the most important factor affecting its electricity usage. Select as small a model as will meet your requirements. You can base the size requirements on your existing refrigerator size and how full it typically is, not on the few holiday occasions when you’re making dinner for your extended family.

Don’t buy one that will be consistently too small and then perhaps plan to buy another small backup or keep your old one running in the basement or garage. This will use much more electricity than just buying a larger one initially. Features such as split shelves and pullout shelves that crank up and down can increase the usable interior space with a smaller size.

Models with the freezer on top are most energy-efficient because the cool air naturally drops from the freezer to cool the refrigerator section. Top-freezer models also tend to have the most interior space for a given exterior size, so they’re ideal if your space is limited.

You can figure on about 80 percent of advertised interior volume as actual usable space.

Maytag’s “Commercial Grade” Washers and Dryers

November 11, 2008 By NightOwl

Whirlpool, the owner of Maytag is emphasizing the “commercial-grade elements and technology” found in its residential laundry products as it promotes its Performance, Bravos, Centennial and Epic Z series of washers and dryers.

Models in these lines are said to feature a variety of features typically found in commercial-grade laundry products, such as commercial-grade stainless-steel wash baskets, five-rib dryer belts for longer life and quieter operation, and solid-steel base frames and hung suspension systems intended to reduce vibration.

Maytag’s Performance series washers offer a wash-basket capacity of 4.4 cubic feet; the Bravos washer is said to offer the brand’s largest wash-basket capacity of 4.7 cubic feet.

Both platforms feature load sensors that can adjust the water level and temperature, steam technology, a “GentleBreeze” system that dries clothes in the same amount of time it takes to wash them, and an “IntelliDry” feature that senses when clothes are dry to reduce the risk of over-drying and shrinking.

The Epic Z’s standout feature is its space-saving design that allows it to be stacked in tighter spaces. The washer measures just 36 inches high by 27 inches wide and 30.5 inches deep while still providing 3.7 cubic feet of wash-basket space.

Energy Star Might Not be Such a Star

November 3, 2008 By NightOwl

Most consumers who are shopping for a new, energy efficient appliance know to look for the Blue EnergyStar label. The Energy Star label alerts shoppers to supposedly very energy efficient appliances. Many appliances also have a yellow energy guide label. That label tells shoppers specifically how much energy they can save by buying that particular appliance.

Buying an efficient appliance really can help save money by saving energy. Over the past five years, the nation has saved over $61 billion according to the Web site EnergyStar.gov. That translates to a reduction of greenhouse gases equal to taking half the country’s vehicles off the roads for one year.

There’s a problem though, according to Business Week, consumer and environmental groups say it’s often too easy for companies to win the right to display the star. According to descriptions from the Department of Energy (DOE), which manages the Energy Star appliance program, the coveted logo should ideally appear on dishwashers, refrigerators, and other appliances that score in the top 25% for energy efficiency in their categories. But in 2007 some 60% of all dishwasher models on the market qualified, the DOE says. The year before, 92% of them hit the mark. “If the DOE gives Energy Star to everyone, eventually it’s worthless,” says David B. Goldstein, a director at the Natural Resources Defense Council.

NO INDEPENDENT AUDITS

This past summer the nonprofit Consumers Union complained that some companies were gaming the system. Its testing labs discovered that two refrigerators—one from Samsung and one from LG Electronics—displayed the logos but only measured up if their icemakers were switched off. When the icemakers were on, the machines exceeded the power consumption stated on their Energy Star labels by 65% and by more than 100%, respectively. “Consumers don’t buy a fridge with this sort or feature to leave it off,” says Steven Saltzman, a deputy editor at Consumer Reports. It turned out that when the refrigerator rule was revised in 2001 and 2004, the icemaking feature was rare for this type of model, and there was no requirement to turn it on during the tests. Spokespeople from both LG and Samsung say the companies are in full compliance with DOE standards.

Critics also gripe that there is no independent auditor for appliance testing. The DOE can spot-check products, but it mainly relies on companies to test rivals’ wares and to complain if something looks fishy. Such complaints are rare—and it’s not just consumers who suffer. Federal and state governments require the Energy Star for billions of dollars of purchases each year. Last month, Texas offered a statewide sales-tax-free day for Energy Star goods. If the mark loses credibility, that could weaken official efforts to improve efficiency.

Until this issue is resolved, read those yellow labels carefully, the fact that an appliance carries the Energy Star label no longer seems to mean that it meets the highest standards of efficiency.