major kitchen appliance advice

Hey, if it's working for HDTVs, why not kitchen gear?

I'm getting a new house. The builder helpfully included a countertop stove, oven, microwave, and dishwasher. That's all well and good, but they're all Jenn-Air, for which the (recent) lack of reliability gives me pause. As part of our deal, the builder agreed to replace this gear with anything I want, giving me credit (at his wholesale cost with his wholesale distributor) toward the purchase of replacements. As such, what I'm looking for are:

- 36-inch "drop in" gas-burning stovetop
- 30-inch electric oven
- whatever standard sized microwave that slots in above the oven
- standard-sized dishwasher

And, while we're at it, we're looking to replace our old fridge. The new house has a large blank wall on one side where you'd clearly put your fridge, freestanding. So, let me add to the wish list "big honking fridge". This means we could either buy a standalone fridge or we could buy a "built-in" fridge and build a cabinet around it.

I've spent a not-inconsiderate amount of time hunting around different web sites for these things, and I seem to be leaning toward the swank GE Monogram cooktop (18000 BTUs on the big burner!) and possibly a GE oven (convection for sure, maybe or maybe not "Trivection") and microwave (probably not the crazier "Advantium"). I have no deep preference for the other bits and pieces. I'm willing to spend a non-trivial price premium for reliability.

So, thoughts on this stuff? Preferred brands? Horror stories?

This last year I installed a GE Profile dishwasher, and we love it. Good capacity, fantastic washing performance, and we have to be right next to it to hear it. Very quiet. I'd buy it again.

I researched for a few months earlier this year. Putting these into my new house in February:

Range: Bosch Dual Fuel (gas burners with an electric oven)
Fridge: LG French Door (freezer on bottom, two side-by-side doors above it revealing the fridge cabinet)
Dishwasher: Fisher & Paykel 603 (in traditional config I'd get an Asko or Bosch)
(Instead of) Micro: GE Advantium SCB1001 Speedoven 120v
Range Hood: Zephyr Venezia likely

I was also considering a BlueStar all-gas range, but the price in Canada wasn't great and is now absolutely ridiculous. The Advantium isn't even sold in Canada, but it's small enough I'll pick it up myself in Buffalo or mail order it.

In the laundry I'm going Miele with last year's stainless 6KG machines. This year's are a joke at 120v. If I could find something from 2004/5 I'd go for that instead (faster spin, more settings/options, probably easier to use controls)

The GE Advantium / Trivection technologies sound pretty swank, but I wonder if they're just something else to break or go wrong. The Fisher & Paykel dishwashers are pretty swank, but their reliability numbers aren't so hot.

I think it's smart to go with an electric oven and a gas stovetop. Right now, our rental place has a Thermidor all-gas range, and the oven takes forever to heat up. Our earlier, basic GE oven heated up much much faster and was always right on target.

Of course, if you want to really maximize the funky, you could get an Aga stove. You'd never want one in a hot climate like Texas, but in Canada it might make some sense. (An Aga is a giant, cast-iron, heavy beast, that slowly burns fuel, roughly 1KW steady state, to maintain a target temperature. You then learn to know which parts of the oven are at what different temperatures. This side hotter than that side, etc.)

I 2nd the fisher and paykel dishwasher. They are awesome.

So is their laundry outfit.

My experience with GE lately is poor. I've had to replace a GE dryer, need to replace a GE refrigerator, and got a DOA GE microwave since I moved into my new house. Given, the dryer and fridge were bottom-of-the-line contractor's specials, but still. It's turned me off to GE in a big way.

My concern with Fisher & Paykel: Consumer Reports' reliability numbers (subscription required).

Most brands you've ever heard of are rated with a 9% to 10% "failure" rate (which I presume to mean, somebody had a problem that needed to be repaired). The three brands that stand out on the list: KitchenAid (14%), Asko (19%), Fisher & Paykel (27%). With numbers like that, I'll probably end up with something less exotic, even though I really like the idea.

The thing you have to consider is that people are paying more for those premium brands, and expect more from them, whereas people who are buying bottom-end GE or Whirlpool products expect them to work like crap. So you almost always get higher "failure" ratings on high-end products.

Maybe, but go read the epinions page and see all the reliability complaints. Now tell me you want to spend a significant price premium for this thing, given all that. Don't get me wrong, I really like the idea. If it was reliable, I'd buy one.

Okay, fair enough. Those sound like design problems and not reliability problems.

I had eliminated F&P because of the reliability complaints as well. But I kept doing research and when I was finally done added them back. All the issues I've ever seen posted have been well outlined. They have all either been addressed by F&P in product and part revisions or were due to installation error. That's not to say that the product line is now failure free, but it seems to be far more in line with other brands.

I didn't really want an exotic range, that's why I wanted to keep it simple with all-gas. The Bluestar is the home pro range that used to formerly be Garland. Their design and build quality is pretty industrial, but they have amazing burners. My favorite part of having a gas oven cavity would be the amazing infrared gas broiler. The Bosch dual fuel was far and away the best bang for the buck I could find. I'll get some quotes on a few other product at the same time, but I already have documented reservations about them.

Watch the Alton Brown trivection video at the GE site - just google for it. A little smarmy, but entertaining nonetheless. I'm not sure I'd trust a tenderloin fillet to the Advantium myself though.

Yeah, they've also got Alton doing a video to pimp their fancy refrigerators. At one point, he goes into an extended rant about how to properly pack food for the fridge (e.g., mushrooms in their original container, inside a larger tupperware bucket with a wet cloth at the bottom, then sealed shut) and then flips a switch and talks about why you don't have to do any of that crap when the shiny new GE fridge, where the air is already moist. Huzzah!

The fridge video seemed vaguely more believable than the oven videos, particularly given that, on his show, he spends so many different shows talking about how to properly cook meat, and it was mostly all about cast iron skillets, not high-tech ovens.

(For what it's worth, I'm presently leaning toward an all-GE lineup. Shnazzy GE Monogram cooktop -- where the metal grates flip over and become wok holders, huzzah!, GE Profile dishwasher -- with built-in garbage disposal, GE convection oven (but not the weirdo Trivection), and yee olde GE microwave. One amusement is that GE tried to do a microwave with all the shnazzy features but without the inscrutable wall of buttons. It's part of the GE "Cafe" line, and costs 2.5x what you pay for the regular GE Profile microwave. All that for a touch-screen UI on essentially the same oven. Cute, but probably not worth it.)

P.S. Does your LG fridge have an ice/water dispenser in the door? I'm curious how they manage to get ice into the door when the freezer is below the door.

I'd been curious about that, too. In the manual on page 11, it shows that the inside of one of the refrigerator doors is basically its own freezer.

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P.S. Does your LG fridge have an ice/water dispenser in the door? I'm curious how they manage to get ice into the door when the freezer is below the door.

The units I have looked at that are similar have a self contained ice maker section within the refrigerator and it takes up a lot of space.