Selecting the Right Appliance

For an appliance to fit into the kitchen, you must consider not only the function of the appliance but also the form factor and style that matches the design of your kitchen.  Modern appliances have this in mind and often comes in three flavors – stainless steel, black, and white.  Even though all function the same, prices for Stainless Steel are often 10% to 20% more expensive than their counterparts.  Recently, due to manufacturing innovations, we now have glass, acrylic, and brush nickel materials that comes in various colors.  However, for a kitchen that won’t go out of style, stick with the traditional stainless steel, black, or white appliances.

Let’s focus on the four large appliances that make up the kitchen – refrigerator, stove, oven, and dishwasher.  Many manufactures now have appliances lines that cover the gamut of your appliance needs.  If you value consistency, it may be a good idea to buy appliances from the same line.  If you care more about the function of each appliance, sometimes it’s better to go with a different brand.  

The refrigerator comes in three basic layouts – top freezer, bottom freezer, side-by-sides.  The most traditional style is the top freezer with the bottom cooler.  This is also the cheapest and most roomy.  However, reaching for every day products such as drinks and produce required bending down.  The bottom freezer eliminates that pain point by having all your fresh foods within easy reach.  The side-by-side fridges is good for small kitchens because the it doesn’t open as wide.  However, due to the design, you cannot even put a large pizza box in the freezer.  Some recent innovation has resulted in a hybrid form factor having a bottom freezer but with a French door cooler on top.  So now, you can fit wide items in both the freezer and cooler while the doors do not swing wide.

  Cooktops  and stoves uses two basic fuel sources, either electric or gas.  If you buy a range, the  cooktop  and oven tends to use the same fuel.  There are dual-fuel ranges but they cost a lot more than buying these components separately.  Gas  cooktops  gives instantaneous heat control and costs less to operate.  Electric  cooktops  comes in three basic heating variations – electric coil, ribbons, and induction.  Coils are the cheapest but they take a long time to heat and cool down.  Ribbons are much faster to heat and cool and usually covered by a flat glass surface making clean up a cinch.  Induction uses magnetic technology which only heats the pan and the food without heating the surface.  Induction also cooks faster than gas or electric coils.  Because induction technology is not widely accepted in the US, the cost is still quite high.  Also, induction needs special cookware that contains iron in order to function which means your copper or aluminum cookwares don’t work.

Ovens generate heat with either electric or gas like  cooktops .  They come in two main styles, conventional ovens and convectional ovens.  Conventional ovens have heating elements above and below the oven to heat food.  Convectional oven adds a heating vent in the back of the oven to circulate hot air around the food which allows the food to cook faster and more evenly.  Convection ovens are usually $100-$200 more than conventional ovens.

Although there are new features in dishwashers, they may not necessarily clean your dishes better.  Energy saving function is a good feature to have but it increases wash cycle by about 20%.  The difference between a $400 dishwasher and a $1000 dishwasher is negligible so go with something that works but don’t go overboard with the bells and whistles.

Check out Best Cooktops 2016

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