Best and Worst New Appliances of 2024: Take Caution

Download our FREE Appliance Buying Guide: https://blog.yaleappliance.com/free-appliance-buying-guide-yt

———

More new appliances were introduced in the last 12 months than in the previous five years combined.

Some will be far better than what we use now.

However, others will have problems you should avoid at all costs.

In this webinar, The Best and Worst New Appliances, you will learn both, especially what you should not buy.

You will also learn:
LG’s newest heat pump technology for dryers, including their WashTower.New induction ranges and cooktops from Wolf, Thermador, and SKS, including the one that can sense whether your pots will work automatically.The newest gas and dual fuel pro ranges.New Thermador Pro and LG CounterDepthMax refrigerators.Combo washers and dryers from GE Profile, LG, and Samsung.Vents with the ability for the blower to be placed anywhere.Trendy colors that will die and ones that will live on.

Whether you’re planning a kitchen renovation or simply interested in staying up to date with the latest appliance trends, this webinar has something for you. Join us to explore the exciting possibilities for your kitchen in 2024!

———

Interested in learning more?

Learning Center: Visit our Learning Center, home to all our most popular videos, articles, and buying guides about all things in the appliance world. https://blog.yaleappliance.com/resource-center

Yale Appliance: Browse hundreds of in-stock products from the most popular appliance brands. https://www.yaleappliance.com/

———

Chapters

0:00 Intro
2:00 Best and Worst New Appliances
4:52 Combo Washers and Dryers
5:31 Built-In Refrigerators
7:03 Integrated Refrigerators
10:23 Induction
15:10 Steam Cooking
17:58 Gas Cooking
19:40 New Heat Pump Combo Washers and Dryers
24:54 Ventilation
26:05 New Colors
27:18 Your Questions Answered
47:47 Live Q&A

Cool. Alright, guys. Let’s get started here. Today’s topic is best and worst new appliances of twenty twenty four. Please use the chat to talk over anything that comes up during the to discuss here today. Use the q and a tab to let us know any questions that we’ll dive into in our live q and a section. We have a great presentation from our, CEO, Steve Shikoff, and we’ll be back for q and a after the presentation. Just a note, before we dive into the presentation, we will be sharing this recording with everybody who registered. We’ll be posting this to our YouTube channel where you can also find all of our previous webinars. Looks like we got both coasts covered here, guys. Coast to coast here, Steve. So I’ll kick it over to you. You wanna take over, and, we’ll be back after the for a q and a. Alrighty. Thank you, Pat. Best and worst new appliance is very interesting. Last eighteen months, we’ve had more new appliances than we did in the previous four years during the pandemic when you couldn’t even get an appliance. But if I had a you know, my forty years of Yale, if I had to say the general trend towards new appliances has been good. I mean, think about it. You know, we have dishwashers now that don’t sound like freight trains in your kitchen. We have stoves with greater output. We have refrigerators with greater capacity in smaller spaces. And, yeah, of course, we need more service. You know, we have thirty eight service techs. They’re they’re they’re they’re not fixing appliances that work typically. But on the flip side, we have much more energy efficient appliances than we used to. Everyone always says, well, my GE refrigerator is going strong in my garage. When they unplug it, they find out they just saved five hundred dollars in their energy bill. But with this trend being good, there have been some notable failures in the past, and we don’t wanna get ourselves into that. So I’m gonna give you three of three of the bottom three. The first one is, when I first started, GE came out with their new rotary compressor. They didn’t tell Jack Welch that it didn’t work. So rather than scrapping the project, they put it in all their best best refrigerators, which promptly failed, cost g one billion dollars. They were never the same, and they were they put their appliance division up for sale. It took them twenty eight years to complete that sale. They were sold to hire in two thousand sixteen. METEK Neptune is probably the saddest. They probably made the best appliances I ever sold, and they came out with the Neptune in, in nineteen ninety five. The problem with the Neptune is that they had the, the inner and outer tub. There was a gap between them, and standing water would get into that gap and then create mold and mildew. Even today, people say about mold and mildew in front loaders that came from the Neptune. They were never able to fix it, and they were later sold to Whirlpool for pennies on the dollar in two thousand three. But, really, the thing that you don’t wanna get involved is built in cooking when it goes wrong. I was really high on this company called TurboChef. We’re we’re a big Dunkin’ Donuts part of the country, and, you know, they’re into food now, and it’s all made in TurboChef. So I just figured the residential product would work, but it didn’t. And when you go in a built in, now we have to replace the wall oven. We’ve gotta recut the cabinet, maybe even redo the cabinet. So that’s not something you wanna get involved with. So those are the top three. I mean, decor to thirty inch dishwasher. There’s probably seven or ten more, but those are the three that really strike out as things you don’t want. And, really, the only thing that has that potential is this. And we’re gonna get into this, towards the end of the presentation. These combo washers and dryers. Now the first generation of these were smaller units. The problem is they couldn’t get rid of the lint, and over time, the lint stays in the machine, sees the machine, and it’s an impossible product to repair. Now all the ones I’m gonna mention, the ultra fast, the LG, and Samsung have different provisions for filtering that the older generation didn’t have, but no one can tell you whether this works or not. So we’re gonna cover that. We’re gonna cover our heat pump dryers. We’re gonna carry cover the new wash towers all at the end. So we’re gonna start in built in refrigerators, and here’s something that’s really kinda cool, the counter depth max. Sub Zero became popular because they’re the ones that figured out that counter depth works with the design community. We could put a panel on and make the refrigerator look like something other than a refrigerator. Their first counter depth refrigerator was actually a man in like nineteen ninety six, and the cubic footage was about nineteen point six. It went to about twenty two point five until LG, about a year and a half and maybe a year and a half to two years ago came on with the counter depth max. Thinner walls, different type of insulation, thicker doors. This is twenty six point five. So you don’t have to really think of, do I get a standard for capacity? Do I counter depth for that look of of something that’s not protruding into my kitchen? And they have five or six different models of the counter depth max. Not only is it big at twenty six point five, you can get it on sale in their basic model, which is internal water at about fifteen ninety nine to sixteen ninety nine. So that’s something very interesting. I know Samsung came out with their mega capacity, but now you can buy a bigger counter depth at a cheaper price and not worry whether you go bigger or standard. Now this is the brand. This is a brand new trend. This is an integrated refrigerator. What an integrated refrigerator is, it doesn’t protrude. Counter depth, the door will protrude. Like, in this picture, you don’t see the chassis or you wouldn’t. The the thickness of the door sticks out. On an integrated, it doesn’t even do that. It stays within the cabinet itself. This is a new thermo, very likable. All stainless steel, stainless absorbs cold really well. On the left hand side, you get an ice storm with two different types of ice. You get the diamond ice, which is thicker, dissolves slower. So if you get scotch or fine cocktail, we wanna drink more of that cocktail, less of the dissolving ice. You have that type of cube, and they’ve got regular cubes for colds. On the right hand side, you have, the Thermaflex drawer where you can go from zero to thirty nine degrees. So if you want a freezer or you want a refrigerator. It’s a nice design. The problem with integrated refrigerators with compressor below and multiple drawers is you gotta be about six foot seven to reach the top. That’s the size of Kawhi Leonard. I could’ve said Luka Donich, but no no use rubbing it in as a Celtics fan. But that’s the one thing about and it’s I’m not picking on just Thermador here. Sub Zero is the same thing where they’re integrated. The more drawers of the compressor below, the taller the refrigerator gets. Now SKS has their version, which is which is very similar to the Thermador. I think in some ways, it’s better. It it you don’t have a bump out. Thermador, you the you on this on there’s a little bump out. You really can’t see, so it’s harder to to store food. You don’t have that in the SKS, but you gotta be six foot three to reach the top of that. Now the other problem with integrated multiple multiple drawer integrated refrigerators is installation. The cabinet’s gonna be just right. The panels are just gonna be right, and the floor’s gonna be just right, which almost never happens. Now we charge about ninety nine dollars to do a sub zero French door to install. On something like this, it’s a four to six hour. It’s a four to six or even longer job. It’s like fifteen hundred ninety nine dollars to install one of these, plus the panels, plus the hardware. Now I like the actual look, the seamless look, but you’re gonna pay more and you gotta be careful, especially if we’re talking about I can’t vouch for anything outside of Boston. You gotta find a qualified installer to install one of these things, whether it’s Sub Zero, whether it’s SKS or Thermador. Again, when we look at a newer refrigerator from True, which has got now their fourteenth color, six different hinges, or BlueStar at a thousand. If you take a look at if you take a look at where the compressor is at the top where the flange is, really only reaching about six feet tall for one of these versus six foot three or six foot seven for the other ones. So just be mindful. Sub Zero’s got their new refrigerator split climate. One degree temperature, it it’s, it’s adjustable by one degree, but it keeps the environment in the crispers and the refrigerator separate. It’s brand new for them this year. And then, again, Miele is new, but it’s this is Thermador’s older version now that they’ve gone with the double drawer at thirty six forty two and forty eight. And this might be good for for an actual reach, but Miele and Thermador and Bosch, the built ins are made in the same Turkish factory. This is Miele’s new, which was Thermador’s old. Induction’s big. Now induction’s been around for a while. Induction was invented in the fifties. We sold it, Sears had the first ranges in the seventies. We sold the cooktops in the eighties and then went dark. Now induction is better than gas. It’s faster to boil. It’s got an infinite simmer. It’s easy to vent. It’s child safe because it needs to sense middle to turn on. It’s easy to clean because the top doesn’t get hot. The magnetic burners, excite the middles in the pan, so the pan cooks the food bypassing the glass. Glass will still get warm, but it won’t get hot. So anything that you can do other than grilling, induction’s gonna be better. Now why is induction so popular all of a sudden? It’s been becoming more popular. Well, the reason is is nothing to do with gas versus, induction. It has everything to do with the fact that Boston, Cambridge, New York, San Francisco, Los Angeles, you can’t put a gas unit in a, multiunit tower. So it’s either induction or electric. So induction has become the high end, cooking product of choice in these towers. So you start to see a lot more induction cooking, especially in bigger sizes. This is the new Fisher Piquel forty eight inch. And very likable. You’ve got two bridge burners for for griddling or or bigger type cook cookware, along with six burners, you have the master and then the side compartment. Right? You’re gonna see a lot more in forty eight inch. Now we could have done something on French ranges because French ranges have exploded. If you like that country kitchen look, you know, you’re getting the farmhouse sink, distressed cabinets, French range. It’s it’s available in very rich colors. This is the AGA induction version, five burners. Interesting part about this range is these are swing doors, so you’re inside the range. You don’t have to lift your turkey over door. And that top compartment on the left, that’s a broiler where you can just pull that out and broil six steaks. Aga La Cornue, Cornue Fe, La Conche, all have something with an induction to it, but this is a brand new induction, French country, range at forty eight inch. And there’ll be more because there are these, you know, Wolf has got their new Vertiflow thirty six inch that’s that’s been out for a couple years where they use twin convection plus, extended elements to keep a more even heat. So all your cookies and all racks stays the same texture and color. You know, Thermador has their their, liberty. Well, you can set you can set the burner at three different settings within that burner. So if you wanna cook rice and then simmer and warm, you can do that by just by just, by by just setting that that burner for the three different settings. So you could do a lot with the Liberty. And then the, the, g monogram has got very interesting controls in the top where you can really set it precisely. They’ve got their seven inch clock with smart HQ. Each one of these is Wi Fi enabled as well. And then you got cooktops. Wolf finally is out from the pandemic. I know we have some questions on that later. We see where that Wolf logo is. That’s now an LCD screen. So you can control a little bit better. They have the power burner on the right hand side, and then four burners, the the two that you could bridge for larger pots. But probably the most interesting induction cooktop is the SKS. And what SKS can do is something that no other induction cooktop can do, where they can actually tell you whether your pots will work on it. This cooktop can measure the ferrous content in the metal. Now, again, the induction burner is magnetic. Right? So it excites the metal. The more metal, the more efficient it becomes. If you’d press the left hand side of their LCD screen, it’ll tell you what percentage the metal of your particular cookware is. Higher percentage, the more efficient it is. The other notable feature to this is that center burner is about seven thousand watts. Now to give you an idea, a power burner on an induction right now is average is about thirty six hundred watts, and that’s faster than a twenty five thousand b two burner that you’ll see a little bit later in the presentation. So I’m really anxious to cook on what a seven thousand watt induction induction burner actually looks like. But this this cooked up again can sense the middle in your pans, could bridge on either side, and it’s got just one hell of a burner in the middle. Steam cooking is now simpler than ever. And and the two best here is gonna be Miele’s new steam oven and wool steam oven. I just got this particular steam. Now you can cook any number of ways. Microwave is basically targeting moisture and getting rid of the moisture in the food. That’s how microwaves work. You can cook by radiant, which cooks by heat, and that slowly bakes the moisture out, or you can cook by moisture. Everything is more flavorful when you add moisture and cook steam, especially if you’re baking. You can you could do anything at steam oven. It’s not just about rice. You cook meats and everything. I’m trying to get my kid to eat breakfast this morning, so I took turkey pepperoni and steamed it, and she actually ate it, which is amazing. But what I love about these units is you don’t have to learn how to cook steam. Wolf’s got the gourmet where you put in the food, how you want it cooked. It’ll give you the time, temperature, even give you the wrap position. Same with meal as well. What I love about Wolf is it’s got three reheat modes. You can regular you can reheat regularly. You can reheat humid foods, like like a rice or pasta that you want something soft. But you can also reheat crispy foods, which is something that you weren’t able to do in many steam ovens, and it uses more convection, a little less steam. And it does work. I put chicken fingers in there, and it came out perfectly crispy. Again, don’t be afraid of steam. There’s a lot of good steam product. I’ll show you another one very soon where it’ll figure it out for you. We just basically cook with steam. And with that, SKS has got a great wall of it. And we have some questions on speed and steam at the end, but they’ve got a wall oven that has speed, which is microwave, convection, and then combination. So you can cook as a microwave, you can cook as a convection oven, or you can save a lot of time by cooking both. So you’re getting more of the convection, less of that rubbery texture because, again, microwaves target water. The oven below is steam assist. Now one thing electric ovens do well is they bake well, and baking is a dryer, more precise heat. Doesn’t roast as well. So when you add steam and you add moisture, you’re roasting better. You’re also baking better because moisture is essential to hardening crust. So they have one that’s that’s the speed oven over steam assist oven. And once again, like Miele and Wolf, their, their controls are so easy where you’re just pointing and clicking rather than having to figure this stuff out. So and this one’s only about forty five hundred dollars, so it’s super inexpensive for what it is. And it figures out all the food, and you’ve got, speed and steam technology in two separate ovens. Now let’s talk about gas cooking because that hasn’t gone away either. BlueStar is a very interesting company. This is another American family owned company, thousand different colors. And if that’s not enough, you can send them yours if you got, a paint chip you like to make. It’s got ten different trims. This is a company that said, we’ll never put a clock on anything because restaurants don’t have clocks. You’ve got their seven inch clock with seven different modes, and they also said we’ll never seal a burner because restaurants never seal. This is their new x eight burner, which is sealed with eight points on it. The star burner and the and the x eight, they say more flame goes on more of the pan so it cooks more evenly. I think, basically, flame hit pan, pan cooks food and gas, But they have a seal burner with clock, and this is a this is about as hot as it gets in a, a gas range. Twenty five thousand BTUs in the front and eighteen thousand in the back. So this is a very powerful range. And then the SKS has got a really good solid gas range. A lot of companies like Miele, Wolf, Thermador to some extent, they their gas range isn’t as good as their dual fuel. Everybody puts all their technology on dual fuel. That’s gas exception. You get you have, you have got a really good interface. The burners are twenty three thousand, fifteen thousand. You get the chromium griddle, very simple to use. It’s only fifty four ninety nine, which is super inexpensive. You get soap cleaning, you get timers and knobs that light up. It’s a great range for for for not a lot of money and good features. Now let’s talk about the combos. Everybody talks about a combo washer and dryer, able to put in something dirty and have it come out clean and dry. Great. We’ll talk about the apple. We’ll talk about the other part is the technology of the drying and its heat pump. Now to give you an idea, when you vent, vented drying is basically you’re pulling air into the dryer, heating it up with elements, which have been around forever, and then venting that to the outside. Right? So it’s a constant flow of energy. What a heat pump will do is take the air that’s in the dryer, send it to the compressor that’ll heat it up through an exchanger with the evaporator removing moisture. So it goes on a closed loop. It recycles that air. Not only that, but it’s also ventless. So the application of these is is a lot more. If you got water and a drain, you now can have a laundry room. You don’t need to vent these out as well. And it turns out the dryers are the, I think, the the second most energy consumer in your house after your HVAC. So you’re gonna save a lot of energy. Downside is it’s gonna take a lot more it’s gonna take some time. The combo’s gonna take a lot more time. But, again, there are three here. This is the ultrafast. And I think from a technology standpoint, we sold this for about a year. I think the repair rate’s about three percent on it. It’s done pretty well, and I would certainly encourage anyone to read reviews. What they did is they put the vent in front. Now I get the feeling that they put the most research into it. Maybe it’s because we talked to the engineers so much before they actually introduced it. But the one thing I wouldn’t do with anything new is what’s done here is what happens if this doesn’t work? You put it in a nice laundry room setup. You almost have to demolish that laundry room setup to to get something like maybe a wash tower or a side by side. You you’re giving yourself no wiggle room if it doesn’t work. The most reliable washer and dryer that you can buy for the last probably five to ten years has been LG. They’re a washer dryer company, and they have their vent is on on the top. Now they have a more cycles a little bit bigger, point two cubic feet on the dryer. They’re the most reliable. Their their heritage is in laundry. The only problem with LG that I see is that you need thirty inches in-depth. You gotta read page thirteen of the manual to figure that out, but now I’m telling you it’s you need it’s about you need you need it’s four inches past the thirty six. It’s, it’s you need, past the, past the dimensions about thirty inches deep. And then you get the, the Samsung bespoke, which will give you the most cycles, hundreds of cycles. You can even play Spotify on this actual washer dryer. Again, this is not something I would do is to you get your sink on the left. You get your reclining. You’ve got your recliner on the right. I I I wouldn’t box one of these in. Of the three, when we did Samsung, Samsung repeatedly runs a lot like Bosch or Miele where I’m sorry. Like Bosch, which flushes out the lint, but we on on I think we did eight loads, and there was some lint on the, exchanger. And if that happens, that’s not a very good thing after eight loads. But they do have, they did do have a flushing process. Maybe we didn’t use that, but I’d be very wary. Some of the other things you can do if you wanna take advantage, that’s where their that’s where their vent is, is heat pump with the wash tower, those are very successful with the controls in the middle. If you wanna stack, again, you gotta you you know, you don’t have to worry about the wind so much because the washer takes a lot of that out and drains it out. Got controls in the middle of the washer. It’s now it’s now twenty four and twenty eight inches wide. But these shouldn’t have a lint problem, I would say, because they they have the, the regular lint filter on the front, and they’re also gonna be a little bit faster because of the washer. And you can also you know, the the combos are great. They take longer, but you can’t reload. Once the combo’s in cycle and it takes three hours, it’s a three hour cycle. On the on the washer, on a wash tower or separate washer, for the twenty eight to a forty seven minute, then you can reload, put in your dryer. So you you can do more laundry in a in a state of time period than you can on a combo as well. This is something the separate, a separate heat pump dryer. Again, Bosch and and Miele have done very well in a compact. This is the new, LG heat pump seven cubic foot. Again, the washer is gonna take away a lot of the lint. You’re gonna save a lot of money with this, with this dryer. It’s ventless. You know, it’s gentle on your clothes. It does take a little bit more time, but not a lot. But it’s gonna save you a hundred and fifty to two hundred dollars per year in energy if you live, like, in a Boston or Los Angeles where where, the cents per kilowatt hour are much higher. So that’s really it for washers and dryers. For ventilation, the trend seems to be doing your own. Doing your own meaning getting a wood or some kind of tiled hood. For that, you need a light filter control unit and some kind of blower. And the best one of these is one that our own very own Dennis McDonald designed because with one of ours, basically, it uses a vent that you can use outside, inside, or even in line. If you wanna customize aga that we mentioned previously in the Elise, if you live in, like, a one of those garden apartments in the south end, you’ve got, like, a shorter ceiling. You want something cut. Typically, hoods are six, eighteen, or thirty inches tall. If you want something to cut, AGA can do it. I think vent hood might be able to as well. But if you’re putting it into a, a wood or tile hood, just so that typically on, say, a Thermador or Wolf, you have to buy a proprietary you could buy a blower that has to go either inside, in line, or outside one of ours. You can do all three. Monogram’s got their new brass hood, which seems to be the, the new actual, it’s the new finish. But in terms of colors, the new color is green according to best of us, which I find incredible. We saw we couldn’t sell, green in lighting, but, you know, white, blue, the the the the two colors that you wanna consider as a default is white and black, but putting a pop of color on a on a stove like a red or blue is a nice idea too. We kinda show it all here. Again, the accent finish is brass as shown here, brass or or blue. And that’s about it. Again, I I think when it when when we talk about new appliances, I think most are pretty good. I’d be careful with integrated refrigerators, with combo washers and dryers. It’s a good idea. I just wouldn’t box myself in and think that that’s the only thing that would be able to replace is another one of these because nobody’s gonna be able to tell you whether this works in five to ten years. So with that, we have some questions to answer, and, thank you very much for attending. Cool. Thank you, Steve. We’re gonna get right into the questions that have that came over during, registration. While we do that, I’d, seriously, just let us know in the chat. What was, what product sticks out to you the most that that Steve just shared? You just put that right in the chat. It would be nice to nice to see there. So we’re gonna dive right into the the questions. Please continue sharing any questions that you have with us in the q and a tab. We’ll open up a nice list there to dive into. Alright. Steve and Fran, are we ready? Yep. We’re ready. So the first question first question for us, are dual fuel ranges worth the extra cost compared to gas range? This is this is a very common question we hear. Who wants to take that one? I will go ahead. You So I was gonna say, you know, really, on this question, we always say it really depends on how you cook too. So a lot of people just kind of assume dual fuel is more expensive and must be a better range. It really depends. So the way that all gas works is, you know, the gas top and then the oven itself is gas. So if you do a lot of, roasting, meats, things like that, gas is a moisture moisture heavier heat, so it’s gonna not dry out your roast and things like that a little bit better. But at the same time, if you do a little more baking with the heavier heat, it it doesn’t work as well for baking. Also, an electric oven is gonna be a little bit more precise when it comes to the temperature. So it really depends on how you cook. The other thing to consider there, especially, you know, on professional style ranges, when you go to dual fuel, you typically will get better features such as timer, control panels, and things like that. So in all again, not all brands, but in all gas range typically is a little bit less feature. Dual fuel range might have more of those kind of convenience features there as well. And then really depending on how you cook and what you cook the most should definitely be a consideration. Yeah. The other thing is you gotta worry about is is broiling. My mom was like a broiler, from way back, which is why don’t eat meat pretty much. The infrared types in a pro range are the same as the sear elements that people spend ten thousand dollars for in links. So you really get a really nice broiler. That said, if you wanna do a fuel, you can always get an infrared, grill on on some of the, cooktops. You just gotta make sure you vent that properly. But, again, you know, it it it really as Fran says, it really depends on how you cook. Cool. Thank you, guys. This question has come in. If someone has purchased a fridge or anything with a four to six month lead time, are they able to switch to another version with the within a specific time frame? What did what did vendors usually do about that type of scenario? There’s a couple of questions there. You guys wanna talk about the current kind of landscape of ordering appliances and the back orders or non back orders? And, then the second part, you know, how do how does how should a customer go about that with if there is a delay? Yeah. I can’t think of anything that takes a four to six month lead time anymore. This is a great question. And, you know, twenty twenty to twenty twenty two, you were motivated by buying whatever you could. Now I urge you to wait until a promotional period, which there’s so many promotional periods. We’re now in July fourth. July fourth is really defined by Memorial Day to basically July twenty second, and then you got Labor Day, which is half of August, half of September, and then you get Black Friday, which is Halloween to New Year’s almost at this point. So there is nothing four to six month lead time unless you buy La Cornue stove from France, where you buy a specialty color from True or Blue Star maybe. But Sub Zero, you can get in a week. Wolf, you can get probably within a couple of weeks. So I I wouldn’t there’s nothing four to six will be done. Now you bring a good question of restocking charges. We don’t do restocking charges. The reason why we don’t do restocking charges is because the conversations, yeah, we have with customers, with managers, and everything else, we’re talking more about restocking charges than anything else. So we just create an outlet and store everything in there. You know, if something didn’t fit or someone didn’t like something, we put it in outlet to a certain degree. But typically, you know, the stores around here, you know, and you can look on their sites. They’re gonna charge you twenty five to thirty percent where we stock and charge when something doesn’t fit. One of the things that you should be doing on the West Coast or East Coast is have somebody professional demanded to measure your place. We offer that at free of charge. We will go out and measure it to make sure it’ll fit. And that’s something that you should definitely do. And and that’s it. I I mean, we we’re promising same day, next day delivery. So there’s no reason why you have to wait four to six months for anything, and there’s no reason for you to to get a restocking charge. If someone physically measures something and says it’ll work, then at least the store has got some skin in the game. That’s that’s my opinion. Nobody should be paying twenty five to thirty percent. And the only people that are really severely charged that are Internet stores that have no provisions to do that. They’ll send it out, send it back, promise free delivery, charge you a fortune to get it in your house. If it doesn’t fit, they’ll charge you a fortune to get it back and a fortune to get it there. I almost prefer you buy it from a box store that’s got a local warehouse somewhere than doing something like that. I don’t know if you’ve got anything to add to that, Fran. No. I think that pretty much covers all that. Like you said, you know, there’s not a lot of product at this point that isn’t readily available besides a few exceptions, but, yeah, it’s changed a lot over the course of the last year or so. Cool. Thanks, guys. The question is we’re doing a whole home renovation looking for all new appliances. We want all of our appliances to match the same brand, same series. Is there so this question is good because I think it brings up that discussion around. Should do you need to choose your appliances all from the same brand for the same series? And then maybe you do you guys wanna talk about what what goes into what do you get in a budget of twenty thousand or thirty thousand? So a couple parts there. Who wants to take that first? I can do it, but you wanna start, Fred? Yeah. So, you know, there’s so just starting with the question of whether you know, it sounds here like your wife wants, obviously, everything to match there. So we always say, like, you know, when you’re matching all the brands, certainly, there’s some, you know, promotions and rebates and things like that that you can qualify qualify for. Doesn’t always necessarily mean that you’re gonna get the best value because a lot of times, you know, people that do mix and match, you could, you know, splurge on one piece that you really want or maybe save on something else. And not every brand you know, really not any brand makes the best of everything. So you could really kinda pick and choose what you like and still get great value there, sometimes better value, by mixing and matching. But, of course, you know, that’s kind of a personal preference sometimes if you want all the handles, all those things to match. Certainly, there’s a lot of brands that are out there that would fit that, and I think there’s some brands that aren’t considered as much, you know, like like an SKS, like Steve has talked about, that is really an up and coming brand in that market that you can in that kind of price point that you can get a really nice set of appliances. But there’s a a lot there, you know, with, like I said, an SKS, Thermador, the GE Monogram. So really depending on the exact types of appliances that can definitely, you know, adjust the pricing there if it’s a forty eight inch range, for example, versus a thirty inch pro range or a double wall ovens. You know? Those prices can def or those pieces can have a big effect on what the total price would be. Yeah. To me, if, you know, I I I don’t have to me, I I would ask what’s important to you first. I I think that buying the same brand is, is is a good idea because, you know, once once, you dip a toe in with the brand, they’re going to, they’re gonna throw a bunch of rebates at you to continue on the process, quite honestly. At the same time, I think, you know, matching handle styles is is certainly better the more condensed it is. It’s not as important if you’re putting panels on it. So but it really depends. I I think that, you know, I don’t really like a particular brand unless a person tells me how they like to cook or how they like to refrigerate. Everyone has everyone has a, a touch button, you know, of what’s important to them. Could be the fridge, could be color, could be size, could be pro range, could be wine cooler. That said, I think that really, you know, six to eight grand, you get a nice slide in, over the range microwave, which I do not like for venting, but gotta mention it here. Counter depth refrigerator and in a in a dishwasher that’s quiet. You go up, you know, you know, ten to fifteen thousand dollars, you get a decent brand that, cooktop, wall oven, counter depth refrigerator. You know, when you go twenty and higher, now we’re talking about pro range, you know, more of an, you know, the more expensive is gonna be the, the the the pro range, then the integrated refrigerators, and then the the the real pro style subzero types. That’s gonna be, you know, your twenty to thirty thousand dollars. And then if you want coffee systems, steam ovens, speed ovens, now we’re talking thirty to fifty thousand dollars. But it’s so it really depends. I mean, not being able to talk to you individually, it it really depends on a lot of things. But here’s a little trick. It you know, everyone talks about handles and everything else. Buy pocket handles, then you can buy whatever brand you want. Right? Pocket handles is a fancy industry way of saying no handles. Right? We’re just putting your hand into, like, an indentation. You know? But, but that’s that’s basically what you’re buying for a full set of appliances, I think. Cool. Thank you, guys. So the question is we’re interested in how the new double oven and microwaves work as this is new to us. It appears the microwave can do just about anything. There’s a more context from this question, guys. I think they’re talking about, a speed oven, in addition to a single microwave a single wall oven. Excuse me. So did you guys wanted to we this is a question we hear a lot. This the conversation around choosing between a double wall oven or a single wall oven and a specialty oven. You guys wanna talk about that? Sure. You know, you walk into Yale and you see, you see some applications, but you see mostly double wall ovens. Right? Two ovens that do the same basic thing. You know, the top oven may have a rotisserie or a meat thermometer. But but, again, you know, I always say, what do you use? What will you use? Again, what do you really need? If you need double oven, then get a double oven. However, what what I did is I got a single oven and I put a steam oven over. And I use the steam oven more than I do the wall oven, and I don’t use a microwave. So the question is if you use a microwave, then get a microwave with oh, on top of a wall and they put a warming drawer underneath it. It really depends on everything really the first question is not what everybody else is doing. The first question is, what are you gonna do? I I could tell you that steam’s great, and I use it almost daily. But if you’re not gonna use it, then I wouldn’t buy it. Same thing with speed. You know? It’ll give you the microwave. It’ll give you the ability to work convection and combination, and it gives you a little bit more flexibility. But if you use a double oven, you need a separate microwave, you get a separate microwave in a in a in a in a double oven. It it really depends. Then you get, you know, you can get French door ovens. You can get, all sorts of different things that would work depending on how you use it. You know? So that’s what I would do. Start with the you know, all these questions start at the same place. It starts with how you use your kitchen. Sometimes people get drowned out with buying a brand, a style, a thing because they see it in books or what it’s what everybody else has. Figure out what you have. If you’re if you’re if you’re gonna learn, and have a few extra dollars, I do recommend steam or at least a steam assist, but, yeah, totally up to you. Yeah. And you’re starting to see a lot more of those, like, speed ovens or steam oven. Because what happens a lot of times is that people find that, you know, when you have a double oven, there’s really couple times a year that you’re using both ovens. But, truthfully, when you have a steam oven or a speed oven that can do, like I said, it can do just about anything. It’s it’s a microwave. It can be an oven with a convection. Some have the broil element there as well. So you can do anything there, and people find, like, you get a lot more flexibility and almost everyday use out of that more so than even the other kinda single wall oven underneath. Keep in mind, obviously, those are typically gonna be a little bit smaller. They’re not gonna be the size of a full oven, but you still would have that kind of underneath there as well. So, like, Steve said, you know, a lot of it depends on how you cook, but we definitely are seeing both of those segments growing in popularity a lot just for the everyday use and flexibility of them. Thanks, guys. Switching over to laundry here. The question is, have a Miele heat pump dryer, which I love, but the cap but the capacity is small. Are there other options for heat pump dryer pairs? Not interested in the combo washer dryer units. Do you guys wanna take that one? Yeah. I I I think, although nothing has been tested. You know, the early Whirlpools, they said you needed a service tech to, to clean lint every I can’t remember what the interval was for, so we didn’t sell it. I start I think LG is the only one right now that’s got the I I I put on there as the the full size, and we have a blog post on it. We have a blog post on a lot of this stuff. It’s got the full size seven cubic foot heat pump. And they have it in their wash towers, slightly smaller as well. Those are the only ones that I would think would you know, again, they should be reliable, knock on wood, and it’s hard to say because they’re so new. But I think if you wait over time, I know GE will have one, which which means Samsung will have one. You’ll have a lot more choice in the next couple years. But right now, the most reliable company has put out a heat pump dryer. And like I said, Mules had heat pump in their one ten and their one twenty volt. Bosch has had it in their two forty volt. Both seem to be reliable as independent pairs, but to your point, they’re much smaller. But I I’d give that OG a shot. Certainly, either as the, wash tower or the separate piece. And another question about, laundry. Are there options for Sorry. There are options for reliable washer, heat pump, dryer pairs. You guys wanna talk about, take that one? Yeah. We’re Yeah. Very similar to the last one. Yeah. So, you know, for full there’s certainly options in full size, like Steve said, LG with the unitized. They have a separate full size dryer as well. And then certainly in compact laundry, you know, there’s options from Miele or wash. There’s some there’s some additional options there for for sure. Yeah. You know, for anyone that’s really interested in heat pump, you know, if you go if you go to our blog, all this stuff’s free. We we, we wash and dried with, with, the combinations all combinations, all different kinds of loads, lights, bedding, all this other stuff, and we did it with heat pump versus as well. All that stuff is is right on the block site, where you can see the time. Because it does you know, heat pumps do dry at a lower temperature, so they do take a little longer period of time, and the combos take especially longer periods of time to to wash and dry. Question about refrigeration. I’m replacing my countertop side by side. I’m trying to figure out what’s better, another side by side or a French door. Do you guys wanna talk about the considerations there between those two styles? Yeah. Again, side by sides went out when French doors came in, and side by sides make a little bit of return during the pandemic because you get more freezer storage. It’s a little bit more organized. French doors are more popular certainly from manufacturers. There’s more models now. You You gotta really look for a side by side. Nice thing about a French door is you get more lateral storage. Right? Whereas side by sides are up and down. French doors are lateral. You’re not bending for the for your for your refrigerator, but you are bending more for your freezer. So you’re gonna have more options in French door as well. So it really depends on how you store. Although, side by sides with water and ice in the door are more reliable than the French doors because French doors have the water and ice dispenser in the refrigerator where it’s warmer, so it leaks more. Cool. Thank you. Question about induction and venting. Well, we’re planning on an induction cooktop. What should we look for in a vent? How how does induction differ or does it differ than standard cooking? You guys wanna take take that? Yeah. So, again, I think similar here. It depends on how you cook. So in general with induction, you know, technically, you do need less venting than gas, but that doesn’t mean you should just have less or have none because if you still do a lot of high heat cooking, high, cooking with a lot of smoke and odor and things like that, you clearly wanna still be able to vent that properly out of your kitchen. The difference with the gas is, obviously, you don’t have that flame. There’s none of the you’re not really venting out any of that, the pollutants with the gas or anything like that. So induction is gonna be cleaner in general. But, again, if you’re doing a lot of high heat cooking, high smoke cooking, you definitely still wanna have something that is that does a good job venting. You know, you don’t have to go overboard on a, you know, a thousand CFM or anything like that most times, but you definitely wanna have enough that’s gonna clear out whatever it is that you’re cooking. Yeah. This is right in our wheelhouse. We just did the ventilation, seminar last one, and we talked about induction. You know, one of the things that, is the this industry’s done really poorly at is ventilation, I would say. Like, an over the range, Michael, is sixteen inches deep. I’m willing to bet everybody here that when you cooked this morning, you cooked on the front burner, which is twenty three inches. Now induction, I don’t think, gives off carbon monoxide, but the process of burning fat means that, you know, nitrogen oxygen, nitrogen oxide, carbon dioxide, particular matter from aldehyde has been produced. Right? So if you don’t have the right vent over it, it’s gonna stay in your house. Now why this has become such an issue is because everything is now passive home, LEED certification, your windows are better, your housing materials are better. So all that stuff stays in your house a longer period of time whether it’s induction or gas. And, you really have to ventilate properly the more you cook. Right? Because you’re still producing less volume, but still more of that stuff that’s gonna stay in your house longer. So that’s really where part of the problem is, you know, with alert you know, and that’s kind of the push for electrification, plus the fact that, you know you know, there’s gas leaks within the whole gas system in your house, in the lines, whatever. But, but but but if you’re gonna cook with induction, electric, or gas, you should vent properly. That means getting a vent that’s twenty three inches, that’s good decent CFM, vented outside your house, and, straight up or straight back, and and and you’ll be fine whether it’s induction gas or electric. Cool. And now switch over to the live q and a. We have, about twelve minutes left. Let’s get through as many as we can here, Steve and Fran. I have a few queued up here. I need a downdraft cooktop. Has anything changed on that? We always get a question about around downdrafts. Do you guys wanna dig into that topic? Yeah. Nothing’s changed. Downdrafts are the same. Now, again, I’m not here to say, hey. Guess what? Remodel your kitchen, you know, the events in the center island. You gotta re renovate all that. I can’t do that. That’s that’s irresponsible. I will say this, that if you got a downdraft, nothing much has changed. The problem with downdrafts is that, you know, smoke and all that is being captured by a six inch kind of strip vent when you look at your downdraft, and that doesn’t happen. We look at, you know, restaurants that do it professionally, you don’t find any downdrafts. That said, you know, if you’re gonna get a downdraft, most most are very similar, I would open a window. That’s my best piece of advice is opening windows, maybe cook on the back burners closer to it. There’s less power in the back burners anyway, but dandruffs really are not effective as as ventilators per se. Cool. Let’s take this one. Could you comment on service? Even the most reliable appliances are going to need service, and third party service are are not up to speed. Do you guys wanna talk about what how do we educate our customers around with the service conversation? Services is, I mean, and this is true of really any industry. I mean, you know, trying to find a plumber and electrician now. I mean, in in in a lot of this has to do with the fact that, you know, when I went to high school, they had an auto shop, a wood shop. They there was really good vocational training, and there’s no good vocational training as everyone has been convinced they need a four year liberal arts degree. Nothing against four years of liberal arts degree, but someone who could work with their hands could do a hell heck of a lot better. We educate customers in saying that we have we are committed to service. And I my my mantra is here sometime before I retire, we’re gonna be same day service. That’s our goal. And and this is the by far the biggest part of our company. Now let’s go out of the Boston area. How do you do it on the West Coast? Is is really the the responsible thing that a lot of people do is they look at reviews, and they they they, you know, they they do their research on product. That’s great. And they do it on stores. That’s great too. But the difference between Wolf, Thermidor, Gaggenau well, Wolf, Thermidor, Miele, perhaps, and even Gaggenau is who can fix it in your area the best, and you have to do that next level. You almost have to do that next level of who can deliver it and who can install it now that you’ve got six doors you gotta put on a fridge. And if it takes us four to six hours to do it and we’re that’s all we do, you gotta find people in your area that can get this done. You you you have to, because it is not unlikely for you to wait two months to get something fixed now, easily, in different areas. So my my my whole mantra is basically is is, you know, review, verify, trust, get it on paper, you know, in these ten year warranties that you think you’re getting for free won’t matter because no independent is gonna service anything after on on year seven at a low contract rate. So you can forget about those two. Right? But do your due diligence. Absolutely do your due diligence. Whether you’re in Boston or whether you’re in Boise, it doesn’t matter. Yeah. Make sure you know who’s gonna be there to support that purchase, before you before there’s an issue. Couple of laundry questions. Back to combos. Do all combos run on one twenty volts or do some require two forty volts? If there is a difference there. You guys wanna talk about Halfway. Yeah. All the new ones that we’ve kinda showed today that Steve kinda went over, those are all operating on the one twenty with the heat pump. So much more efficient that way, and, yeah, these all run now on kind of the one ten volt. Oh, Bosch Bosch runs on two forty. Does the new LG this is the big one? Does the big one work on two forty? Yeah. The combo wash one. Yeah. The the the all in one dryers are still two forty. I mean, I’m sorry. The not all in one dryers Exactly. Are still two forty. The combos are all one one twenty. So so it’s a half and a half. And then this is a question, about again, with the the combos. With these heat pumps, ventless dryers, what do you do for your what do you do with the piping for the venting? Yeah. You you can definitely have someone come in and cap that vent. So you would absolutely wanna have that capped off. Yeah. I mean, capping it is gonna be much more energy efficient. You know, the whole the whole idea behind you know, you go to Europe with a passive home LEED certification gold is it every time you you know, it’s expensive to put a hole in your house. But every time you tap a hole and the air can get in, you’re gonna save some money. Right? Especially in laundry rooms, it test typically, you know, the heat in the wintertime isn’t gonna go right through your roof. So I I would definitely cap that that that that pipe. Cool. Back to the steam oven, specialty oven conversation. If I go with the steam oven, does that mean I can go without a microwave? Like, there’s some options minutes? Warming up something in a steam oven is roughly ten minutes, but I will tell you the quality of what comes out of the steam oven is worth the extra eight minutes. It’s gonna taste better than it did previously sitting in your in your in your refrigerator, whereas the microwave, because it targets moisture, is gonna taste measurably worse. Like, no one looks forward to having a meal out of a microwave. That’ll change with the steam oven if you got that extra eight minutes of time. But I haven’t touched my microwave since I got a steam oven. Yeah. And the only other thing I’d point out there is, you know, if you’re reheating, like, liquids or popcorn, things like that, you know, you won’t be able to do that in the steam oven. But, you know, other than that, reheating through the absolutely. I mean, come on. Put the extra virgin olive oil in a pan. Put the kernels in. Alright. Well, It’s so much more healthy. I mean, these these these microwave popcorn’s got, like I mean, I can’t I can’t pronounce the ingredients in So we probably do call that at the end of the day. We we do have a fun video on our YouTube channel where Steve does a taste test of leftovers, reheated in a microwave versus steam oven for any folks who wanna check that. That was before the that was before the latest technology because we didn’t like the pizza. That’s true. I think I think if you read it crispy, I think the pizza would come out pretty well. Here’s a to test. Yep. Good point. The, here’s a question. The population is downsizing their homes or for folks downsizing their homes, why aren’t appliance manufacturers following that trend? Twenty four inch wall ovens and, you know, several other categories have have lower, have smaller options. Do you guys wanna talk about what options are available in those smaller sizes? Well, you’re definitely right. We we’ve made things bigger. We haven’t made things smaller. When we make things smaller, they tend to be super expensive. You can get twenty four and twelve ovens. I think that is still the standard in Europe, which has smaller kitchens. So if you gonna get twenty four and twelve and you’re looking at Mille Gaggenau, who else? Bosch, maybe? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Mostly, like, the European style brands. Mostly the European style brands. If you were to get a twenty four inch range, it’s like you you’ve been penalized. Yeah. You know? I always we always when when we do videos on small kitchens, I always say get an eighteen inch dishwasher and a thirty inch stove. Rather, a twenty four inch dishwasher and twenty four inch stove. Because an eighteen inch almost fits as much as twenty four, but you get so many more choices in thirty. It’s almost comical, the twenty four inch ranges that you get. They’re they’re they’re they’re that bad. But but you’re right. Manufacturers haven’t followed that trend, and I don’t think you’re gonna convince a manufacturer to to open a factory to make a twenty four inch wall over there. I don’t think. So look at look for European types. We have time for, one or two more. Maybe just let’s do this one first. You haven’t touched on smart appliances a lot here. So talk do you guys wanna talk about, smart appliances? Are there features or functions that make it worthwhile or, yeah, or worth consideration worth considering? Depends what we consider smart. Like, we consider Wolf Gourmet smart. That’s smart. Figures, time, temperature. You know, you you enter it. It figures, time, temperature, rack position. That’s smart, but that’s not what I think people consider smart. Where, you know, you get the Jetsons where it says, you know, make me pizza and the pizza comes out the oven. You know, JennAir ostensibly had that in their, VBL in two thousand eighteen. They haven’t moved anywhere near that. I think there’s some interesting functions that are convenience oriented, like having a to start and stop your combo washer and dryer from your office is a nice idea. I think having of having, cameras in your oven is a good idea to see where it is. I think having cameras in your refrigerator so you won’t buy the extra jar of mustard. I think you’d save the money and buy an extra jar of mustard every once in a while. You You know, having the door open and everything else, we just haven’t gone from, I can start, stop, monitor, change to, like, something that’s been really creative. I haven’t mentioned smart features because every time I do, people always talk about, I don’t buy for smart, and you’re right. You probably don’t. I think there’s some interesting stuff, but I don’t think there’s anything that would convince me to go from one brand to another, quite honestly. Yeah. And with Wi Fi, I think you’ll start to see more even on the proactive service end of it too, which can be very convenient for for customers if, you know, if something’s going wrong with the appliance and it has the ability to preorder a part or things like and it’s stuck. I think that’s where we’ll start to see some really good convenience too. Not so much features as far as usability, but just proactive maintenance there too is something I think we’ll we’ll get there for sure soon. I I love that feature when they they they do that now for, GE has that in their commercial laundry where it says, my washer is out. Here’s what I need. But that that hasn’t happened. You know? I’ve been talking about that for, like, a couple years. I stopped talking about it because it hasn’t really happened. And a lot of people don’t activate their appliances anyway. But, you know, the next gen would be to say, I’m your fridge. I need a new, you know, motherboard or compressor or condenser or, you know, one of those where it comes to us. We’re able to do it. Right now, the process is you call us, we self diagnose, order the part, and we’re right most of the time. But some of the time, there’s just so much waste there. If the machine could do that, that would be a really worthwhile function. That’s a good stopping point there, guys. So, like I said, at the beginning, we’ll be sharing this recording and the presentation with everybody who registered. We’ll be posting this to our YouTube channel, tomorrow. And, if you wanna send us any more questions or follow ups, you can just reply to the emails you received for registration. It goes right to this team, and we can continue the conversation from there. Any final words, Steve, before we sign off? No. I I, you know, I think, I I think we’re gonna see a lot more in terms of laundry. You know, if if if if LG has it, it’s only a matter of time before Samsung gets it. I I still would be, I I’d still be really reticent, and and and and I really think that, there’s gonna be a lot more new stuff come out. Whether it’s good or not remains to be seen. I I think some of the products that I showed here may be a little bit more, they they were a little bit overengineered, but, especially on the laundry side. And I know I didn’t talk about dishwashers. I I think the way we do laundry in the next ten years is gonna change for the better with heat pump drying and maybe some combinations that have a little bit more tread on it. And and that’s where I see a lot of this stuff going. Refrigeration, induction, but especially laundry because you get some of the some of the