Yesterday, we gave away our ~6-year-old GE French-door refrigerator after a never-ending slog of repairs. At least the guy and his mother who came to pick it up have a side-hustle of repairing and reselling appliances. There's hope it won't end up in a landfill. He offered to sell me a 4-door Samsung. No Thanks! I'm done with over-complicated appliances. Refrigerator repair is not a skill I'm looking to hone any further.

  • FauxPseudo English
    13•11 months ago

    I get asked about what appliances to get all the time because I’m a handyman. I wrote up this short guide to copy and paste:

    Tips for buying a fridge or any major appliance:

    • Don’t until you absolutely need to, because…
    • Most modern ones are crap and won’t last more than 5 years, but…
    • The EU just made it so that any new major appliance must be repaired by the maker for 10 years because they are sick of all the waste created by cheaply made crap
    • When you do buy one make sure it is one that could be legally sold in the EU so you can get one that lasts.
    • Do not get any fancy features.
    • The more features an appliance has the more it costs, obs, but…
    • The more features an appliance has the more things there are to break which means more long term cost of ownership.

    Ice cube trays still work when the ice maker says to change the $40 filter. Any smart appliances (IoT device) is a network liability and the next thing you know your dishwasher is part of a botnet hoggin up your bandwidth and there will never be a firmware update to fix it.

    • @[email protected]OPEnglish
      5•11 months ago

      When you do buy one make sure it is one that could be legally sold in the EU so you can get one that lasts.

      I was going to call BS, but I set my VPN to Dublin, Ireland and started shopping there using google maps.

      Some places I looked:

      https://powercity.ie

      https://www.appliancesdelivered.ie/

      https://www.miele.ie/e/refrigeration-appliances-1022129-c

      Lot of interesting brands I ran across:

      BEKO
BOSCH
CANDY
HOOVER
HOTPOINT
INDESIT
LIEBHERR
MIELE
NORDMENDE
NORKO
POWERPOINT
SIEMENS
TCL
WHIRLPOOL

      Really surprising to my that a Bosch / Miele can be had for less than $1000. In the US, it’s hard to find anything less than $3k in those brands. I have seen some places around here sell Beko, but only in white.

      • @[email protected]English
        1•9 months ago

        Avoid Beko, I had a bad experience with them. I have very good experiences with Bosch (series 6) and Miele.

        • @[email protected]OPEnglish
          1•9 months ago

          I dodged that bullet then. I do have a Bosch dishwasher. It’s fairly new and I like it so far.