Help in choosing Kitchen Appliances

Hi,
We are in the process of building a new house and have the option of choosing our own appliances. Based on our research so far, we did not think it was prudent to have all appliances of the same brand and would rather ensure that the ones we get are better value for money. So we require help in terms of the appliances as well as the colour of them. For further context, we are planning to have black/dark brown kitchen cabinets and white bench top. We are including the appliances that we are looking at currently along with the colour. Clearly our first preference is to dark darker coloured appliances to blend with the colour selection we had in mind (happy to be challenged on this). Frogot to add, the budget in mind was around 10-11K max for the appliances and we were using Appliances Online for the pricing (they are having some sale going on there).

1. Cooktop
Bosch PPS9A6B90A 90cm Serie 6 Natural Gas Cooktop (Black)
Westinghouse 90cm 5 Burner Tempered Glass Natural Gas Cooktop WHG958BC (Black)

2. Rangehood (require undermount) - need a lot of help with this one
Whispair 90cm Monte Carlo Undermount Rangehood with Ultra EC On-Board Motor X3MD09S6.OU/T (Stainless Steel)
Bosch DHL895DAU 86cm Serie 8 Under Cupboard Rangehood (Stainless Steel)
Schweigen 90cm Under Cupboard Rangehood with External Motor UM1390-9SP (Stainless Steel)

3. Oven (require pyrolytic)
Westinghouse 90cm Pyrolytic Electric Built-In Oven WVEP917DSC (Dark Stainless Steel)
Bosch VBC578FS0 90cm Serie 6 Pyrolytic Built-In Oven (Stainless Steel)

4. Microwave (preferably flatbed and has convection features in it)
Panasonic 27L Convection Flatbed Microwave 1000W NN-CF770M (Silver)
Panasonic Microwave Oven NN-DS596B (Black)
Panasonic 31L 4-in-1 Convection Microwave Oven NN-CS89L (Black)

5. Dishwasher
Westinghouse WSF6606KXA Freestanding Dishwasher (Dark Stainless Steel)
LG XD3A25BS Quadwash Freestanding Dishwasher (Dark Stainless Steel)
LG 60cm QuadWash Dishwasher Matte Black XD3A15MB (Black)
LG XD5B14PS QuadWash Freestanding Dishwasher (Platinum Stainless Steel)

6. Fridge
Samsung 648L French Door Fridge SRF7500BB (Black)

Really appreciate any help, especially with the rangehoods as that is getting a bit overwhelming for us.

Cheers

I'm a huge fan of Bosch, and after having dabbled with a few brands over the years, have installed them in several houses now (BTW, surprised you haven’t included a Bosch dishwasher in your list). Only Bosch appliance I ever regretted was a refrigerator, so most recently have bought Fisher & Paykel for our main and wine fridge. That said, most of the well known brands are good, and as long as you are not opting for the lowest tier in their collections (which tend to be built to meet a price specification) you should be OK.

My only major suggestions to you would be as follows:

* For normal cooking, consider induction cooktops over gas. Induction is fast and super controllable…and you can always create your own electricity, but never your own fossil fuels. For wok cooking, though, gas still seems to work best.
* Consider energy and water usage, as these will add up over the life of the appliance.
* Warranty is important, but most things that are going to fail, do so early. So, either stick with the default, or if you extend, extend as long as you can (like six years plus if you can get it), because then you might get a new appliance for free at the end of it's life. That said, this is less important for major appliances that should give you 10 years service, and more so for smaller appliances.

With rangehoods, the two major operating factors are power and noise. Nothing worse than a wimpy rangehood that also roars over the music you are playing or the conversation with guests while you are cooking. We opted for Qasair.

Dark appliances can be nice, but as a friend of mine who kitted his entire kitchen in black appliances found, your choice can be limited. Therefore, you might be trading off performance and/or efficiency just because you are trying to achieve a certain look. The most common colours are white and brushed steel, so it follows that you will get most variety with those colours too.

Lastly, sales mean nothing - not even with Appliances Online (I have bought from them numerous times…but also not bought from them too). If you are buying a package of appliance: negotiate, negotiate, negotiate; get quotes from at least three resellers; and play them off against each other. I guarantee you will get a better deal than just accepting the sales prices available at any point in time. Also, remember that everything has value and everything is negotiable - extended warranty, delivery, thrown in accessories, extras - everything!

Hi arcadelt. Thanks a lot for your response. See my comments below.

I did like some of the Bosch appliances - not all of them I admit. The only reason Bosch diswasher was not included was I did not find a dark coloured Bosch dishwasher that had reviews associated with it so was reluctant to consider it. I'll keep that in mind regarding the low-tier ones. So far, the list does not contain them - I hope. Let me know if any of them does.


I really wanted induction but my wife prefers gas so had to compromise
For electricity and water usage, you are mainly referring to the dishwasher, right? I could not find much on rating with respect to the gas cooktop, rangehood and oven.
With respect to the warranty, wouldn't they come under ACL? I know the standard seems to be 2 years but I feel its too short a period so I would have thought that it could be claimed under ACL.


Any particular reason you preferred Qasair over say Sirius or Schweigen. Also, any 90 cm undermount one from Qasair you can recommend? I had a look at the Qasair site and there are around 15 of them there so not sure whats the difference.


Completely agree regarding the limitations in terms of choices with dark coloured appliances. Worst case scenario, we will look at stainless steel colour but if we can get the dark one, thats always the first preference.


Will keep this in mind and hold off buying until we look around more. Thanks for this as we were stressed from a timing perspective and we only had a few days left on the sale. Now we can wait and patiently look into everything

[quote="wildrain"]I really wanted induction but my wife prefers gas so had to compromise /quote]

Show this to your wife. Cooking sizzling steaks on high heat and catching the splatter on tea towels that will be just thrown in the wash. You could never do that with gas because the tea towels would catch fire. On top of that, the cooktop is just one flat pane of glass, so no fiddly trivets or burners to clean.

It was just a general comment that usage costs should be considered, not in relation to any specific appliance.



The trouble with relying on the ACL is that it becomes a legal issue to define the "fit for purpose" or "durability" criteria. It's not just a case of complaining to consumer affairs and they will rule in your favour. If there is a dispute you'd probably have to go to mediation or court, and how many consumers are willing to risk the cost of that?



I don’t recall considering Sirius, but did compare Qasair with Schweigen. I liked the idea of the outside motors of the Schweigen, but I wanted to keep our roofline reasonably clear of protrusions as it is a feature of our house. Also, in the city (we definitely are not) there is the noise issue to consider and how that might be received by neighbours. In the end though, the Qasair just felt better built in the showroom, and the fact they are Australian was a bonus too.

Damn, that looks amazing. For now, she wants the gas cooktop but she agreed to change it later to induction once she gets the hang of it (I am planning to get a single induction plate for testing).

Thanks on the ACL info - I will look at the extended warranty.


I visited HN recently and they showed me the Sirius and mentioned about both the internal and external motor. So far, Qasair seems to be highly recommended but the fact that they do not have an external motor option is just making me think if I will be missing out on anything.

both have their pros and cons but Bosch PPS9A6B90A 90cm Serie 6 Natural Gas Cooktop (Black)
comes with a flame select option(9 predefined options are there) and the flame failure option (the gas supply will automatically cut off if the flame goes out).

Westinghouse 90cm 5 Burner Tempered Glass Natural Gas Cooktop WHG958BC (Black)
has 19 MJ/h but bosh has 15mj/h
LPG gas conversion kit is included in Westinghouse

like I said earlier both has pros and cons
so it depends on you to choose

but for me, I would choose bosh because of the brand value and positive user reviews on the internet.
thank you

Hi jake_paul

Thanks for your feedback.


We are also inclining towards the bosch for the cooktop due the overwhelmingly positive reviews. In terms of features, we already loved it and my wife liked the look of it when she saw it in the showroom (even before we started researching on the cooktop options). I would have preferred induction - but you win some, you lose some

There are some hybrid gas/induction cooktops.

They might be worth looking at if you can't agree.