- Joined
- Feb 5, 2023
- Messages
- 244
So my parents are wanting to remodel their kitchen and being that their cooktop has a giant crack, my mother wants to get a new one. My parents are the type who do NOT want the newest, latest, greatest or most efficient, they care about reliability, ease of repair, ease of use, ease of finding repairman, ease of finding parts, US made, US owned (if possible and reasonable), etc.
To make it clear the type of people they are and what type of taste they have, They have a '50s era deep freeze freezer with a mechanical handle that they still use, They have a side-by-side refrigerator with no dispenser because they had a dispenser once against their desire and complained about the dispenser constantly, they have a dishwasher only because of the previous owner of the house had one installed and my father would prefer to just take it out and never replace it even though it works fine because in his mind it costs more money to do that and he's worried about it ruining the floor. If they had designed This kitchen, it would have been a range instead of a cooktop and wall oven, And they were happy with using a ancient microwave that was taking three times as long to cook things and would periodically add time for no apparent reason on the counter even using it after I bought them a top-of-the-line brand new one It wasn't until one of their friends really bugged them that they finally threw the fire hazard machine away.
(I'm going to say this very clearly, They will NOT get either an induction top or gas top so please don't make a recommendation about it because that is completely off the table. My mother loves her glass cookware and other non-magnetic pots and pans and she will not happily change away from that. She has specifically insisted we find more of them when they break. So induction is a never so please do not even bring it up. The gas top would be prohibitively expensive to install so please don't recommend that either.)
The choices they have is going to be either another glass top or coil top. I've noticed that recent coil tops have some kind of strange sensor in the middle that I'm not quite as familiar with. I think they could go either way on which top they want based more on which one is going to be less of a headache as they have had both and have things they like and dislike about both. Their plans for the countertop is to use a laminate as they don't like granite or any of the expensive stuff. They're fairly frugal people.
With the choices available, their natural direction would be something under whirlpool group (whether it's under Whirlpool or Maytag) since they're unlikely to buy anything from Viking as that's way too fancy for them And I doubt that it would be worth the money to spend on the kitchenaid or Jenn-Air brands.
I can tell you for sure options like Wi-Fi will not interest them, if anything they would prefer not to have them. Any unnecessary complication becomes a point of frustration and ranting for my father. So in other words we want as conventional knobs where ever possible since The button pad on their wall oven (installed by the previous owner) has worn away and is a source of rants.
Please provide opinions between coil versus glass top. If there's anything glaringly wrong with Whirlpool or Maytag cooktops, please let me know (If one between the two is better please clarify why). If there's another brand that fits the criteria, please let me know That's the only other one I have thought of as premiere but That's probably too low end for their taste. If they went with anything other than whirlpool, they would probably want to stick with brands they are familiar with (GE, Frigidaire, Even though those are no longer US owned and yes I know who owns GE currently but They prefer what they are familiar with) so regardless how good they may be, please don't recommend LG, Samsung, Bosch, Miele, etc. And please remember that induction cooktops are a NEVER EVER for them. They do NOT want to change. They want to feel like they are helping their community by buying American and they want something dependable.
To make it clear the type of people they are and what type of taste they have, They have a '50s era deep freeze freezer with a mechanical handle that they still use, They have a side-by-side refrigerator with no dispenser because they had a dispenser once against their desire and complained about the dispenser constantly, they have a dishwasher only because of the previous owner of the house had one installed and my father would prefer to just take it out and never replace it even though it works fine because in his mind it costs more money to do that and he's worried about it ruining the floor. If they had designed This kitchen, it would have been a range instead of a cooktop and wall oven, And they were happy with using a ancient microwave that was taking three times as long to cook things and would periodically add time for no apparent reason on the counter even using it after I bought them a top-of-the-line brand new one It wasn't until one of their friends really bugged them that they finally threw the fire hazard machine away.
(I'm going to say this very clearly, They will NOT get either an induction top or gas top so please don't make a recommendation about it because that is completely off the table. My mother loves her glass cookware and other non-magnetic pots and pans and she will not happily change away from that. She has specifically insisted we find more of them when they break. So induction is a never so please do not even bring it up. The gas top would be prohibitively expensive to install so please don't recommend that either.)
The choices they have is going to be either another glass top or coil top. I've noticed that recent coil tops have some kind of strange sensor in the middle that I'm not quite as familiar with. I think they could go either way on which top they want based more on which one is going to be less of a headache as they have had both and have things they like and dislike about both. Their plans for the countertop is to use a laminate as they don't like granite or any of the expensive stuff. They're fairly frugal people.
With the choices available, their natural direction would be something under whirlpool group (whether it's under Whirlpool or Maytag) since they're unlikely to buy anything from Viking as that's way too fancy for them And I doubt that it would be worth the money to spend on the kitchenaid or Jenn-Air brands.
I can tell you for sure options like Wi-Fi will not interest them, if anything they would prefer not to have them. Any unnecessary complication becomes a point of frustration and ranting for my father. So in other words we want as conventional knobs where ever possible since The button pad on their wall oven (installed by the previous owner) has worn away and is a source of rants.
Please provide opinions between coil versus glass top. If there's anything glaringly wrong with Whirlpool or Maytag cooktops, please let me know (If one between the two is better please clarify why). If there's another brand that fits the criteria, please let me know That's the only other one I have thought of as premiere but That's probably too low end for their taste. If they went with anything other than whirlpool, they would probably want to stick with brands they are familiar with (GE, Frigidaire, Even though those are no longer US owned and yes I know who owns GE currently but They prefer what they are familiar with) so regardless how good they may be, please don't recommend LG, Samsung, Bosch, Miele, etc. And please remember that induction cooktops are a NEVER EVER for them. They do NOT want to change. They want to feel like they are helping their community by buying American and they want something dependable.
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I can offer the following observations.
