To: Harry.Bovik@K.GP.CS.CMU.EDU
Subject: kitchen appliances
Keywords: kitchen appliance oven stove
Date: Tue, 12 Jan 93 13:34:22 EST
Message-ID: <4170.726863662@SCRAPPLE.MAPS.CS.CMU.EDU>
From: Image_Data@SCRAPPLE.MAPS.CS.CMU.EDU

Date: Mon, 4 Jan 93 11:39:26 EST
From: Hank Walker <dmw@taurus.ece.cmu.edu>

I have no experience with convection ovens.  I use a combination of
microwave and regular oven when I want to speed things up.  I've mostly
bought from Sears, and thankfully not recently from the Appliance Store.
I suggest you carefully read Consumer Reports on ovens, since I recall that
there is a pretty big range in reliability.

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Date: Mon,  4 Jan 1993 12:47:32 -0500 (EST)
From: Ricky Houghton <houghton+@cs.cmu.edu>

There is a wonderful kitchen and bath place called Excel Kitchen right
off Forbes.  They carry the best of the kitchen equipment, dynasty,
viking, thermador, sub-zero as well as more popular (and more reasonably
priced) brands.  The people there are very knowledgeable and can easily
help you with your needs.  

When I was in the stove market I received the best treatment from these folks.

Ricky

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Date: Mon, 4 Jan 93 12:58:57 EST
From: Mike Blackwell <mkb@frc2.frc.ri.cmu.edu>

I don't have a recommendation for specific brands, but I highly
recommend Daniels Appliances, out by the entrance to South Park. An
odd store, but they have lots of stuff at very good prices, and
helpful but not obnoxious sales people.  Cheers, -m-

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Date: Mon, 4 Jan 1993 15:02-EST
From: Mary.Jo.Dowling@IUS5.IUS.CS.CMU.EDU

We purchased all new appliances for our home when we moved in and
remolded. Over the years we have been most happy with whirpool
appliances. We have a microwave, (over 10 years, no problems) a double
electric oven, refridgerator,a washer and dryer. We have  not had a problem with any of them, and they have all been in use anywhere from 5-7 years. We
bought them at Daniel's appliance and hardware store in the south
hills. they were the best bargins, and free delivery and removal of the
old ones. They gave us an even better deal since we bought 3 of them at
the same time. They also seem to know who makes what form whom and who
owns what. Like, Kitchenaid was owned by Insinkerator which is now
owned by Whirlpool, so in buying any or the three, you are basically
buying the same machine at different prices depending on the name. By
the way, the best combo for good cooking IMHO is a gas stove top, and
electric wall ovens. ALthought the new electric rangetops with halogen
lights for quick heat up are nifty looking.
good luck.
mj
p.s., make sure the model you are getting is the newest model year,
lots of discount places, (especially the now gone appliance store) used
to advertise the really cheap price models in their ads, then when you
looked at them, they werelast years or the year's before model, that
they picked up real cheap. This might not bother some people, but I
liked having the newest technology. AT Daniel's this was never an
issue. They go through stuff so quickly, or they order it for you.
Friends of ours even ordered a dishwasher over the phone form them, had
it delivered 2 days later, and never even set foot in the store. The
store is on Curry Hollow road (I think). ANd it is really funky.
Definetly worth a trip. They are always busy.

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Date: Tue, 5 Jan 93 12:40:12 EST
From: goddard@B.GP.CS.CMU.EDU

We bought a Jenn-Air with electric oven and gas burners.  It's great.
The electric oven is better than gas because it doesn't dry stuff out
as much.  Gas burners are better than electric because you get instant
response (there are some new fangled halogen electric burners but they
were very expensive and have other problems).  At the time Jenn-Air
was the only mfctr that made this combination.  It comes with a downdraft
air expeller which we don't use much because it is noisy and because it
sucks the heat away from the pots.  I jury rigged a system to avoid the
latter problem but it's a pain to use.  Worth doing on hot summer days,
but in practice this hasn't been often.  If you can install a hood, that's
much better than the downdraft.  We also have the option to replace the
left burners with a gas grill.  This is no doubt great if you actually
grill, but in practice I think we've used it once in three years.  This
option results in poor control of gas flame on the left hand burners (e.g.,
low setting is not at all low).  So unless you are pretty sure you'll want
to grill indoors, I'd recommend avoiding this option.  The oven comes
with the convection option standard, but in practice we don't use it much
because recipes have times assuming a non-convection oven.  It does seem
to cook quite a lot faster with the convection turned on.

We bought from Perla's appliances.  He had the best price and was pleasant.
The gas inspector red-tagged some of his work and he came out and fixed it
with no argument.  We bought in May 1989.

Nigel