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Comment by FuriouslyAdrift | Hacker News Reader

My house came with all Samsung appliances and I can't wait for all fo them to die. The dryer already went (8 years old).

I've been replacing with mid-range LG on advice of the local repair company and been happy so far. Quirky and very few features but seems well built.

Can't wait to replace the massive refrigerator and swap the gas range for inductive. Fridge is slowly going (cracked and leaking ice maker, condensation problem with deli drawer).

I now know how my mom could justify the ridiculous expense of a Subzero refrigerator (around $6k back in 2000). That thing has only needed a couple of tune ups and no parts replacements in 20 years.

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When I bought my new fridge I told the sales guy I wanted the least features possible. "You don't want an in door ice maker" "How many of those have you seen that aren't broken" "not many. no through door window?" "I know there's milk in the fridge why do I need to see that there's milk in the fridge?" down and down the list. Eventually we settled on a very bare bones whilrpool french door. It's very simple. My previous fridge I could fix with a screwdriver and a piece of wire. These things push cold air from a compressor that lasts 50 years if it's not fucked with by electronics and some boxes that are all passive insulation. They were solved problems 30 years ago.

The speed queen washer that came with the house failed. The 30 year old lid switch literally fell apart. $10 on amazon next day. Took me 10 minutes and youtube to take the machine apart. It's meant to be serviced and I'm handy. I don't get engineers who won't try and fix their appliances. It's like a free weekend day entertainment for me.

8 years is pretty good. I personally like Bosch. Is a fridge with an icemaker not always problematic? How about biofilm?

What is the advantage of an inductive stove? Will they even work in the US? I think in Europe they work with 360 V if I remember right.

I realized two things:

1. You can cook nearly everything with a ricecooker. Just throw everything inside. Yes, even the minced meat on top.

2. An airfrier is better and faster than a shitty oven.

Only eight years for a dryer is definitely not pretty good in my mind. It's barely acceptable unless you have a huge family and are doing laundry daily. I had a low-end Capri (Sears house brand) that was 21 years old and still going strong when I moved away. It was serviced once, by me, to replace a fuse. If I'd paid twice as much and gotten only eight years out of one, I'd be furious.

Yeah-- I was thinking that 8 years isn't even broken-in. My old Sears dryer was 27 when I had to replace a pulley and a thermal fuse. It ran just like it was new after that. I left it with that house but, hopefully, it's still running today.

Sears (Kenmore) appliances from that era are manufactured by Whirlpool in the US.

The motor died on mine and they "didn't make it any more".

I tried to find something close and make custom gearing but it ended up being cheaper to get a new dryer.

> What is the advantage of an inductive stove?

That you can control temperature changes better than with a ceramic hob, on par with methane stoves.

> I think in Europe they work with 360 V

No, normal 230V (or 220V)

A few other advantages to induction:

1. Better air quality. You don't have combustion byproducts in the kitchen.

2. More efficient than both gas and conventional electric stoves.

3. Faster to heat than gas/conventional electric (due to the efficiency improvement)

4. Easier to clean (except for glass top stoves).

I've yet to own a full-on induction stove, but I do regularly use the 120V induction hot plates in my kitchen. In fact, I use them more than the gas stove that came with my house. I'm eagerly awaiting the day that I have a full induction stove.

I've had the full permanent install induction stoves and the portable ones. The in counter ones are massively better. They have much larger heated areas so you don't get heat only in the middle of larger pans. They also have a much higher top power so you can boil water incredibly fast.

But even the portable ones are preferable to gas imo.

There's also bascially nothing to break. It's a solid state device. Same general tech idea as the wireless iPhone chargers.

Actually, I was (partly) right. In Germany, they run with 400 V, I just googled it.

Never heard of this. I though 360 with 3 phases.

In most of Europe (which runs a shared grid), not just Germany, it's 230V between any two of the three wires and 400V on each line:

> For example, in countries with nominal 230 V power, the line voltage is 400 V and the phase voltage is 230 V. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Three-phase_electric_power

In the counter integrated induction simply gets connected with all three phases, which are available in-house anyways.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Continental_Europe_Synchronous...

Between phases, it is 400 V; between phase and neutral, 230 V. There are five "lines": three phases, one neutral and one ground.

3 phase is 380V

Three phase consumer induction stoves are approximately 0% of the consumer induction stove market.

My common model IKEA stove – rebranded Siemens or Electrolux – runs at ~400v (Northern Europe). I know because it broke and I almost poked at it, until I got spooked by the warning labels. It's on its own circuit. Not an expert but as far as I know, most houses in Western/Northern Europe have a three-prong stove/oven connection in the kitchen for a ~400v feed.

My understanding is that many of them can be wired as 1, 2 or 3 phase at least in Nordic countries, though admittedly the ones which allow 3 are somewhat rarer especially when looking at stove top-only models (not combined stove+oven).

As far as I can tell, there are a single digit number of municipalities on the planet where two phase power is available. Do you have more details on that I can read? There's not a ton of.info on Wikipedia and I'm interested to know more.

If you are asking about some stoves that can be installed that way, there is for example FÖRDELAKTIG from Ikea. The manual is at https://www.ikea.com/gb/en/manuals/foerdelaktig-induction-ho..., you can find the wiring options from page 13.

That is fascinating. I was unaware this existed.

Thank you so much for sharing this. I learned something new today!

Take a look at the https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Continental_Europe_Synchronous... power grid. You have three lines of 230V between each pair, and you can connect appliances with either two or three of the lines, depending in their power needs.

That link isn't really a source for residential 3-phase power.

Almost every electrical network is 3 phase distribution, the matter under debate is if you bring every phase to each house, or if a phase reaches every third house.

Anecdotally I have never seen an electrical panel without three phases, but when I went looking it was like trying to find a source for the fact the sky is blue.

I'm pretty sure most of them just use a higher amp circuit. A 40 amp circuit at 230v is 9kW which is more than enough. I've also seen one particularly high end stove which used a battery to cover the extra power needed for the highest setting. Also means you could use it in a power outage.

No, they simply get connected with all three phases, which are available in-house anyway, with a standard 16A circuit breaker on each. That's what installed in our house and that's what I've seen in various holiday homes.

I can easily use all the power my largest induction burner gives me on a 240v outlet. I really want one of those battery boost units for my next big purchase.

Honestly just browning 4 chicken thighs at once is too much for 240v. (My gas range couldn't do any better!)

Good we have one. What a nice 0% we are.

Like I said, approximately.

They exist. But mostly they are not three phase.

It’s 400V in most of the world actually, but residential induction stoves are basically always single phase as far as I have ever seen.

I have a three-phase 'smeg'.

We have that particular model because it was literally the only induction cooktop on the market that would fit the existing hole in our stone worktop.

Quite a lot of them can be wired either one, two or three-phase when you look into their installation instructions, it's just that not that many houses have three-phase power and not many people are willing to pay to get that upgraded just for the hob.

nope. 3 phase is 400V

All inductive ranges pretty much use the same 2700 watt elements. In the US, you have to do a dedicated circuit (50 amp required but I had bigger wire pulled because of resistive heating and sag potential with some ovens triggering circuit breakers).

Inductive tends to be much more efficient than gas (which is what I have) and vastly more efficient than straight electric.

Speed Queen for washing machines. Bosch for dishwashers.

Bosch 800-series dishwashers are amazing. I’ve bought one at every house I’ve lived at, regardless of what’s installed. They’re quiet, they get everything clean no matter what, and they dry without a heating element, and without popping the front open.

Re: washing machines, I tentatively put forward LG. I bought one (and matching dryer) in the early 2010s, and it lasted 7 years before needing me to replace some balancing parts. It lasted years after that. Hoping for the same on this next move in a few days (yes, I move a lot).

My parents have a Bosch 800 series dishwasher and it is excellent... frickin pricey for a dishwasher though (about 3x more than the cheap GE one in my place)

You might want to reconsider Bosch (or be careful about which model you choose): https://www.jeffgeerling.com/blog/2025/i-wont-connect-my-dis...

We’ve been pretty happy with the the Speed Queen set we bought a few years ago. No IoT crap.

My parents fridge started it's life in the mid 1990's, and their freezer is probably a decade older, at this stage nobody knows. I don't think they were expensive models.

My parents are moving out of their house of ~50 years.

The garage fridge was in the house (as the kitchen one) when they moved in. The chest freezer in the basement moved with them in '77.

They have had at least three kitchen fridges in the time since the fridge got moved to the garage. I've lost track of the number of dishwashers. The current one was out of service for a few months, partially due to wifi/firmware issues. The super expensive oven clock doesn't work anymore, since it broke after the last time it was fixed for an $800 callout.

I can relate. Same for my parents. Washer and dryer still going strong after 30 years, same for the fridge which has been relegated to the basement since the paint has begun to chip. Microwave still works. And out of the three AC units they have, only one needed service. Maybe they are just exceptionally lucky compared to me. And these were not very expensive appliances for that time. I used to offer washers and dryers in rental properties for convenience, but their reliability has become so bad lately that it is not worth it.

They were likely the equivalent of $3k today. That's part of why these things don't last. Nobody wants to spend $3k on a fridge.

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