Good “Buy for Life” Brands
Some that come to mind are:
Benchmade - knives Darn Tough - socks Carhartt - good work gear Doc martens - footwear
What are some good reputable brands that you have had for 5 years + with little to no issues or with a lifetime warranty.
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Request: Fridge brands?
My Samsung fridge broke down. I just got a Frigidaire from Costco and it arrived broken so I'm returning it.
Never buy samsung appliances.
I have known and seen so many people make that mistake, and the story always ends with them replacing it with another brands, the smart ones under warranty, the stubborn ones out of pocket.
Personally I'll never buy anything samsung again. That brand seems to be a shell of its former self.
It might be dead when I get home this afternoon, but I've been lucky with my Samsung fridge. I got it as a deeply discounted discounted floor model 9 years ago.
Hosted a party and someone had leaned up against the ice/water buttons and put it into store/demo mode so everything looked fine but the compressor was disabled. The button combo should have been impossible to trigger accidentally but they did. I had defrost problems after that until I took the back panel out and cleaned the drains. That was 6 years ago and it's been good.
I think all French door models are designed to die. Run far, far away from those.
I think it was Technology Connections that did a video on French door fridges. One major problem with them (among the countless others) is airflow. Refrigerators have one refrigeration unit for both the fridge and freezer. The air is cooled in the freezer and moved to the less cool fridge. Cool air is denser than warmer air so it falls. Conventional fridges (freezer on top) were designed that way on purpose. When the freezer is on bottom you add levels of complexity and work against what has already been proven effective. That's not a problem, per se, because humans are ingenious. But in order to compete with traditional fridges these companies have to do this at the mercy of the lowest bidder.
Yeah mine is side by side, with ice and water in the freezer door.
Complexity and max interior volume are competing goals
My Samsung washer and dryer have been doing fine.
My only complaint is the drier doesn't have an option to run for long enough to dry a blanket out on low heat. So I have to do several manual runs.
For fridges, and appliances in general, you should look at reviews for specific models; don't go based on the brand.
We've been through half a dozen fridges at least in the last 10 years. They're all horrible now. The best one we've found Medea convertible. You can change it from upright freezer into a refrigerator if you want. We use it as a fridge, and got a chest freezer. I've tried every other brand i can get my hands on, and none of them last. It's horrible.
I cut a hole in the back panel of our Samsung fridge so I can blow hot air at the inevitable ice build-up between the back panel and back wall. Ideally I wouldn't have to do that, but it makes the clicking sound go away at least.
Joining in, any tips for a good electric kettle or thermopot?
I tried the cheap ones, and expensive ones, even in-the-middle ones. All of them suckers keep burning down in a year or two.
I’ve had a bonavita electric kettle for 5+ years and it’s been great. I just use it for heating up water ~daily and have zero complaints (not sure if there is anything else that you would be looking for an electric kettle to do). I’m pretty sure it was like $50 on Amazon.
Thanks, I'll check it out. Yeah, there's not much features to expect from a teapot other than maybe specific cutoff temperatures for brewing exotic sorts of tea. Other than that, reliability is the main concern, and I've had even the seemingly well built ones suddenly die on me for no particular reason.
The one I have you can set temperature that it heats to and tell it to either hold that temperature or get to it and then it’ll just cool off if you don’t use it. It has more settings but I’ve just had it set to 194 for forever.
I will say that I swear I spent closer to $50-60 for mine but it’s at like $105 on Amazon right now which is absurd. But looking at the price history on camelcamelcamel the price really has climbed a bit over the past few years. It used to drop around $60-70 a bit. Ridiculous how expensive things are getting.
I've had my Breville Tea Maker for years now ... to the point the labels on some buttons are worn off ... one of my favourite purchases.
I have had good luck with the GE Monogram line
Do no buy GE. Super trash all of their appliances.
As for recommendations - LG seems to be ok so far.
If there's one brand I'm not buying again it's LG.
I know of two LG dishwashers (mine and my parents) that have... issues.
My fridge from them is okay but I'm fairly confident there have been a few times that freeze portion had gone significantly above its set temperature because some popsicles melted. I've also had issues with the ice maker design not actually knocking down the ice so I have to open up the door and bang on it to break it loose, at which point a few pieces of ice fly onto the floor.
My oven/electric range from them well ... so far so good on that one. I do wish there were actual knobs/buttons instead of the weird "touch" buttons but that just seems to be the trend these days.
We've replaced our Samsung washer, dryer and dishwasher with LG. Which has been pretty rock solid so far, our Samsung range finally died recently and all the LG ranges we looked at were absolute trash using the cheapest metal imaginable. We ordered a whirlpool this time, not sure how well it'll work out... Find out tomorrow I guess