Buying for the house - Selecting products
Here's a list of some of the products we have selected for our house. As time passes, we'll try to keep this list up to date with anything we note later about individual products.
- Correct Deck -- Rather than traditional building materials, we've selected a composite building material which is made from hardwood and polypropylene. It should last longer than wood, and doesn't require the same type of care (frequent staining for example is not needed).
- Hardiplank Lap Siding -- Cedar is expensive. Vinyl and alumninum weren't options for our neighborhood due to deed restrictions (and they don't look as nice). Another product which is a composite product, wood-fiber and cement. It's got a great warranty (50 years) and doesn't require frequent staining like cedar. It does however require occasional painting.
- Danze Faucets -- Relatively new to the United States. They were cheaper and had some elegant designs which we liked (and the bath accessories such as towel bars were reasonably priced). Our plumber did complain some about the installation of the product, saying it was far more difficult than other brands. They went so far as saying they wouldn't sell them any more to their customers (we were their first and last). The faucets we selected were about half the price of comparables from other manufacturers.
- Wolf - We bought a consumer 48" gas rangetop from Wolf. It's been a mixed experience so far. The model we purchased includes both a griddle and a grill top, with 4 burners. The burners all came with the wrong pieces. The handles, which we were told would be available in black or red (and both would be sent), only came in red. We're still waiting for black two months later. It also lights slow (the burners), but we think it may have something to do with the fact that the burner inner/out rings were wrong. We're awaiting a final verdict once everything arrives. We'd heard some negative comments about the quality of competitors like Viking from our building contractor, so we stayed away from them and went with a more local manufacturer to us (Sub-zero and Wolf are both headquartered in Madison, Wisconsin). Update (4/16/04) The flame lights faster now after replacing the inner and outer rings thankfully. For some reason, the technician believes that the wrong rings were installed initially (how that would happen I have no idea!). We also had been waiting 8 weeks to get black knobs instead of red. Those too finally arrived -- oddly, we seem to have gotten a version upgrade as they have additional markings for "LITE" that the Red knobs didn't have:
- GE - The remainder of our appliances are GE in stainless steel. We bought an Advantium oven, which I'll write about later when I have time. Suffice to say, it's very cool as we can make our Saturday night pizza in 6-10 minutes, with no oven preheating! (And cookies in a little over 4 minutes!) I'll detail the specific appliances a bit more. We've learned that some things can be decieving when it comes to buying cabinet depth refrigerators in particular.
- LG Electronics USA - A front loading clothes washer and front loading dryer. Highly rated. Extremely quiet. The dryer does a great job. It often can finish drying the clothes in less time than it takes to wash a normal load! Both units are nice in that they tell you the amount of time remaning with the entire cycle. The washing machine is EXTREMELY quiet compared to the top loading washing machines we've owned in the past. A loud swishing noise occasionally as water moves around the unit. Then, a spinning noise as it spins the laundry from time to time. Considering how fast the laundry is spinning, it really makes very little noise. We've been very impressed! The only downside we've found potentially is that the units are a bit low (the washer). After having used them for a while, we wish we would have bought some stands for the units to raise them to a slighltly more comfortable height.
