Kitchen appliances chat

Personally I'd get two.

Cast iron for when you want to whack up the heat for meat and the like, non-stick for eggs and pancakes and things.

My staub cast iron one is pretty non-stick but I wouldn't want to try and fry an egg without any oil using it.

I've two NF pans, wok and frying pan. Had them since 2015, amazing pans, just be careful on induction hobs, you'll warp them. The NF people are brilliant.

Who’s got a robo vacuum? Do we need auto emptying? Do they really mop? Which one do we get?

dont get roomba, they are shit, deebot is better, I want to try eufy too

Why are Roomba shit?

Mopping is dumb.

Auto emptying just means you empty the big bin every few days, otherwise it's every time. You get alarms being for it being full either way.

You don't need anything near as expensive as the market makes you think, robovacs are only good enough to keep things a level of clean... You'll still need something to deal with deep cleans, emergencies, etm.

We’ll just move house when it gets to that stage I think

We have a Xaiomi Mi, it is a mop-able one, but we just use it for a quick sweep up of dog hair/dust/crumbs and the like.

Was about £200 if memory serves - doesn't completely replace the need to do a 'proper' vacuum from time to time, but keeps on top of the small stuff.

We have an Eufy one, cost about £200. It's good.

Auto emptying is unnecessary unless you're planning to set it off on scheduled cleans and entirely ignore it for weeks on end. Mopping is average at best. Will get a bit of dust/surface dirt off but anything vaguely stuck won't come off.

It's not as good as the super-fancy Roomba I picked up cheap but on the other hand that broke and had to be returned. That had room mapping and you could send it off to clean specific rooms, highlight areas that needed extra cleaning, etc.

I have an Eufy G30 now, Cost a couple of hundred and it's one of those things where prices massively fluctuate so keep an eye out for discounts, reductions, etc Good at picking up dirt, we send it round the kitchen most days to keep on top of stuff. The floor needs to be pretty clear, can't leave stuff out unless it's substantial enough not to be pushed round or sucked up.

You'll need something else too (I got a Dyson from the refurb store) for cleaning stairs, occasional spills, awkward corners, skirting boards, etc

If your place is suited to one I'd definitely buy one. Wouldn't spend more than a few hundred though unless you really wanted fancy apps and stuff.

I worked on the Shark one, and we tested pretty much every competitor one (3yrs ago mind)

Also got a Eufy G30. Also for about £200. Not the mopping one.
Same as aggi mentioned - it's very good for picking up dust and dirt and just keeping on top of things, but you'd want another vac too.
I've got a Dewalt cordless blower which I tend to use along with it - handy for blasting dust out from behind radiators, off picture rails, stairs etc, then leaving the Eufy to pick up what lands.

Top info. @mcmyk - what was the result of this deep dive?

They are good if

• you have pets that shed a lot
  
• you have a large area they can easily navigate around
  
• you have furniture they can get under
  
  

They are noisy on suspended floors.

You don't need auto emptying unless the area you have is so big that they would fill their bin before they complete it.

Off the top of my head:

The iRobot was the market leader at the time but i really don't think they command the price point any more.

the Eufy robot design was licensed to make the early Shark ones, so we did a lot with them. At the time the one we used was just a random bounce - it didn't have any real ability to navigate and was annoying for that reason.

I think if it was me I would go for one of the better spec Eufy models, G30 as others have said seems good.

Not sure i'd bother with auto emptying. The docking station that empties them was always really loud, and whether the dust cup gets emptied properly or not was seemingly random.

We did start on a mopping version but I don't really think the performance is very good, i wouldn't bother.

Thanks, very helpful

Buying a dishwsher, what's with these cutlery draws? Seems like a right ball ache no?

Yesterday I was thick and killed our integrated Beko washer/dryer by overloading it with towels. It shook itself daft during the spin and the motor for the dryer blower has snapped off the outside of the drum. There might be other damage to the drum/belt/motor.

It's well out of warranty and the replacement part is £150 (or £90 used), or the cheapest machine we've found online is £380. We're selling our house with the appliances included. We're pretty sure the place we're buying doesn't come with appliances.

My two equally unpalatable options seem to be:

1. Buy two machines in the space of a few months
   
2. Repair it, pray it doesn't break again, and palm a potentially dodgy machine off on our buyers, who are a young family
   
   

Is there a third choice I can't see?

Facebook marketplace and the cheapest one on there

Deffo buy a cheap second hand one to tide you over.
I repaired our old washing machine a few times. New brushes, replaced a circuit board (only because it was available second hand for £30, the same part new was £140 IIRC), but when the bearing died and took out the heating element in the process, the thought of dragging it all out and doing an involved repair (£100-150 in parts), it just didn’t make any sense.
We bought a second hand Miele and it’s been faultless, but if it was just for a short period of time I’d definitely have bought cheap second hand.

I’d ask yourself, which is more work - trying to repair a fucked machine, or buying a second hand one for similar money?

I thought that initially but they get things much cleaner, and as long as you arrange the cutlery alongside the same type it makes unloading way quicker.
Definitely a good idea.

After giving me and my wife food poisoning, we accepted that a fridge that doesn’t keep things cold when it gets hot in the flat isn’t really fit for purpose.
Am I going mad or is the selection thing of white goods way less than it used to be?
We were already limited by the small width of the gap, but even without size restrictions it seemed that the choice was pretty poor, only a small handful of recognised big names had models available.
Stumped up for a Liebherr t1410 in the end, and slightly amazed by how much better it seems than the cheapo one that came with the flat.
Very CSB I know.

Big gamble

I’d ask yourself, which is more work - trying to repair a fucked machine, or buying a second hand one for similar mone?

That's the main thing innit, cheers both! Got chatting to a mate round the corner whose machine we can use till we sort something out. She actually had hers replaced by a bloke who came out to try and repair it at first. Gave him a glowing review so he's coming round on Monday👍

We're deffo gonna try and get something nice for the new place. Second hand miele or the like.

On the quality fridge/freezer topic, I broke the bank on a Bosch 10 years ago and despite both handles falling off its still going strong at my parents' place. Would get one of those again if I could.

We've got a Bosch fridge freezer that came with our flat two house purchases and over 15 years ago. It's trashed but still works. Currently being replaced with an lg plumbed American fridge freezer.

Bosch may not be the fancy stuff but it seems to just keep working forever

It was my go to, but alas the only Bosch available was too wide.
And Liebherr make giant excavators too, which is cool.