I recently moved into an old house with a lot of deferred maintenance and one by one, appliances are dying off. The first was the oven. The previous owner installed a gas cooktop over an electric oven, both Maytag, sometime in the early '90’s. Unfortunately it was a swankier model and has a more complicated timer/ignition part that needs to be replaced and can’t be found at this date.
We were planning on leisurely figuring out how we wanted to change and upgrade the kitchen and starting work over the summer sometime. Hah! Since our washing machine died a few days ago I joined Consumer Reports and started looking around. The simplest thing would be to replace the 30" electric oven with one that is the same size and there were several that CU recommended. The only problem was that the real people who reviewed those ovens found them ALL to be extremely noisy. Like a vacuum cleaner going in the room. One star reviews abounded.
My old dead oven was pretty quiet so I figure it’s some new regulation or some newer flimsiness in the construction that requires a cooling fan to be operating and not just during convection cycles. Has anyone bought a wall oven that was silent? I’ve heard that Boschs are the only tolerable ones. Also, are ranges also noisy from a cooling fan or are they built differently?
I don’t want the noise. Already we bought a little wine refrigerator and it seems noisy compared to the ancient full size refrigerator we have that is built like a Sherman tank!
I hate the brand new Bosch washer, dryer and dishwasher (totally non-operational) in my newly constructed house. Have never tried a Bosch oven but my experience with Bosch has been terrible.
Just this fall I replaced that configuration in my house. I also have 30 inch appliances. Many ovens these days tend to have a convection feature, and I wonder if the fan in that feature causes the noise. I noticed a little fan hum tonight with my new Kenmore oven on. A little, nothing disruptive, and the kitchen table where we eat is 5 feet from the oven. This oven so far is great. I went for price as it was a floor model and very reasonable. The broiler is a great improvement over my old 90s model. Fast to heat, and 2 settings.
I got a gas Frigidaire cook top, which also has been great so far, just a few months.
At work we have industrial size refrigerators for our staff lounge. The hum is obnoxious, worse than any home model.
If you are in the market for a new washer, I strongly recommend a Speed Queen. they are made in the US and have metal parts (which is why they are much heavier than every other machine on the market. This brand will go the distance. I have no idea why Consumer Reports did not rate this brand washer. Seems odd to me especially in light of the fact that it is such a reliable product.
My stove/oven is a few years old (Frigidaire) and it’s been a great appliance. No noise whatsoever (nor any repairs and I use it daily). I had no idea that ovens could be noisy.
We’re on a 2nd Bosch oven. The first died an ugly death after an inability to fix it by Bosch’s own people. They offered us significant dollars toward another model so we went with it. It’s fine. It has too many buttons and settings. There is a specific convection setting but we don’t generally use it over all the others. Hasn’t needed service!
We also have a cooktop over the oven. If I had to do it over again, I’d get a range. I’m not seeing any great value in having separate appliances since they’re right on top of each other. I worry that a replacement won’t fit what’s there, which isn’t a worry with a range.
@bookreader, I’m crying about those Speed Queens! I’ve heard good things about them but already ordered a new washer because I cannot stand being without one. Speed Queens are hard to find but they seem like the best of the old sturdy washers (no lid locks too!) and nobody else can really match that!
In my old house I had bought the cheapest washer I could, about 15 years ago. Tried to get a new one and just couldn’t do it! The salesman at Sears actually lied to me and told me that all washers had to have lid locks (thank you, SQ web site for refuting that). Then, when our house was empty someone broke in a stole it! Stole that old, cheap washer! H and I were completely dumfounded and were thinking that someone was just really poor and really needed a washing machine (nothing else was touched) or that they had had it with some blasted front loading HE machine and needed to go vintage or lose their mind.
Oh my @greenwitch!! I’m stunned. Stole your old washer? That’s just hard to imagine but I think you are right - they had gotten a new one and hated it and were then driven to take desperate action.
I did see that you can order a Speed Queen on the internet and the shipping wasn’t too brutal (depended on the company, obviously). I was super fortunate to be able to buy mine from a local store. When the drier goes, I’ll get a Speed Queen drier.
“I hate the brand new Bosch washer, dryer and dishwasher (totally non-operational) in my newly constructed house. Have never tried a Bosch oven but my experience with Bosch has been terrible.”
I have a Bosch range (all electric) that is seven years old. I have never had a problem and it certainly isn’t noisy! It works perfectly, imo.
I also have a Bosch washer & dryer and a Bosch dishwasher. They are all 7 years old, too and I haven’t had a single problem with any of them.
When I was doing my remodel, I initially thought I’d do oven under a separate cook top but, not only was that more expensive, I was also concerned about not finding a cook top/oven to fit the space when they need to be replaced.
It does seem to be more practical to have a range if they’re going to be in the same place anyway. In my case, if we replace things now, there would have to be some countertop (Corian) cutting but I wouldn’t mind if it wasn’t perfectly done since I want to replace it all anyway.
I had Thermodor gas cook top/electric oven for 18 years until I got a new kitchen. It worked great. The only problem I had was the knobs. A few of them had to be replaced a few times.
I put in a Bosch wall oven 3 years ago. I don’t have any complaints except that the fan seems noisy to me in my small kitchen. Not vacuum cleaner noisy, but definitely noticeable.
^I looked at the 30" wolf for my new kitchen. It was my second choice. I went with a 36" aga in the end for the look and a separate broiler and a bake oven.
We have a Bosch appliance we love. Not telling had a bad experience…don’t know the models he is talking about…but we also know many others with excellent experiences with Bosch.
I would go with a local appliance company with good service…just in case. Stay away from the big box places.
Hi Thumper – The brand new dishwasher that doesn’t work at all is a 24" Benchmark Series Bosch dishwasher. The washer and dryer that work but that I don’t like are Axxis stacking units. They are very small, and the dryer is ventless and takes forever. I am adding a washer/dryer hook up to my garage so I can get my old full-sized installed. The Bosch microwave seems fine but I’ve only used it once so far. Glad to hear others have had good experiences with Bosch. (Oh, my the way, I’m a “she,” not “he” ).
I don’t cook all that much but so far have been happy with the range. It is a Bertazzoni range with a matching hood. So far, seems great. I had lots of folks here for the holidays and the cooks in the group thought that the variations in all the different burners were great. It is very, very nice looking – I think it is a mid-range product but it looks much more expensive than it is. (I didn’t choose any of these appliances but just bought a brand new house abt a month ago).
I do miss having two wall ovens instead of the one large oven below the range. It was nice not to have to bend to take heavy things out of the oven and to be able to have different temps going.
I have all KitchenAid KitchenAid appliances, and have been happy with them, even though we had a fire in our dishwasher. (There’s a thread on that). We replaced it with another KitchenAid. The tones or whatever were too close together on the Bosch. (I took out normal dishes and glasses with us when shopping). When our electric cooktop broke, we wound up with a new one instead of fixing it. The advice we received was go with old fashioned knobs instead of push buttons or whatever. Given we have cats that jump high, we figured that was a no brainer. Our “new” washer and dryer are Samsung. I’d say they are OK but not great.
