After Dad passed away it didn't take long for us to have to replace both the range and refrigerator. At a best guess, I'd say they were within three years of his passing. We also added a dishwasher for the first time and lemme tell you, we fell in love with that time saver!
Mom is very particular on her ovens. She used to do some serious canning and that required a big, heavy, old pressure cooker. The type that could blow up and take out half the house. Anyway, she didn't like the idea of a glass top range and as we had electricity for the oven we were stuck with those ugly coils. It also limited us for 'extra' features like convection ovens. We did get the nicest one available that came in white, but that's like saying we got the nicest used care at the $5,000 and under lot.
That range is still in the kitchen. R has replaced almost every component in it as whenever it dies, it only costs like $50 or $100 in parts to fix it. This summer when I accidently burned out the whole mother board (while R was up north on vacation) I got a quote of $900 to fix it. As the range was like $800 when new I told the guy to (politely) fuck off. Yeah, inflation is a bitch. A replacement part goes for $500 and a new range goes for $1,300. So, we went without a range for a couple weeks until R got home and he put a new motherboard in it.
The dishwasher died after like 5 years and it only had a one year warranty. I don't remember what exactly went wrong, but I remember it not being a question of repairing it. It was a replacement. At this point I was working as a nurse so I helped out. I wanted to pay for the full thing, but Mom insisted on paying half. We still got a much nicer dishwasher though. Nicer looking, quieter, faster, and more efficient. Yes it's broken several times but like the range it's been $50 to $100 parts to fix it. It's still in the kitchen doing fine.
The fridge was one area where I convinced mom to splurge a bit. This is nine years ago. For ever since I can remember we've had the 'standard' freezer on top, fridge on bottom layout. With where the fridge sits, we can't use a french door layout as the door opening to the left doesn't have room to fully open. But I got mom to go for a freezer on bottom layout which gave us a much nicer fridge. Moveable shelves on both the left and right sides, a full width deli drawer, two good vegi/fruit drawers, a two layer slide out freezer, a good fast ice maker. It had all LED lighting and just looked really nice. I WISH we could have gone stainless steel at the time but all the other appliances were white and since we kept replacing them one at a time, we were going to be stuck with white forever.
We got it at Sears as they had a great sale (this was at the end of Sears as a company so they were always having "PLEASE DEAR GOD SHOP AT OUR STORES AS WE'RE DYING" sales. While I wanted to get a major brand, we ended up with a Kenmore Elite as I learned Kenmore's entire Elite brand wasn't made by Kenmore. This particular fridge was made by LG (the LG version was there but it went for $200 more with absolutely no differences beyond the brand on the front).
That fridge, as far as I can remember, has run steadily without problem for nine years. Oh sure, some of the plastic pieces broke but were easily (and fairly cheaply) replaced. It still did everything that we wanted and fit perfectly in it's home.
That streak ended a couple weeks back. Just before R went up for another vacation the fridge stopped working. The compressor wasn't kicking on and it wasn't keeping cold. R thankfully took the initiative and moved most of the food out as well as all of my medicine. The next day he pulled the fridge out and started to take a look. So far as he could tell, it was probably the 'starter' for the compressor. I'll be free to admit that I know NOTHING about this stuff. The problem was that R couldn't pull that part out to test without pulling the entire compressor out. And since that's using compressed refrigerant gas, its where he draws the line. We needed a repair tech.
Of course booking the repair tech for the earliest opportunity meant waiting a week (some places were scheduling out 3 weeks!!). By then R would be up north and it would be my responsibility to check out the repair guy.
We could survive without the fridge as we have an extra fridge downstairs. it mainly keeps the extra milk, soda, and other beverages cold. We can move out the soda and beer and put all the food in it. In fact, that's what R did. BUT, Mom can't get downstairs any longer. So, as a short term measure while we waited for the repair tech, we borrowed B's beverage fridge that was small enough to fit in our dining room. We also added a cooler with a bag of store bought ice since Mom mainly drinks iced water and iced tea.
R had found out that even though our fridge only had a five year warranty, LG had extended the warranty (even on our Kenmore Elite branded fridge) for the compressor up to ten years. I guess there was a major problem and this was them giving an extended guarantee. So, the best solution is that it would cost us nothing to get it repaired. I want to be prepared for the worst though, so I didn't want to bet on that possibility. I figured if the warranty did kick in, the repair guy would likely still charge a 'diagnostic' fee of around $100 plus find some other parts that aren't covered that would take the price upward of $300 to $500. And if the warranty didn't cover it? Then I figured we'd be looking at $900. Considering that we paid like $1,200 for the fridge, I'd put $900 into it to get it fixed. MAYBE up to $1000. If its more than that, we'd just order another one and be done with it.
Yeah. I bet you saw where this was going. The repair tech said that it wasn't the compressor. It was the 'dryer'. And to replace that meant replacing the entire compressor assembly. With labor that would go for $1,600.
One thousand six hundred dollars to fix a nine year old refrigerator that originally cost one thousand two hundred dollars.
Fuck. My. Life.
I politely paid the tech his diagnostic fee and asked him to leave as there was NO WAY we were going to pay that much to repair an old refrigerator. R was gone, so I informed Mom and immediately went into fridge shopping.
Now, we don't live in a big town but we have several stores that sell appliances. Home Depot, Lowes, Menards, and Best Buy. All of these places carry out old appliances and install new ones. All of these places have at least some products in stock. And for the products that aren't in stock, we're close enough to several major cities that a warehouse can't be far away.
We were doing this on a Saturday so I reasonably figured we'd find the fridge we wanted, buy it, and schedule an install for Monday or Tuesday.
Lemme tell you, fridges have changed in the last nine years. I never considered our fridge small. In fact, compared to the fridges we had when I was growing up, this fridge was rather large. I remember from the last time that we shopped for refrigerators that we were slightly limited on height as there are cabinets just above it. I was prepared for that to limit our choices. I also knew that there was several new wide fridges that might be too wide. But other than that, it should be easy to find.
Here's what I wanted. A recognizable brand. White. Fridge above slide out freezer. A full width drawer for deli stuff. Moveable shelves that weren't the full width of the fridge. An ice maker.
Basically, what we had before. I didn't want or need the clear door. I didn't want or need the full width drawer to be accessible from the outside. I didn't want or need the built in tablet.
After spending literally around five hours searching, do you know how many fridges I came up that met those requirements? One.
Oh, there were a few more, but I hadn't realized just how large fridges were now-a-days. you see, our fridge could only go up to 66.5 inches high at the rear. At the front, where the hinges and such would be, it could go up much further, but the back of the fridge could only go up to 66.5 inches. Width wise our current broken fridge is 30 inches wide and we have a couple extra inches that we can use. And finally our current broken fridge is 31 inches deep. It really can't go deeper as the door almost hits the cabinets on the other side of the kitchen (we have a rather small kitchen).
The 66 inch height restriction took out about 80% of the fridges out there. The 33 inch width (yes, 33 inches might be too tight, but I was looking at that wide anyway) took it down to almost nothing. Thankfully the depth measurement never came into play, but I was literally down to reconsidering french doors and even freezers on top.
When I finally narrowed it down to the ones that would fit I had like six fridges to choose from. Then I looked at the dates they could install. I had to eliminate FIVE of them as one was completely out of stock and the other five couldn't be delivered before THANKSGIVING.
I took a little more time as I absolutely refuse to accept a single choice and found two others that don't quite match our wants, but were close enough. All of them are the same size and would fit.
There's an Amana. It was the most basic. It was white. It had ONE adjustable shelf. It had a half width deli drawer. It's door storage was narrow. It came with a one year warranty.
There's a Whirlpool. It's the one most like ours. It was white. It had fully adjustable shelves that each took up half the width. It had a full width deli drawer. It's door storage was deeper so that it could fit a gallon of milk (something our current fridge couldn't do). It came with a five year warranty.
There's a Maytag. It's stainless steel (and not available in white). It has a ten year warranty but is otherwise the same as the Whirlpool.
That's when I found out that Whirlpool bought Maytag about five years back. Maytag had already owned the Amana brand. Now they all made the same fridges but Amana was budget conscious, Whirlpool was the main line, and Maytag was the upper end. Think Chevy, Buick, and Cadillac from GM.
All of them could be installed at the end of September. Mom and I went back and forth for a bit but I finally got her to accept the Maytag. Yeah, it's Stainless instead of White but if we have to replace the oven and/or dishwasher later on, it's easier to get stainless now as opposed to white. The Maytag was also on sale so it was only $100 more than the Whirlpool and I figure the extra five years of warranty is easily worth $100.
Minutes later I have the fridge purchased online and an install date of September 26th. This was on August 22nd meaning we'd have to go more than another month before we had a full size fridge upstairs. B's mini fridge was great in a pinch but it was NOT big enough to tide us over. Plus we needed a freezer upstairs.
I came up with two options. We could get a full size fridge, freezer over fridge with an ice maker, that could get installed in two days (Monday) and would only cost us like $600 including installation. I figured we could use this for a month then when the real fridge gets delivered on the 26th R and I could yank it downstairs and let the installers take away our older downstairs fridge. Yeah, it was a brand I've never heard of before but at less than $500 for a full size fridge wasn't bad at all and would certainly last a month.
The other option was a 7.5 cubic feet 'mini' fridge that was available for immediate pick up at Sam's Club here in town (I DID look at Sam's for the replacement fridge but their installations were all in late October). Most mini fridges are around 3 cubic feet. B's one is 4. With this one being 7.5 including a small freezer, we could easily get by. We could probably get by with JUST this fridge, but it would be easy if we kept B's fridge too. It was only $230.
I think Mom was money fatigued at this point. While the full size fridge as a temporary use then full time replacement for the downstairs fridge was a FAR better deal, she went with the mini fridge. I didn't put up a fuss as Mom was just done and this would finish our ordeal, at least for now. I ordered the fridge online and set it up for pick up (heh... they get to load it into Tatiana!) that night. It took a couple hours to get it inside, plugged in, and all the plastic and foam off/out of it. I swear that cool plastic wrap that's normally on glass and is fun to peel off... it was COVERED in it. All four sides. And it did not peel off easily.
The next morning, when it was down to temp, I transferred all of our stuff from the downstairs fridge to the new temporary upstairs fridge. I re-arranged B's fridge a bit so that everything had a more sensible layout, but it's still not quite right. Everything is just smaller. It sounds obvious, but it really limits you in ways that you don't expect. Like the ketchup and bbq sauce bottles only fit in one location. Otherwise they have to lie on their side. We have room for some soda in the door (where we normally keep it) but not for the full supply that we keep upstairs, meaning some of it now takes up valuable shelf space. The freezer doesn't have an ice maker which leaves more room, but also means we take up the same amount of space with two ice trays and a bowl for ice.
It's been a couple weeks and we're more or less used to this setup. The main difference now is how careful we are with leftovers. We normally save just about any leftover food. Once it's been in the fridge for between three and seven days, it gets tossed. I'd guess that about 1/3 of the leftover get eaten. Now? If it's not eaten by the next day, it gets tossed because we have more leftovers to store and no room.
So, that's been my major shopping for the season. No cars this time, just a new fridge. I don't expect there to be anything more to say when the new fridge gets here so I'll just put it in an update. This 'mini' fridge, when it's done its temporary duty will be unplugged and moved downstairs. We always have need for more fridge space during the holidays.
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