Are U.S. city-dwellers ready for European appliances?

[joe_in_philly]

Blomberg Brings Compact Appliances to U.S. Apartments

As many people in the U.S. know, even small apartments with small kitchens often have a full sized dishwasher and refrigerator.

Refrigerators Reviews, Features, and Deals - Reviewed

Find the perfect refrigerator here, the most comprehensive source for unbiased, trustworthy refrigerator reviews, including French door, side-by-side, top-freezer, bottom-freezer, and more.

refrigerators.reviewed.com

 

[Ultramatic]

 

 

Not in my home. I'm a "full size" kinda guy.

 

[foraloysius]

Well Louie, I seem to remember a few threads about compact washers and dryers. ;-)

Funny that they take the dishwasher as example, while that is the appliance with the least differences in size.

 

[Ultramatic]

 

 

Well Louis,  even that "compact" washer and dryers are still bigger to what you usually find in Europe.

 

And have you seen my latest stove or my Maytag washer? And just wait until I find my dream refrigerator!

 

[foraloysius]

With 33.45 inches high and 23.6 inches wide, they are practically about the same size. But ofcourse my compacts are smaller and your regulars are bigger. And then we don't even talk about that fridge and your stove. lol

 

[georgect]

There's a marketing error here...

Bloomberg (with two "o"s) is a popular money management & finance/market watch dog company.

It would just cause confusion and therefore fail.

They should have re-branded for the American market...did they not do their homework?

http://www.bloomberg.com/

 

[paulg]

If I were 20 again

I would probably be interested in an apartment filled with electric servants that were compact. I could fit more of them in!
Not only could I have the requisite fridge and oven/range but perhaps the dishwasher and a small washer/dryer.
Personally I think that compact sizing, popular in Europe and Asia is going to grow. However at this time I enjoy my house and my large appliances. Wouldn't have it any other way now.

 

[NYCWriter]

Depends on the apartment ...

Outside of New York City, "American" apartments are pretty much generously-sized compared to other European cities. And in other cities, it's much more of a "age" thing; apartments are for young kids just starting out, until they pair off and buy a house. There aren't a whole lot of Americans, I'm betting, outside of NYC who a) *own* their apartments, and b) would be living in their apartments long enough to justify paying for costly custom European appliances.

That said, as an NYC apartment dweller I'd say I'm all about the compact washer/dryer, but compact dishwashers frankly make no sense to me; for daily meals of 1-2 (or even 3) people, it's faster to just hand-wash the dishes. And the time when a dishwasher would come in handy -- during a dinner party -- that 18-inch wide jobber would be woefully inadequate.

Same goes for "apartment-sized" stoves and refrigerators. Hate them. I need grown-up sized appliances.

 

[appnut]

You gotta be kidding. I cringe when I look at older pics of European kitchens with their small undercounter fridge. I COOK. I BAKE. Especially on Saturdays or Sundays I power cook for the week or two weeks ahead. My 22 to 24 cu. ft. fridge isn't adequate enough at times in addition to the 5 to 7.0 cu. ft. chest freezer in the laundry room. My 30" range and Breville SmartOven aren't enough at times. Since college, I don't know how to make a regular recipe for just 4 to 6 servings. Seems like a waste of time. I use my largest pots & pans and mixing bowls far more than "regular sized" ones. It's becoming even moreso as I stray farther away from prepackaged foods and making more of my own. An example would be veggie burgers. Frozen is only vegetables.

 

[tomturbomatic]

I do not take very seriously recomendations from a site which advocates wasting all of the sugar in Tang to clean a dishwasher. Sugar is a precious, costly commodity that has always involved oppression and, even in modern times, near slavery in its production. Today, the Cuban families that own sugar plantations and run Florida politics are responsible for most of the pollution in the Everglades caused by fertilizer runoff. If you are not aware of this situation, read almost anything by Carl Hiaasen on the state of things in South Florida. These sugar owners are responsible for legislation ON A NATIONAL LEVEL which boosts the price of sugar so much that candy manufacturers have left this country for places where the world price of sugar is lower than our artificially high price, taking jobs with them. Because of their great wealth, they buy the votes of lawmakers, nothin new here, but another way the money in politics ruins politics and our nation. The import quotas for sugar are always a stumbling block in our dealing with Central and South American countries over trade. I read about one agreeement that permitted imported sugar to only be used in the production of ethanol, another boondoggle that was a gift to corn producers.

Plain citric acid works and is the principal active chemical in Tang. Citric acid can be found in most supermarkets in the canning supplies section. If you can't find it ask. If you can't find citric acid, white vinegar works also. Our 1959 GE Modile Maid's owner's manual had instructions for using it.

 

[jerrod6]

I dunno

I have a 30 inch Liebherr refrigerator and have that size by choice. It is much cheaper to run than the supersize models and if one really doesn't need the space what's the point. Depends on habits. I could see a single person or a 2 person household having these appliances with no problems.

 

[mattl]

I don’t know about cheaper to run, have you looked at the energy tags in new fridges?  Even the humongous  33 Cu. Ft models cost about $60 a years to operate, using a national average electrical cost. Even if you saved $40 a years that is less than $2/month, really nothing.  I'll take the space over the savings.

 

[rapunzel]

I'd call 'catching the European appliance bug' a disease process. It's happened here in Oz and I have nothing good to say about it. The demise of our well-developed, home-grown appliance industry that made superb products to suit Australian homes and life-styles and satisfied an Australian aesthetic, has left consumers with overpriced European bol products that are too small, uniform, unattractive and often not even all that functional. Australian products were modeled on American technologies and designs, but made to be uniquely Australian. They were innovative, aesthetically pleasing, functional and perfect for the Australian way of life.

Australia's gone from a producer of domestic appliances to importer and what is now sold to consumers is not driven by their preferences, but businesses who decide what they want to sell. Most of it is tihs and identical crap and if you want anything that is a little different it is priced out of the realm of sense and reason.

'Less' is never more.[this post was last edited: 4/13/2014-06:05]

 

[warmsecondrinse]

I'm with Jerrod6. But then again, I live in New York City. I'm looking at apartments to buy at the moment. I live alone and will rarely cook or entertain for more than 3 or 4 guests at a time. Therefore, European sized appliances make perfect sense for ME. I think the market would also include most of the older cities in the northeast part of the U.S.

However, I agree with NYCWriter that European sized appliances do NOT make sense for the majority of Americans.

And also, seriously? Blomberg? I guarantee that most Americans will think the company is owned by the former mayor of NYC, BloOmberg and avoid the company for that reason.

 

[thomasortega]

When I this apartment apartment in 1997 I Though "Only my mom and I" So, Why the hell would we need a huge standard size dishwasher? So I bought a countertop compact dishwasher (6 services) from Brastemp.

That was one of the worst calculation mistake i made in my whole life. I forgot to consider my father (they are divorced) 3 sisters and 1 brother that come to eat here every day. The family grew up less than one year later (2 brothers in lar and 1 sister in law.
Then the family grew up even more... my brother and two of my sisters had babies almost at the same time. 

I bought a second compact dishwasher from brastemp. My sister bought it 12 years earlier and it was still in box.

Not satisfied having to wait for them to finish the cycle to unload them and load a third and sometimes even a 4th load, I got my third compact dishwasher last year.  This time, an Electrolux.

I was impressed by it's performance and design.. It's shorter and wider . Honestly I always saw that machine on the stores and I had the impression it would be terrible with only one rack. And it uses so less water and electricity than my previous machines and it cleans much better because it has only one spray arm so, there's even more pressure on the jets.

About a month ago, the first dishwasher died after 17 years of good work. I would have been easy to fix it but I didn't want to. As my brother died, one of my sisters god divorced and now with my mom sick (Alzheimer's) they don't come visit too often.

Only two dishwashers are being ok here. I'm using only the Electrolux every day and the Brastemp only sometimes.

Yesterday night there was a dinner party here to celebrate my birthday. 15 guests.

I bob loaded the Brastemp right after the dinner and before the dessert.  When the last guest was gone, i loaded the Electrolux (another bobload) and the Brastemp was ready to be unloaded. I did it and loaded the pots and pans and went to bed with my kitchen sparkling clean. Nobody would guess it looked like a war zone a few hours earlier.

 

Nowadays, If i had to buy appliances for a new kitchen, I wouldn't think twice before getting two of these Electrolux compact dishwashers instead of a full size model only to have this flexibility. Two of them would give me exactly the same capacity but the flexibility of using only one if I don't have too much dishes to wash.

But also, one thing to be considered is the price. I'm not sure but in the US, it seems that the compact dishwashers are expensive or almost the same price as a standard size dishwasher. Here in Brazil most of the dishwashers are compact (and much cheaper) than a ful size dishwasher. Getting two of them would cost less than only one full size.

 

[logixx]

Bosch/Siemens has these "modular dishwashers". I think they're pretty neat if you have a small kitchen or don't need a large dishwasher. I have an older counter top version (in storage at the moment) and wouldn't want to be without it. Loading and unloading only takes a few minutes, which is definately faster than washing dishes by hand.

 

[launderess]

Would Love To Find

One of those older Bosch, Asko or other European countertop dishwasher. They are easily a replacement for say an 18" dw but take up less space.

 

[henene4]

Don't say that!

Since I have been born 16 years, 4 months and 6 days ago, we had a 18 inch DW. And believe me, I had once the chance to use a counter top one and there is definetivley more space in any 18 inch DW. One single rack of a counter top one is slightly bigger than one 18" DW basket, but still way smaller than 2 18" baskets...

 

[launderess]

True

But much depends upon how one lives.

Am considerably older than your "sixteen months, etc... and so forth" with many years of housekeeping under my belt.

For single and double person households in most instances it can take a day or longer to fill an eighteen inch dw. For them a countertop unit would fill faster thus have to be run more often but still would suffice, especially if space is tight.

If the same household is out much of the day and or tends to eat at least two meals per work day outside of the home, again the smaller unit shouldn't pose problems.

As one stated it depends upon the household and it's habits. Obviously a married couple with a child or two isn't going to find much usefulness in a countertop unit. Nor will a household that does lots of preparation and consummation of meals at home, and or entertaining.