Your appliance issues
Sorry to hear you've had so many issues with your kitchen appliances.
Before I start, let me just clarify my own situation:
I have a Roper fridge and it is as basic as fridges come. No icemaker, water dispenser or fancy schmancy digital readouts.. It's a very bottom of the line fridge and it came with the house, which gives it a 1998 vintage. It works just fine and keeps our food cold.
Our stove is a Roper as well. It has four coiltop burners and no self cleaning oven, which means we have to use Easy Off and a lot of elbow grease to clean it.
We recently replaced our Roper dishwasher with a Miele because the noise it was making was driving us nuts. It's the nicest thing so far in the kitchen.
Now, You mentioned GE Profile. That means you have relatively high end GE appliances. They are basically the "Cadillac" of appliances, so to say.
... and just like Cadillacs, there are not only a lot of features but there are also a lot of things that can go wrong with them as well. This is true of any appliance brand.
You said, "We do not have the resources to replace..." but then you imply that you are fed up with your existing ones? I can understand your frustrations with your existing appliances, but you seem to imply that they all still work, but just with diminished functionality. Keep in mind that's better than what some people have!
So seriously, What would be your budget to replace them all assuming you replaced them one at a time instead of all at once? Have you considered financing? Believe it or not, you could pick up entire kitchen sets for under $1000.
There are plenty of people like me who "Inherited" the bottom of the line contractors "specials" and want to get rid of them for more fully featured or higher end units.
Used appliances are a dime a dozen on the used market. There is probably some kind of a used appliance dealer that can sell you something which you can get by on if you are really stuck.
The other option is to either do the following:
1. Pay someone to fix the appliances to your liking and continue to pay as required.
2. Replace your modern appliances with vintage ones which work well. (There are plenty of people who can give you advice on this.)
3. Replace your modern appliances with other modern appliances.
It's kind of strange.. you can buy a bottom of the line GE fridge and it'll work reliably for decades without issues, but you can have a top of the line GE Fridge and you could have nothing but issues with it.
I personally own a GE Profile washer and dryer. The washer makes a strange "crunk" noise when it agitates, but that goes away after a few minutes. The dryer works flawlessly and always has.
Microwave ovens are cheap.. Panasonic units are very plentiful and are cheap to replace. However, some of them don't have a very long lifespan. Due to their cost, they're also quite disposable. (We've burnt through two of them at my workplace in the last five years, but they're only about $100 ea so who cares.)
I personally own a Sharp Microwave which was built in very late 1999 and it's holding up very well. I've even unintentionally abused it a few times and it still keeps on chugging away.. The problem is, they're next to impossible to find here.
My opinion is, if you have appliances covered under an extended warranty, make full use of it. Make life a living hell for your local appliance shop and make sure that you feed the appliance repairman very well. If your dishwasher has gone through three control boards so far, keep going. After about eight or ten of them, perhaps your appliance shop will just give you a replacement dishwasher.
The same thing goes for your fridge and any other appliance which still has the extended warranty. Just keep going until they can't fix it anymore or until the warranty expires.
For the appliances which are already out of warranty, either consider getting them fixed as well or replace them outright, one at a time.
Consider yourself lucky that your icemaker is all that is broken on the fridge. Another member of the forum had issues with his GE fridge not even refrigerating!
Worst case scenario:
1. If your dishwasher is broken, you have a kitchen sink and dish soap.
2. If your fridge is broken, that would suck. :-(
3. If your stove is broken, there's always the Microwave...
4. If the Microwave is broken, eat out more and stimulate the economy.
In the event of #1, $20 buys you a set of gloves, a good set of scrubbing sponges and a bottle of dish detergent.
In the event of #2, used fridges are almost literally a dime a dozen. Heck, I have a friend who picked up a 20 year old fridge for $5 once when his main one conked out. It kept his food cold until he could afford to buy another.
In the event of #3, used ranges are almost literally a dime a dozen as well. It's more about condition and the features you want that matters more. A used appliance shop will clean them out, test them and repair them before selling them. Otherwise, the used market is Caveat Emptor.
In the event of #4, see my comment about Panasonic Microwaves.
Another thing I should mention... If you pop by any boutique appliance shop and complain about all of the issues you are having with your appliances, a salesperson will be very VERY happy to sell you everything you could ever possibly need and/or want and they may even help you get the financing you need so you can actually afford to make the monthly payments.
I could suggest a multitude of brands, but realistically what you want are these attributes:
- Features.
- Price.
- Looks. (White? Black? Stainless Steel?)
- Functionality.
- Condition.
If you cook lots, then you want to focus on getting a decent range and fridge. If you cook seldomly, then anything will do. Same thing with dishwashers too.
Good luck.
