ᐅ Planning kitchen appliances: How to approach it. The market is overwhelming.

Created on: 11 Sep 2017 12:34
G
G-Star1988
Hello everyone,

I have an appointment at the kitchen studio next Saturday and I’m preparing for it. Specifically, I’m looking for the appliances I want to have later in the kitchen. I’ve been researching a lot from brands like Neff / Siemens, Miele, Bora, etc., but I’m not making much progress.

For example, the current selection at Siemens looks like this:

Dishwasher IQ300 SN636X03MD
Oven IQ700 HB634GBS1
Microwave IQ500 HF15M264
Cooktop with integrated downdraft extractor EX801LX34E
or
2 x Cooktop IQ700 EX375FXB1E with extractor IQ700 LF16VA570

(The cooktop with integrated downdraft is the only fixed requirement, unfortunately I don’t have any influence on that ^^)

I actually value quality, energy efficiency, and a balanced price-performance ratio. But how can I find out if what you pick is really good? Or if there are possibly cheaper but equally high-quality products from other manufacturers. For example, the cooktop with integrated downdraft extractor from Miele—according to the catalog, it’s cheaper but just as good or even better?

How do you approach this?
D
daniels87
21 Nov 2017 22:20
Knallkörper schrieb:
I also have an 80 cm (31.5 inch) Neff with Twistpad and am very satisfied. What’s the use of an 11 kW connection capacity if the cooktops constantly "cycle" due to insufficient cooling? Nothing. With Neff, at least it heats continuously, which is much better.

From what I understand, cooktops usually throttle due to limited power capacity. Most cooktops have separate heating elements for the right and left sides, each around 3600 W (~3600 watts). For example, if I activate the boost function on the rear elements, the total power nearly reaches the connection limit, so the front elements have to reduce their power.

A cooktop with an 11 kW connection typically has three heating zones, each around 3600 W (~3600 watts).
77.willo21 Nov 2017 22:26
I have a Bora cooktop. It pulses whenever one of the burners is not turned up fully.
C
chand1986
21 Nov 2017 22:29
And how often exactly do you need the boost function three times at once?

I do cook a lot. There have never been situations where more kilowatts were necessary or even just helpful.

Time savings in the kitchen come from organization, not from plus or minus 3.5 kW.
K
Knallkörper
21 Nov 2017 22:34
I am familiar with Bosch and Whirlpool cooktops, where the burners on the highest settings heat for only about 75% of the time, even if just one burner is turned on. On my first Ikea cooktop, it was barely possible to bring a pot of water to a boil on the 2 kW (kilowatt) halogen burner. My Neff cooktop also "cycles" on the boost setting, but only minimally. Therefore, the rated power consumption is only a limited indicator.
K
Knallkörper
21 Nov 2017 22:35
77.willo schrieb:
I have a Bora cooktop. It cycles whenever a burner is not set to full power.

I assume this is due to the nature of the cooktop’s control system. It only switches fully on or off.
77.willo21 Nov 2017 22:40
Exactly.
I only use the boost function to boil water for tea. I steam all kinds of vegetables in the steam cooker, and the cooktop is used for frying and making sauces. Power is rather secondary in this case.