Hello. Welcome back to Let's Build with Armada, the podcast from Armada Design and Build for homeowners, for people to understand what's out there in the world, to dispel some myths and rumors, educate a little bit hopefully. Today I am very excited. This is one of my favorite topics. Um, it's a deep topic. There is so much that we can talk about. We literally could do three or four hours easily on um, appliances and that's what we're talking about today. And I'm super happy to have with us Andrew Nestrom. He is an appliance professional here in the Seattle area and he works with Metropolitan Appliance in downtown Seattle. And Andrew is so nice to come in today. He had surgery right on your foot leg ankle leg leg leg thing and so you know he's got the foot up today. So, you know, be be cool with that kind of thing. But he's so nice to come in today and deal with that issue and all that trouble because uh this is something that's near and dear to both of us. So, we're really happy to get into this um cutting through the noise and focusing on appliances that deliver real value and what's important and what's not. dispelling some myths and rumors and getting around the marketing hype hopefully. Uh so we're going to dive in. I want to get straight into it. But in the meantime, don't forget to like, subscribe, rate, and review us. Um leave a comment down below. Let us know how we're doing, topics that you might want us to cover, more things on appliances, something specific. Uh let us know and we will try and do that. So, thank you. We're going to dive in here, Andrew. so happy to have you here. Um, I appreciate you coming in. All right. So, so much to talk about with appliances. Um, I guess one of the first things that, uh, I want to maybe just kind of touch on and then we'll get into some of the more detail things here is that when we were talking on the phone a little bit, you used a term that I myself even had not heard before and that was cooking adjacent. H, right? Mhm. where you talked about that and so let's just talk about kind of how you and people in the appliance world think about sort of the the larger group categories of appliances, right? You know, I'm just example, laundry, you know, whatever. So, just lay that out for us for everyone at home kind of the way that you think about and classify appliances in general. So, big picture stuff, there's cooking, cooling, cleaning. Okay, that's your primary stuff in the kitchen, right? Ventilation is kind of its own thing. Okay. And laundry is kind of its own thing. All right. Um, so ventilation gets deep and complicated very quickly. There's actually more hoods than anything else in the category. Okay. You're talking about exhaust hoods above cooktops to get stuff out of the air out of the kitchen. Like if you want a hood that's My Little Pony purple with brass trim, I can have it made just for you. So yeah, hoods get kind of crazy. They can be like jewelry for a kitchen. But cooking is usually, you know, a key focus for most people, right? Um, and a lot of that is figuring out what's important to the client. What type of cooking do they do? In my opinion, the um the need should define the product. Right. So, or how they cook. Exactly. So, their need, the client's need should inform the product that's selected. Um. Sure. And then there are conditions. An example would be um I live in a high-rise building where gas is not allowed. Right. Right. I might want a gas cooktop, but that's not a thing in certain places. Right. So, I have to now find gas substitute. Right. Either electric or induction in those cases. Induction's been a hot topic for everybody for sure. We're going to definitely get into that. So, cooking, cleaning, cooling, cooling. Yep. Ventilation. Ventilation and laundry. Yep. Okay. So, those are kind of the big five categories. Um, so now tell me if you agree with this approach or sort of philosophy. All right, I'm going to lay this out for you. We obviously design here at Armada and there are a lot of people in the country that are kitchen designers and professionals and that kind of thing. But one of the things that I find interesting a lot when I'm working with training new people um in this is that they start talking about designing a kitchen. I want to remodel my kitchen, okay? Or whatever the case may be. And I will ask them right away like, "Okay, what what are the appliances? What are the what's the appliance package?" And they look at you kind of like, "Huh? What do you mean?" So when I'm talking about their kitchen is something that they want to change, modify, update, build a new home, whatever, is that I start with the appliances because to me laying out the kitchen and it's just got a multitude of facets, you know, how you work and, you know, all that kind of thing. But just in terms of putting all the players on the field, right? How big is the refrigerator? How big is the top? There's always a bit of a dance between the appliances and the cabinets. Exactly. So, I understand from your perspective, you want to have those big rocks to put in place before you start designing the cabinets around it. There's always a little bit of push and pull between them. That's why we like to get involved with your clients so early so that that conversation between the cabinets and the appliances can kind of occur, right? And I like to I like to get in front of it because I know you're a busy guy and you're always willing to help clients, but I like to get in front of it a little bit. And it's one of the things that I talk about right out of the gate is I'll ask people, "Okay, have you thought about your appliances? Do you know what you want?" And I'm not necessarily down to who makes it or any of that kind of thing. I'm more talking about the functionality. And the very first thing that I always start with is is the cooking because to me it has the most variables. Yeah. And the first question I ask is one or two ovens, right? Is one or two ovens? And then if it's one, okay, we have a couple of ways we can achieve one oven, right? Range, independent, wall oven, you know, kind of thing. If it's two, now we have a whole bunch of possibilities of how we can achieve two ovens, double oven range, wall ovens as a double single wall oven with a single r, you know. Well, and we started talking about it a little bit before with the idea of companion cooking. So, do they, you know, is that second oven a full oven or is it a smaller oven with a convection function or a small oven with a steam function? 100%. Very different functionality for different clients with different needs. Exactly. And there are things people may not even be aware of exist and we're going to get into that for sure. So I start with cooking number of ovens, you know, cooktop, get into and again I'm not necessarily even at that point worried about is it gas, electric, induction like that. No, I want sizes. I want I want think thinking about that. And then the second thing I want to talk about or ask them to try and pin down for me a little bit is cooling because I think that's got the second most variables. Huge size impacts and ramifications and and the new development and it's not so new at this point I don't think anymore. It was always for the very longest time a refrigerator freezer combination unit couple different configurations side by side over under things like that. But where I've seen things go these days are the split bits or the towers and where you can buy just a refrigerator of varying sizes, just a freezer of varying sizes. You can put them together, you can split them apart. So like these independent units in that cooling category, there's a number I mean there's it's almost like a whole skill tree at that point, right? Where there's the fridges most of us grew up with or we call them freestanding refrigerators. Exactly. you know, typically 36 in wide. And then there's built-in refrigerators, which is what you're talking about. Those are like the biggest, most expensive Legos you've ever seen. What size do you want it? Do you want a freezer here? Do you want a fridge there? Do you want over under fridge freezer? Do you want refrigerator drawers? Do you want freezer drawers? Do you want a fridge freezer drawer setup? Like there's, you know, u beverage centers, dedicated ice makers, wine storage, wine storage, all kinds of crazy stuff. So much so much. Um, so then so I start with cooking, then I go to cooling because I think it's got the most everybody's got a dishwasher, right? You know, so the really the kind of question comes down there in a lot of instances in certain homes. Is it two dishwashers, right? Does this home merit two? Do you have a lot of people? Do you entertain a lot? You know, that kind of thing. Is it big enough to support two dishwashers? Does that make sense? You know, type of thing. Um, and then what the term I learned from you recently was the cooking adjacent is built-in coffee maker, warming drawer, uh, mic convectiony microwave kind of thing. We'll get into that. Um, what else are the other ones that like the garbage disposal, ice makers? Yep. Right. All of these sort of things that are in the kitchen, but not necessarily every kitchen has, right? Right. I mean, every kitchen pretty much these days, right? or at least certainly our client, they got a dishwasher, they got a cooktop, they have an oven, they have a refrigerator, and they have a hood. Yeah. Typically a microwave, too. You know, did I say the microwave? No. If I did. Okay. So, microwave. Yeah. So, that so that is the pretty standard, you know, derrigger list. Yep. Yep. So, do you agree with the idea from a homeowner standpoint if you're thinking about doing a kitchen that an early bit of homework would be to have and talk about that whole appliance thing and what you're looking for so that when you start talking to someone about your kitchen, you can come to the table with some of this information. I think it's an excellent idea. Some clients that I'm working with, they don't cook. Fair. So then their appliances at that point are basically, you know, placeholders because everybody's got to sell the house someday, right? Then you got to have stuff to fill those spots. So then their design leads everything and they just basically put in the appliances that fit their design. The most clients that we're working with have bigger concerns about cooking and I would absolutely agree with you that at least some idea of what they want for appliances is pretty important in the early stages even. Right now, occasionally I have a client come in and they had an idea and they completely change those ideas and it's super fun when they go back to you and rearrange their entire kitchen. Super fun for who? Um, yeah. So, I have just a quick story about that in terms of not cooking, right? And that's such a I don't know foreign thing to me because we cook at my house all the time. I love to cook, right? And so I'm just the idea of like, oh, we don't cook would just be. So I I just remembered I've got a bunch of smoked garlic butter confi in my fridge for you guys that I forgot to bring. Oh, well's going to take you home. There we go. So when she comes back, she may not come back empty-handed if you remember. Right. So um anyway, so just a quick story about the not cooking thing, right? So, I did a project a number of years ago, um, very high-end home, shall we say, right? And a high-end appliance, a package, and then a number of years after we did the project, um, they were going to sell the house. The something happened, change, job, move, whatever, going to sell the house. Inspector comes in, okay, doing the typical home purchase inspection, and the range didn't work. couldn't figure out why the range didn't work. After a bunch of running around imaginations, it wasn't plugged in. It had never been plugged in. That's why they had never used the oven. I mean, that's a great deal for the new home buyer, right? It's a brand new oven at that point, you know? So, like that was just like what how it's like a million years ago when I I got into this business delivering appliances. Um, we're we're I mean at the time it was a whole kitchen or a Thermodor suite that we were putting in. At the time it was like 30 40 grand worth of appliances. Really really nice stuff. We're talking, you know, 20 25 years ago, right? So it was that was a lot. Yeah. Yeah. Adorable little girl sitting on the counter kicking her feet going, "Yeah, we just like the way this stuff looks. We don't even cook. We just hang out in the kitchen a lot." I was like, "Are you kidding me? You have the greatest stuff." And it's blew my mind, right? Yeah. That's a weird thing to think about for me. Anyways, but if you don't like to cook and you eat out all the time, God bless you. But, you know, at least we got to put appliances in for the next owner pretty much. And it's what do you think is pretty at that point, right? Right. Okay. So, let's let's jump in talk about I think maybe one of the biggest things I don't know to me at least that's out there from an appliance standpoint question people have kind of the debate is induction. Let's start there, right? And so when one says induction, what does that mean? explain that to people a little bit. Let's kind of talk about that. Gotcha. Not to get too technical with it, but how induction actually works is a little deceptive to a lot of people because they walk up to it and they see a glass surface and it looks exactly like an electric cooking surface, right? The glass material on the top is the same. What's underneath is as different from electric as gas is. Okay? So, an induction cooktop doesn't create heat. It creates a magnetic field. Okay? That magnetic field vibrates the ferris metal, the iron in the pan hundreds of thousands to millions of times per second. So, it's a frictionbased heat that's created in the pan. And some people know this, a lot of people do, uh, microwave rays excite water molecules. So, the, uh, induction magnetic field excites iron molecules. So there's kind of an analogy between the two a little bit, but because the heat's created in the pan itself, it doesn't affect the food like a microwave would. Okay. Um there is nothing that heats up faster. Um like perspective check that I try to help a lot of people understand is a basic GE uh or LG induction range, okay, will outperform a Wolf gas range, okay? Wolf being one of the the highest powerful Americanmade appliance lines kind of a thing and GE a range but more basic. Yeah. Yeah. And um in the appliance world there's three main categories. Okay. There's the cheap stuff that you're going to see in like apartments and super entry- level homes. They don't really get repaired. Um and then there's the mid-level stuff. That's where induction starts to exist. Okay. um that's the majority of what's in the market realistically. All right. Um designed to last roughly 7 to 12 years, 10 years being about average. And then there's high-end stuff. The high-end products, better customer service, better reliability, better performance, um they're expected to last typically closer to 20 years. So, there is a real difference there. But if we're compare comparing a midlevel induction range to a top-end gas range and it's smoking it, that's in terms of performance like heating up and like you know whatot kind of a thing. Yeah. And um you know it's I I grew up cooking. My father was uh a line cook or a kitchen manager. My mother's family's from the south. Like we live in the kitchen. Um and I changed over to induction uh gosh it would be about seven eight years ago now. Okay. So, reason how long has induction been available on the in the market? So, they tried a couple of times. Okay. Uh so, it showed up in the 70s. Um showed up again briefly I think in the late 80s, early 90s, right? Um but it was always cost prohibitive for the residents. Induction cooking has actually been around since World War II and it's been used heavily in specific areas where it made sense, specifically submarines and cruise ships. So, this is not new technology. Okay, it's relatively new to the residents because the high-end kitchen has now allowed that to be justifiable costwise and the laws of mass production, the more of something you make, the cheaper they get per unit. So, the cost has actually come down steadily, right? Um, what was making them so expensive? The technology of the the oscillating magnet component or what was it just like like when a VCR first came out, right? They were $2,000 and you know and then they came down and they were giant. So is it just that? It's just the evolution of the technology. Exactly what it is. So like the first generation induction doesn't really exist anymore. Uh there were also some safety factors with that one. Second generation induction was better in a bunch of different ways. Third generation induction is what we're dealing with now. Okay. So the effective range of that magnetic field, we're talking maximum one inch from the cooking surface. The earlier generations, the induction fields were much larger and far less limited, created concerns with pacemakers. Um, there were fewer safety features in them. So, if you had a ring with ferris metal, it could actually heat that. Um, modern ones, they have to be covered. If I remember correctly, it's either 40 to 60%. Um, because it can sense the the the ferrris metal that's on it. It will not start creating that induction field until it senses an appropriate amount of material on the burner. safety factors and these are even at basic level induction. Okay. So this is standard whether it's a gajillion dollar or an entry level induction. This kind of tech is baked into essentially all of those. Yeah. So the performance of it for getting hot is unbelievable and amazing. But the temperature control for the low is also incredible where it's not common um but every once in a while I'm making a Holland sauce which is melted butter and tempered egg. Right. Mhm. So, I can do it in about 15 minutes because crank that thing up for a couple minutes, melt that butter down, take it down to a super low heat, very precisely controlled low temperature, whisk in those egg yolks, a little bit of mustard and lemon, and we're we're off to the races. Okay. Um, so that temperature control on the low is incredible. Also on my range, I can turn it to the low settings and I can drop a bag of chocolate chips and I can go to the store and come back and it's just barely melted. So, or you can melt it in minutes. Yeah. Yeah. On Well, chocolate you got to be careful because it burns. Scorch it to death. Yeah. That's one of the classic low temperature controls, right? And you know, my daughter loves it. Well, boiling water, you know, that you're not going to scorch like you have to boil it super fast or put it really low and take quite a while to get it up to temp kind of thing. Yeah. All right. So, let's So, let's just recap the induction. So, induction is electrically driven. Like it the power source is electricity and then but it doesn't it's not resistant heat where it makes something hot like a light bulb or the old school like my grandparents had one of those. They they got just glass like where like it like the surface got hot then that heat conducted I think is the term right from the surface through to the pan and then the stuff in the pan got hot. So then this is it it inducts that heat across the space from the magnet to the metal in the pan. Right? And so this is a key point that everyone should be aware of and I think probably most people are is that if you are going induction or if you have induction is that your pots and pans that you put on the surface have to have a certain amount of ferrris metal or iron in the pan. Like you cannot use an all aluminum pan or a copper kettle. Like you put a copper kettle on an induction stove, it'll sit there all day. Nothing is going to happen, right? So, you have to you may be required to buy different pots and pans if you don't have necessary. The classic test for those pans is get a good magnet and see if it sticks. If a magnet sticks to it, more than likely going to work. So, it doesn't have to say induction compatible on grandma's cast iron is going to be the best there possibly is. For sure. The cast iron is the king. And then what you do see now in a lot of aluminum cookware is that they will make a sandwich with the aluminum and then they'll put a little layer of iron inside the aluminum. Super common with pans today. They'll do three, five, seven ply pans. Almost always one of those layers at least is going to be the iron that is required. It's induction compatible. Okay. So that's kind of induction. Um I have induction. I went to induction when we redid our kitchen and I'm a gas veteran and wanted to really just try it to see what it was like so I could talk to people about it in sort of real time real experience and and we cook a lot so I like it a lot. Um, you're right about it being able to sense. One of the things that I don't know is annoying sometimes is because it's a really flat glass top and the way I designed it, I didn't do a range. I did a cook top is that I'll have a pan and then I want to sit something there because I used the surface and then it starts barking at me that there's something sitting on the surface that's I don't know why it barks. Is it because it's not metal or it is metal? Because it'll be a you know, whatever it is, it'll beep beep. you know, it'll be barking because I got something sitting on the top that's not appropriate or whatever it doesn't. There's a bunch of questions to figure out exactly why it's beeping at you there. That I couldn't say, but it sounds sounds kind of annoying. I don't like it when my stuff beeps at me. Yeah. So, anyway, so but so that's the thing with induction is it's got to be the metal, not metal, cast iron or iron really, the ferrris metal is really it, right? Is the iron molecule itself. Okay, so that's that's kind of the thing with induction. Now the other factor about induction that you know we can't overlook is well I guess there's two aspects to it. One is safety because there's no open flame. There's less residual heat spill that's happening around it. One of the reasons I was excited to get induction is because my daughter was three at the time and she's been helping me cook ever since. So that was that was super fun. The other is uh it's the easiest there is to clean because the cooking surface doesn't get hot. your cooking splatters and spills don't cook onto the surface. So, it is by far easier than anything I've ever had to clean. Totally agree with you on that. It and by not getting hot meaning that it's not getting hot to the point that it's transferring the heat. It will get hot, but that's feedback from the pan that it's getting right. So, it will get warm. You know, you have a pan pot sitting there boiling water or something like that. Then the adjacent glass around it will get heat, but that it's stealing it from the pan. It's picking up the heat off the pan. Yes. Frying chicken for an hour that that Curt surface is going to get hot, right? But even still, probably it's not very far. Yeah. I would say an inch and a half, 2 inches away, you can touch it. Yeah. It's pretty cool. It's not everywhere for sure. Um, so that's kind of the thing on So, let's let me ask you this. Um, where have you seen like what are the sort of percentages? Like it used to be like gas like was blank percent and then the electric res like what does it look like now that you guys are what's going out the door like what's the how would you break that down just roughly I don't need a you know verified scientific experiment. Well there's so many there's so many different cl categories that I work with cuz so the like the multif family residential builders like the the towers and and stuff like that they're almost always doing straight electric because of cost. Right. It's the lowest cost. Yes. Yes. And then it doesn't no gas. They're stepping up a little bit. Sometimes they'll do induction. It's almost never putting gas in those buildings. Okay. Single family residential builders, they're almost always doing the higher higher end ones. They're almost always doing gas because of the marketability of it. Um with uh custom clients, it's it's all over the board, but I would say it's probably a 60/40 split these days. Which way? Leaning towards induction. Okay. So when a client is getting educated on what they want and they're willing to put the money where they want it to be, they're almost always doing or more often than not they're doing induction these days. Okay. So that's a little bit on the induction world, right? Because I think that's a a thing that a lot of people have questions on. Yeah. And like what does it mean? What is it about? You know, would I like it? Do I need it? Should I get it? That kind of thing. Um how is it from an energy use standpoint? Because you were saying that induction, basic induction outperforms like a gas at a higher end in terms of the heat energy. Like is it sort of the efficiency? Like if you spend a dollar on electricity on an induction unit versus a dollar on gas. So this is you're going to get more heat out of the induction. Is that what we're talking about? Is that I mean so this is this ultimately this is measuring apples, oranges, and bananas. Oh wow. Okay. So we've got, you know, the apples being the gas, the oranges being electric, and bananas being induction. Now, bar none, induction is the most energy efficient. Okay. So the like a heat pump from an HVAC standpoint, right? I mean, categorically improving energy efficiency. Yes. Okay. Uh because the heat goes into the pan directly, you don't have the heat spill. It's gas is actually monumentally inefficient, believe it or not. Sure. Um because the gas heats the air, the air hits the pan and then rolls right around it. So depending on the the vessel, the volume and the vitals, uh what you're cooking, the the pan size, burner dimensions, all these fun variables, you're typically between 17 and 25% efficient. Meaning that's the amount of energy that's getting into your food is on a good day, 25% of that energy from the gas itself. From the gas. Okay. Electric is typically between 40 and 60% efficient, right? Um because again the burner is typically going to be larger than your pan. So you've got a lot of heat spill there. Induction all you're heating is the pan. So the part that's a little counterintuitive to people is induction is typically on for a significantly lower amount of time which is where a lot of the energy efficiency comes from. It does have a higher startup energy draw. So it does take a larger energy source. So typically they're 40 sometimes 50 amps. Mine's 50 amps. My my cook top draws more power than my oven does. Super common. Yeah, the oven's 40, the cooktop's 50. I was surprised. The one that's nuts is Wolf recently came out with a 48 in induction range and they don't compromise on performance. That thing requires two 50 amp services. It's a huge amount of electricity, right? But they're not all on at once. I mean, for the most part. Right. Right. Right. Okay. So,
what would you say is the most important decision appliance related in the kitchen? Like if you had to rank them like the number one thing you should think about the, you know, most important thing to consider for from a homeowner residential, we're not talking about multif family or any of that kind of stuff. Our clientele, you know, is typically the mid to upper end, you know, home kind of residential use. I I actually will kind of turn this on its head a little bit. The most important thing for me to understand and you to understand from a client is how they use their kitchen. I agree. So like we have to know how they're using it because that's going to inform all of our decision. It's going to give us the information we need to make the most um beneficial recommendation. Yeah. You know, like like if you say, "I never cook. I don't care at all." That's what's pretty and affordable. Right. There we go. Right. And fits the level of the home. Right. Right. You know, what's befitting the house? If we've got somebody who's cooking like the Swedish chef in there and, you know, they're really a cook on the stove top, there's a lot of kind of intuitive work that's happening on the cooking surface. Uh, then we want to emphasize the cooking surface. If we've got somebody who's a real scientific mind and they love baking because that's the that's very structured, right? Then we want to emphasize the ovens and we want to make sure to have those ovens at an ergonomic height. So, a range, putting the the oven below the cooking surface all in one piece is in many cases the right answer. But for somebody who's really focused on cooking or baking, having a wall oven, it's way easier on the knees and the back and, you know, if you're gimping around like I am, right? And certainly as we age, I mean, we're even seeing that with elevated dishwashers, huge, you know, bringing those up off the floor so you don't have to get down on the ground. There's even some ovens, uh, I think we probably talked about them a time or two, where they have sides swinging doors where Bosch and Thermodor specifically, they'll have a door on their oven that is one door that will swing 180 degrees completely out of the way. So, somebody who's got mobility issues, which I'm particularly sensitive to at the moment, uh, can really get right up to it, right? I don't have to go over the door that comes down and it's pushing me back 25 in or something from where my stuff is, you know, to get to it. Like that's a very commercial like the double the French doors. That's very commercial. It is very commercial. I don't really love that in most applications because you're changing from having to raise your elbows to having to pull your elbows in to make sure that you're not touching those doors cuz the the French door oven doors, they'll open to about 45°, right? So, you still have that hot surface to be very careful of. I've only ever seen them in commercial kitchens. So, I mean, I I mean, I guess they exist in a residential application. I basically grew up in commercial kitchens. So, it's at one point I worked at a bagel bakery where they had a walk-in oven, which is kind of a creepy concept, right? Okay. A little bit. All right. So, um, get into some sort of generic generalizations of appliances. Is it true, and I think you may have touched on this already, and I may know the answer, but I just think it's worth asking this way. Is it true that the cost of an appliance compared to something else is always a good measure determiner of quality? are expensive appliances better. Um, is that a straight line? Is that a thing or no? Not necessarily always the case. How would you Not always the case. Most of the time, yes. Um, the hard part is some categories are full of OEM products. Um, most specifically I'm thinking about microwaves. Uh, it doesn't matter if it says, you know, you know, Viking or, you know, Thermodor or whatever. Microwaves. the core microwave components are typically coming from all the same places, right? So, usually that's about having it match everything else. Sure. Um, a lot, not all, but a lot of dishwashers are rebranded. Yep. Uh, so the roll out drawer microwave, that one is a particularly guilty in that department, right? I think only one company makes that. Sharp is the only manufacturer of microwave drawers. So, it doesn't matter if it says Viking, Wolf, Decor, you know, whatever it is. Yeah, GE, KitchenAid, all of those. Um, so yeah, that's that that's kind of a funny one. Again, in some cases, having the kitchen match is super important to a client, right? If we're putting that on the back side of an island where it's not really visible, then we just do the sharp because we save a few bucks, right? And it's fine. It's the same thing anyway. Okay, I like that. And now in other categories, like if we're talking about ranges specifically, um ranges exist in all three of those categories that I mentioned earlier. The bargain basement, the the mid-level stuff, and the the the fancy pants level, right? The the basic level, like I mentioned before, they're so inexpensive, they typically don't get repaired because it usually costs at least 150, 200 bucks to have a service tech come out to your house. If the range was 5,00 600 bucks, why are you going to spend that money on it? Just replace it. Okay. Well, that might be a spot right there to just clarify some terms. Okay. Right. So, when Sorry, catch me on those. Yeah. No, I got you. And I And then this happens. I make sure. So, what a range or at least to me when I say a range, what I'm talking about is a combination cooking surface top and an oven. All right. All in one piece. All in one piece. That's a That's a range. Yes. And then an oven is just the oven. Yeah. Right. And so it can be installed on the wall. It can be installed below a countertop. Yep. Um, that's my setup. I went with cooktop and oven, but it's right on top. They're together and I it's in the same place. So, I could have done a range. Well, you like the genulect then. I wanted Yeah, I I wanted that look and not the range, but because I did the induction with a regular electric range. One of the keys was the shielding between the two that you have to have special like you can't all of those can't be married like that. Like, no. Yeah. You can't mix and match brands with those. You want to be real specific with how you're doing that stuff. So, the shielding was important there. Um, all right. Just sort of flying around here. How does one choose the right size refrigerator? Again, back to habits, I bet is going to be the answer. Very much, right? How often do you shop? How many people live in the house? That's where I was going to go, right? Is is really it's about how many people are in the house, how often they shop is a big aspect of it. Um, if you got the the the family who lives out in the middle of nowhere and they go to Costco every 2 weeks and they're buying a ton of frozen food, we need a big freezer, right? Maybe an extra freezer in the garage or something makes sense there, too, because that's going to be more cost effective, right? So, really again coming back to habits. Yep. How do you use and work in your space and those decisions are going to be vary for everybody. Um, one of the things back to my where I was talking about um, kind of as I start talking to people about remodeling their kitchen and like address the different type of appliances is a rule that I use is that if I'm on the fence or the client's on the fence, say between the the 48 in range and a 36-in range is that I always recommend that we start the planning and the design with the bigger y unit in mind and design around that. And then if they decide to go with the smaller one, great. No problem. They get a little bit more they get a little bit more countertop. They get a little bit more cabinetry. Where I found, and I learned this lesson the hard way when back years and years ago, someone was on the fence, went with the smaller one, then they decided to go with the bigger one, and then they felt like I had taken their firstborn when I when I reduced the amount of countertop that they had. And nobody likes to see the cost go up either from my p on my end. Right. Well, I think it for me it was more about, oh, my countertop is smaller. Well, you made, you know, 12 inches of counter top. Yeah, you made the the thing bigger. So, whenever I see people on the fence about that, I always plan and suggest that we start with the bigger one and then if you go down, great. If you stay there, beautiful. Everything's worked out in the beginning. Okay. Um, one thing just to bounce back to refrigeration for a second too. Uh, one detail that is not obvious to most people. In built-in refrigeration, the compressors in the refrigerator compartments, especially if you're doing the columns. So, you'll have a compressor for the freezer. That's going to be a traditional frozen compressor. Maintains a lack of humidity, sub-zero temperatures or around zero degrees Fahrenheit. Uh, the refrigerator compressors in most brands, if not all, built-in refrigerators will do what's called a wet compressor. So, it's a different style compressor, produces 33° air with 60% humidity, right? And that's a big deal because it changes how the food's stored. The It's like using your whole fridge as a crisper and then your actual crisper ends up being like an uber crisper. Okay. The um one of the classic examples is from Subzero where I saw a demonstration from them where they put an apple in one of their fridges and they put a little post-it note with a date. 6 months later, I was in their showroom and that apple looked like something you'd pull out of a fruit bowl and eat. So, food preservation in the built-in fridges is significantly better. We talked about range, what that is. Oven, cooktop. I think everybody gets that. So, let's go back to the refrigeration. So, there's two types or two categories in my mind of refrigerators. There is freestanding. Yep. Right. And then there is built-in. Yep. And freestanding would be the classic LG GE, you know, KitchenAid like finished sides and a top. And you can it's meant to be seen from more than just the front. And they're typically deeper and they're typically shorter than the other type that we're talking about. the and they have one compressor almost always. There are some exceptions, but almost always there's one compressor, right? And this is where the thing happens when your food dries out in your in your typical freestanding refrigerator. You have to put everything in a lid or seal it up because the compressor cools to the freezer. Yep. with very little heat. You've been paying attention when I talk about this. So, the compressor only feeds cold air into the freezer and when the refrigerator calls for cold air, some kind of baffle thing opens and the cold air travels from the freezer into the fridge until the thermostat says, "Oh, it's cold enough." Yep. Closes the baffle. And so, the downside of that is that the air that's coming in has no humidity. No air. That's why things dry out. Yeah. Frozen air can't contain humidity. Exactly. Correct. And there's a a baffle system and a little fan that pushes air. So, it pushes the cold air because it's heavier into the top of the refrigerator compartment. It pours down over your food like a like a fluid. It is technically um and then it behaves as a fluid. Yeah. It goes back into the uh freezer compartment. So, it's carrying the the moisture off of all of your fresh foods. Oh, it recirculates. Yes. Oh, I didn't I thought it was a one-way deal. Okay. So, no. So that that's a recirculating. Yeah. Well, because it's the coldest air that's available to replace the air being pulled out of the freezer, right? Okay. So, it's essentially pumping the the the humidity and the moisture off of your fresh foods onto your frozen foods. So, that weird taste on old ice is off your onions and your chicken and your Is that why things get um icy in the freezer? That's why they ice up in the freezer. Or you got a bad door door seal. Sometimes that happens. But yeah, um but yeah, that's the frost and freezer burn and weird flavors in the freezer stuff that's coming off all your fresh foods. So having two separate units or in a lot of built-in fridges, not all of them, but a lot of them, even if it's one piece, there'll be two compressors, one for the freezer, one for the fridge. It's one of the reasons they're so much more expensive. Exactly. And they're also designed to last 20 years. Right. So like Subzero, MA, who would you say are the built-in the built-in Bosch, Thermodor, Gagenau, Lee Bear, even GE, Monogram, the Monogram line, which monogram we got to be careful with. Some of theirs have two compressors. Some don't. Okay. But all the Subzero, all the MA, the Bosch Thermodor, all for sure those guys do great. And then those are the those are the built-in style. They're typically taller. Yep. They're shallower, 7 ft tall, right? And they're designed to build into a cabinet. So, the freestanding fridges are on wheels. Like, you can you can grab that thing and slide it out. U the built-in fridges, they go in, they lock in place through whatever mechanism that manufacturer decided was appropriate. They screw in. That's it. They don't come out unless you're like, you know what you're doing. And it's a good thing because they're big, 7 feet tall. You know, their their their footprint is less than 24 in deep. So they're they're actually a tip hazard. So we don't play with those, right? They're they get installed or they're, you know, they're left in the crates and then you can do those now where like you can get that super flush look where we put cabinet doors on them and they don't we have one here in the showroom, Mila, we got from you guys that you can come in you like when you look across you don't even know there's a fridge over there. Right. It's to the point it's they've gotten so good at it. It's really funny. A bunch of the single family spec builders, they refuse to put cabinet panels on them because sometimes people can't find the fridge. I believe it. And ours we have over here is we've got touch latch. So there's not even any handles on them. Yeah. So that's a thermodor. Uh oh, it's a thermodor. Yeah, that push to open concept is on a thermodor. Okay. Thermodor. Sorry. Thermodor, not me.
Here's one people talk a lot about is matching brands. We touched on that. I I'm not I don't think it's necessary that I like to buy the best thing for the application. And I think like one of the ones I see it happen a lot I think is dishwashers because they're made by fewer people and you put somebody else's name on it. And then I really think that's the case with hoods and a lot of at least the blowers. Yeah. And so a lot of hoods are OEM. That's absolutely true. Pretty much all of the blowers are OEM. There's a couple exceptions, but that's very rare. Um, there's one manufacturer I absolutely love called Vent a Hood out of Texas. They'll make just about anything you want. If you want a hood that's brass or copper, antiqu, hammered, you know, 160 different colors, um, all of that stuff is amazing. And their blower is theirs, right? Um, it's pretty unique. It's pretty And you'll find that blower in many branded products other than Venta Hood. No. No. They're exclusive. Yeah. It's So they don't brand for other people. No, there it's they have in the past and it's exceedingly rare. Last company that I heard of that they were OEMing for was called H. Uh very very high-end. Yes. And last I heard H was actually retracting. Okay. Uh so I don't know if that's happening or not off the top of my head right now. Okay. Um but they did OEM for Viking in ages past. Um I think they did for decor many many years ago. Um, but the biggest hood manufacturer by far is Brone. And almost all blowers are coming either from Brone, um, or there's there's one other company I can't remember the name of right now, but Zephr is another major hood brand. Uh, Best and Brone are the same company. Ah, okay. So, Best is the upper end arm of Brone. Okay. So, like the um years ago, we'd have trouble for a client with a back order situation. we could actually sub out a brone blower if we had a back order for a client on a Wolf blower. So, there were little tricks like that that we learned. We don't do that anymore. We got to be careful with this stuff. Um, but the shell of the hood is really where the cosmetic impact is. And because it's so high, it's visible from every place in the kitchen. That's a massive factor for most people. Sure. And there's hood liners, which is that's basically you're buying the guts of the hood from me. You're providing the cabinetry material or the box around it of whatever. Sometimes we'll build them, sometimes it's cabinets, and then you and then you see the lights and the the controls are part of what we get from the lights, the blowers, the filters, all the functionality comes from me. The cosmetic comes from your team. Um I mean, I've seen them done. Stuckco, mosaics, all kinds of crazy stuff. Absolutely. And then there's, you know, classic wall hoods, chimney hoods. uh you get into custom stuff or you know we try not to do it because they don't work well but downdrafts um oh yeah most people are not happy with them downdrafts I mean we're almost to the point that that we really don't want to install them because they're just almost never going to work or meet the expectation of the client well that's the client that doesn't this doesn't work I told you it wasn't going to work I told you this thing was I've had that conversation so many times but that's the client who doesn't cook who doesn't care who they just need to pass code for their stuff and that you could leave their cooktop not plugged in like that range you were talking about 100%. So tell me if you would state or would you agree with the statement kind of the thing I was looking here is like what should you splurge on versus save on and I would add to that or sort of as a part of that question that when I talk to people a lot about doing kitchens most of the kitchens we go into that we're talking about doing they have freestanding fridges I would say 70 or 80% you know there are those that have the built-in refrigerator already that we're remodeling the kitchen I mean and that's at an upper end home or blah blah blah But for the most part, they they are freestanding. And but these can be 1.4 1.8 reaching $2 million in value. Yeah. And one of the things I tell people a lot is that I don't really care whose brand it is, but if you're doing a kitchen today that I think in a house of this value, you should absolutely do a built-in refrigerator. That it's befitting the home. If you're going to sell this house at some point down the road and someone walks in to buy a $2 million or approaching $2 million or more than $2 million house and they see a freestanding refrigerator there, I I think that is out of sync with the expectation of a home at that value. Overwhelmingly, I will agree with you. And I so I I push that like, okay, so I you agree with that statement. Great. Excellent. But what about should you splurge on versus save on? Where is that strategic disproportionate spend for you? Again, we come back to what's important to the client, right? Typically, the splurge is on cooking. Okay. Um, for the client who's more concerned about aesthetics, that's typically more of a splurge on either the hood or the refrigeration. Okay? Because both of those are a bigger cosmetic impact than the cooking is. Um, and to kind of wrap this up to a question that you had before about do we do matchy matchy appliances that are all the same brand or to do we do mix and match again that's going to be up to the client. There are a lot of manufacturers that will incentivize using their products financially. Sure. So promotions and whatnot. Well, that's something I'll call you like, "Hey, what's coming up? I got need a whole package. Like if you buy this and this, we'll give you that." Right. You know, Fodor has been doing it for years, right? and you'll say don't order until next month because I know there's a deal coming. You know that or the rumor is there's a deal. Maybe you don't know for sure the rumor is there's a thing coming up. The other one that happens more often is hey I heard about a price increase. Let's get this ordered now. Then we can lock in the current pricing. Right? So the the the the matching or not, that's a divide that I typically see in builders because builders get heavily incentivized to do matchy matchy for everything. Of course, the manufacturers want all of their stuff in there to give them a better deal. Most of the custom kitchens that I work on, there's more of a best in category function or they'll, you know, say they splurge wildly and they do the the the Wolf induction range and a custom hood and they're like, you know what, we killed our budget on this, so we're going to need to do freestanding fridges over here. There's stuff to kind of cheat it a little bit where it can look like a built-in even if it's freestanding. We do that. We put panels around them, you know, and so they give them that kind of built-in look. Yep. uh with a freestanding fridge. So there's there's ways there's ways to do that for sure. But in that so the weird very very rough number when I came into the business again you know 20 25 years ago the rough concept was around what was it like 2% the value of the home. So a million-doll house we expected to get around $20,000 in appliances. And this was how long ago? Uh it's around 20 years ago. Okay. 2% value of home for the appliance package, right? And and double check my math on that, please. But so in modern days, the property values around here have gone so insane that it's more like.1%. So a million-doll home today, we expect to get around $10,000 worth of appliances, you know, 10 10 to 15. Uh a $2 million house, we're talking more like 20 to $30,000 worth of appliances is kind of the benchmark for it. And that's where like you got a, you know, a tiny house with this gorgeous view and it's worth 2 million. Maybe that's not warranted there because the view is what's going to sell it, right? So, there's always an exception to the rule, but that that 20 to $30,000 package affords a built-in fridge. So, that very much supports your concept, right? I Yeah, I think that that's a I talk to people. I'm like, look, it's your thing. I don't even You got to talk to Andrew about appliances. I'm not I don't get anything out of the appliances. You just got to design around them. He wanted to talk to me so you don't have problems. Yeah. Um, what would you say uh if I was to say like, okay, what is the exciting, you know, what what's going on in the lab with appliances? What's the new trend? What's the thing that's exciting or the stuff that's coming? What about smart appliances, connected appliances? What what is there anything that is like cool and you know what out there that you would say is interesting or that you're aware of? We've talked about it a ton, but the biggest growth edge in our industry right now is induction still. Okay, that is exploding. Um, in the last, what is it, year and a half, most of the R&D from all of these companies has borne fruit and that we've seen new induction products from almost every major manufacturer. I may need to get a new cooktop and just get on the game for updated wine. Let me know when. I just got drop in. So, we got a hole. Just drop it in there. And I got the 50 amps there already. So, I'm good to go in most instances, I think. Yeah. Um, now, one thing that you surprised me, another thing that I had was completely unaware of when we were talking beforehand and kind of prepping for this was what you said about the dryer. Remember what you told me about the dryer, right? Back. Heat pump dryers. Heat pump dryer. So jumping to the laundry category for a moment is the heat. So dryers right now, right? Washers or washers, right? Front load, still top load. Most of us are familiar with front load washers these days. Um the front load washers are way more energy efficient. But the weird part most people don't realize is a front load washer actually uses more electricity than a topload washer. M the reason it's more energy efficient in the net usage of the machine is because the front load machine spins so much faster. The clothes by comparison to a top load washer are half or 3/4 dry when they go in the dryer. When they go into the dryer. So the dryer is on for half the time, right? Because there is no bigger energy hog in a residential home than an electric dryer. They're pulling in this wonderful conditioned air, whether it's heated or cooled, heating it up, and then pumping it straight out of your house with your, you know, like your heated air and and the moisture right out, right out that dryer vent. So, a bunch of companies, so in Europe, it's been super common for a very long time to have what they call condenser dryers. Okay? The traditional condenser dryer warms air, moves that across the clothes. It picks up a little bit of moisture. That warm air then goes over a cool plate and the water condenses like a glass of ice water on a hot day. It in the traditional heat the drain. Yeah. So, it actually goes out the drain with the washer. Okay. Um that traditional condenser style takes a lot longer and people are typically not real happy with them. Okay. Now, the new thing in dryers is heat pump dryers. So, you're exaggerating that temperature differential dramatically. So, you got heat pump inherently, one end of its hot. So, it takes that hot air, moves it over the clothes, and then moves that over a refrigerated plate. So, that temperature differential being so exaggerated, that's like that, you know, 85 90°ree day. You sit out on the patio with a glass of ice water and it's just pouring water off the outside. It's super effective. So, that also needs a drain. It does need a drain as well. Okay. Where a regular gas electric dryer does not need a drain. Correct. We hook up the power, we hook up the vent, you're done. If it has a steam capacity, there is a water supply to it. Sometimes they have those, sometimes they don't. Um, but there's no dryer, there's no external venting required. So, in a lot of condo projects, the towers that I'm working on, those are actually a major appeal. It also gets some energy credits. Oh, so no vent on a heat pump dryer. Correct. No 4 in. Right. Okay. So, they don't have to deal with any puncturing of the envelope of the building and running that venting is expensive. So, the dryer of course is going to be a little more expensive and they do take a little bit longer than a traditional vented dryer does. The weird part is because a modern frontload washer takes around 45 minutes to an hour. If you're doing a traditional vented dryer, they're typically 20 to 40 minutes. So if we increase the time to line up with the time used on the washer, so we're about 45 minutes to an hour on the dryer on both on both whether with the heat pump dryer, you're gaining massive amounts of energy efficiency and it's way more delicate on the clothes. So especially because you're not just like scorching it, right? Just blasting that hot air at it, which I'm sure wears out the fabric, right? Essentially. Yeah. Yeah. Traditional, you know, vented dryers, they'll crank up to 150, 160 degrees Fahrenheit, which that's hard on clothes, right? Yeah. Anything. I mean, really, not just clothes, but anything. Um, okay. So, let's see here. Refrigeration, storage, cooking, deep dive, decisions. Um, smart technology connected. Let like like that's out there. That's a thing. I mean, I see the refrigerators with this TV and order the thing. like is that is that here yet or is that still a little early? Is there value in that? The biggest value to it that I see is actually for diagnosing for service technicians. In some cases, if it's set up properly, it can actually So there's MA in particular came out with this concept. They were the first ones that I saw that did it. If you registered your product appropriately, the appliance could self diagnose and send a message to MA. send only so and say, "Hey, my compressor is starting to go bad." Mila would get that information. One of their um call center people would call you and say, "Hey, I see your compressor starting to have some issues. We'd like to send a service technician out to to check this out for real." Now, the inherent problem with that is a lot of people don't register their appliances. Sure. So Mila had all of these red flags going off and they could see the serial numbers and they could see the model numbers and they could see the problem, but they had no idea who had it, right? There's nothing they could do with it. Exactly. So, I mean, you got to have you gota you got to close the loop if you really want that. Personally, I want my appliances to do what they're supposed to do primarily. Right. Um, I do have a number of clients. Robin actually got a GE laundry set where she downloaded the app on her phone and connected to her Wi-Fi and it would give her an ETA for when the wash was supposed to be done and it would give her an alert when it actually was done. So, she could be out in the garden doing whatever she was doing and she'd get pinged, oh, time to change the laundry. So, I've had feedback that some clients really like that, right? You don't have to use it. Um, so but are you overpaying for technology that you aren't using kind of thing? Is that I mean in a lot of cases if you're getting a certain model feature level, right, you can't delete it. There's only so much you can do that. Yeah, I got you. All right, so we're going along. Thank you for your patience. I hope that this has been um educational and informative and you found some value in this. But before we go, Andrew, is there something that we haven't talked about that I didn't ask or we left out that you would say for people at home that you know, sort of regular homeowner level of experience and information about appliances? Something that you would say, "Oh, this or talk about that or learn this or be aware of this or whatever is what's what would that be if there was something?" One of the categories that's most often overlooked, we touched on a little bit, but is companion cooking, that kind of cooking adjacent um speed ovens, right? So, that's a miniature convection oven with a microwave function. Or there are steam ovens, which are typically miniature convection ovens with steam functions, and they can typically cook in 100% steam. Mhm. So if we have a client who is really health focused, a lot of people have kind of gone off microwaves. Okay. So steam isn't it's the best way to reheat. Um understanding the science behind all of this, it's changed how I cook in a bunch of different ways. Okay. Um so like inherently when you're storing food, it dries out a little bit, right? So you get that, you know, fantastic steak that you had at say Ruth's Chris or, you know, Metropolitan. You reheat it the next day with steam. It's almost as good as it was the day before because you're reintroducing a little bit of moisture to it. Um, so those things are things that I would think about. Steam cooks almost as fast as a microwave, not quite. And it's typically a better flavor, a better result, and healthier. So, it's amazing for vegetables. It is amazing for any chicken or fish. Um, a lot of Asian food features steaming pretty heavily. Most of us have been to dim sum at some point in time. Almost all of that steamed. So those are things to think about if and there's always a learning curve for clients too. So if they're willing to get through that learning curve, they're amazing. Yeah. The combo. Yeah. That's something we talk about a lot. The combo unit, the microwave, it's a an oven that can either function as a microwave. Yep. Or it can function as a convection oven. They they broil, right? Like you depending on the on the on the brand, some have some will have broiling capability, some won't. But so it that's but you can't be both at the same time. If you put something in it and you're cooking the casserole for 45 minutes, you can't then like throw something in the microwave and heat you got to take it out. Right. Right. Right. Right. So, but it does dual function. They will actually typically mix. So, you can do like you know 25% convection or 25% microwave and you know convection at 350. So, I've seen examples where um you know GE has this product that has a lot of this functionality. It's called an Advantium, right? They pioneered that technology. Yeah. Yeah. They basically built, from what I read, I remember this is a long time ago is they built the thing and then said, "Okay, how do we make it work?" Pretty much and they just started playing around with it. Yeah. They did it. They had that one uses a bunch of other technology we won't go too deep into, but it's got a menu driven control system. Yeah. And I saw this demonstration being super skeptical of it being like the old school cook. Uh, I saw a chicken like they hit the chicken button basically, put a whole chicken in there and it was 25 minutes and it looked and tasted like it came out of a convection or a normal oven, right? It was amazing. Um, I was back there for a training a million years ago. I did biscuits in the Advancium and they were fantastic. You know, but they did this like uh, you know, kind of Iron Chef competition at the end of the weekend. So, we did you know you were in Louisville, Kentucky, where most GE appliances are made. Um, and you know, kind of playing to the the chefs for the judges there. We did biscuits, a sausage patty on top of that, a poached egg on top of that, and then a jalapeno, which was our secret ingredient, infused sausage gravy over it. So, it was like halfway between eggs benedict and biscuits and gravy. Yeah. The country benedict. Yeah, pretty much. The southern benedict, if you will. Yeah. Okay. So, and and we cleaned up, of course, but you know, a biscuit cooked in one of those speed ovens. Nobody wants a microwave biscuit. No. That's gross. Right. So, real quick, my cheat on the microwave because I don't have a steam oven is that I know what you're talking about. And so, the way that I do that if I'm going to be heating reheating something is typically a reheat thing is that I'll put a little shallow dish in the microwave with water in it. Yep. Get it hot, boiling, rolling off some steam, then put whatever it is in there with it. And so I'm creating this steam m while I'm reheating something in the microwave to b to try and cut down on the drying out. Solid cheat. Now, if you can try to keep those in the same container cuz too much steam in a microwave will be hard on the microwave. Right. No, I Yeah, I cover it so that it's like sort of trying to trap it. One of the cheats that I do in my oven. So I've got sourdough that I play with occasionally and that thick chewy crust on sourdough that everybody loves in the artisan breads is typically from steam. you know, refer to my bagel baking years, right? Uh so I'll actually put one of my cast iron pans in the bottom of the oven while I'm preheating the oven and give it a longer preheat time so that heat soaks into the pan. I'll put in my bread and throw half a cup of water in that cast iron pan and it gets that initial steam effect. So there's ways to incorporate that if it's more of an occasional thing, right? If I can ever afford my kitchen remodel, which I've got designed out, u I do have it designed to put a steam oven in. I want one. Beautiful. All right, folks. We're going to go. We went long today. I appreciate it, Andrew. So many things we didn't talk about. Um, so many more things to get into. We could deep dive on some of this. Um, maybe we'll have you back do another one. I would love it. There's just so much to talk about. Filtration on refrigerators, air filtration, you know, just so many things. So, thank you guys. Charlie with Let's Build with Armada podcast. uh Armada Design and Build here in Belleview, Washington. If you're thinking about a project, you want to do a kitchen, Andrew at Metropolitan Appliance in Seattle. We'll have all his contact information in the show notes, linky, that kind of thing. They can reach out to you if they need help on deciding about some appliances, coming to see these appliances. You guys have a huge showroom with tons of stuff to see and touch and open and play with kind of thing. Um so, if you're thinking about a kitchen design, give us a call. Andrew for appliances. A wealth of knowledge. I really appreciate it. Thank you guys. We'll see you in the next one.
what would you say is the most important decision appliance related in the kitchen? Like if you had to rank them like the number one thing you should think about the, you know, most important thing to consider for from a homeowner residential, we're not talking about multif family or any of that kind of stuff. Our clientele, you know, is typically the mid to upper end, you know, home kind of residential use. I I actually will kind of turn this on its head a little bit. The most important thing for me to understand and you to understand from a client is how they use their kitchen. I agree. So like we have to know how they're using it because that's going to inform all of our decision. It's going to give us the information we need to make the most um beneficial recommendation. Yeah. You know, like like if you say, "I never cook. I don't care at all." That's what's pretty and affordable. Right. There we go. Right. And fits the level of the home. Right. Right. You know, what's befitting the house? If we've got somebody who's cooking like the Swedish chef in there and, you know, they're really a cook on the stove top, there's a lot of kind of intuitive work that's happening on the cooking surface. Uh, then we want to emphasize the cooking surface. If we've got somebody who's a real scientific mind and they love baking because that's the that's very structured, right? Then we want to emphasize the ovens and we want to make sure to have those ovens at an ergonomic height. So, a range, putting the the oven below the cooking surface all in one piece is in many cases the right answer. But for somebody who's really focused on cooking or baking, having a wall oven, it's way easier on the knees and the back and, you know, if you're gimping around like I am, right? And certainly as we age, I mean, we're even seeing that with elevated dishwashers, huge, you know, bringing those up off the floor so you don't have to get down on the ground. There's even some ovens, uh, I think we probably talked about them a time or two, where they have sides swinging doors where Bosch and Thermodor specifically, they'll have a door on their oven that is one door that will swing 180 degrees completely out of the way. So, somebody who's got mobility issues, which I'm particularly sensitive to at the moment, uh, can really get right up to it, right? I don't have to go over the door that comes down and it's pushing me back 25 in or something from where my stuff is, you know, to get to it. Like that's a very commercial like the double the French doors. That's very commercial. It is very commercial. I don't really love that in most applications because you're changing from having to raise your elbows to having to pull your elbows in to make sure that you're not touching those doors cuz the the French door oven doors, they'll open to about 45°, right? So, you still have that hot surface to be very careful of. I've only ever seen them in commercial kitchens. So, I mean, I I mean, I guess they exist in a residential application. I basically grew up in commercial kitchens. So, it's at one point I worked at a bagel bakery where they had a walk-in oven, which is kind of a creepy concept, right? Okay. A little bit. All right. So, um, get into some sort of generic generalizations of appliances. Is it true, and I think you may have touched on this already, and I may know the answer, but I just think it's worth asking this way. Is it true that the cost of an appliance compared to something else is always a good measure determiner of quality? are expensive appliances better. Um, is that a straight line? Is that a thing or no? Not necessarily always the case. How would you Not always the case. Most of the time, yes. Um, the hard part is some categories are full of OEM products. Um, most specifically I'm thinking about microwaves. Uh, it doesn't matter if it says, you know, you know, Viking or, you know, Thermodor or whatever. Microwaves. the core microwave components are typically coming from all the same places, right? So, usually that's about having it match everything else. Sure. Um, a lot, not all, but a lot of dishwashers are rebranded. Yep. Uh, so the roll out drawer microwave, that one is a particularly guilty in that department, right? I think only one company makes that. Sharp is the only manufacturer of microwave drawers. So, it doesn't matter if it says Viking, Wolf, Decor, you know, whatever it is. Yeah, GE, KitchenAid, all of those. Um, so yeah, that's that that's kind of a funny one. Again, in some cases, having the kitchen match is super important to a client, right? If we're putting that on the back side of an island where it's not really visible, then we just do the sharp because we save a few bucks, right? And it's fine. It's the same thing anyway. Okay, I like that. And now in other categories, like if we're talking about ranges specifically, um ranges exist in all three of those categories that I mentioned earlier. The bargain basement, the the mid-level stuff, and the the the fancy pants level, right? The the basic level, like I mentioned before, they're so inexpensive, they typically don't get repaired because it usually costs at least 150, 200 bucks to have a service tech come out to your house. If the range was 5,00 600 bucks, why are you going to spend that money on it? Just replace it. Okay. Well, that might be a spot right there to just clarify some terms. Okay. Right. So, when Sorry, catch me on those. Yeah. No, I got you. And I And then this happens. I make sure. So, what a range or at least to me when I say a range, what I'm talking about is a combination cooking surface top and an oven. All right. All in one piece. All in one piece. That's a That's a range. Yes. And then an oven is just the oven. Yeah. Right. And so it can be installed on the wall. It can be installed below a countertop. Yep. Um, that's my setup. I went with cooktop and oven, but it's right on top. They're together and I it's in the same place. So, I could have done a range. Well, you like the genulect then. I wanted Yeah, I I wanted that look and not the range, but because I did the induction with a regular electric range. One of the keys was the shielding between the two that you have to have special like you can't all of those can't be married like that. Like, no. Yeah. You can't mix and match brands with those. You want to be real specific with how you're doing that stuff. So, the shielding was important there. Um, all right. Just sort of flying around here. How does one choose the right size refrigerator? Again, back to habits, I bet is going to be the answer. Very much, right? How often do you shop? How many people live in the house? That's where I was going to go, right? Is is really it's about how many people are in the house, how often they shop is a big aspect of it. Um, if you got the the the family who lives out in the middle of nowhere and they go to Costco every 2 weeks and they're buying a ton of frozen food, we need a big freezer, right? Maybe an extra freezer in the garage or something makes sense there, too, because that's going to be more cost effective, right? So, really again coming back to habits. Yep. How do you use and work in your space and those decisions are going to be vary for everybody. Um, one of the things back to my where I was talking about um, kind of as I start talking to people about remodeling their kitchen and like address the different type of appliances is a rule that I use is that if I'm on the fence or the client's on the fence, say between the the 48 in range and a 36-in range is that I always recommend that we start the planning and the design with the bigger y unit in mind and design around that. And then if they decide to go with the smaller one, great. No problem. They get a little bit more they get a little bit more countertop. They get a little bit more cabinetry. Where I found, and I learned this lesson the hard way when back years and years ago, someone was on the fence, went with the smaller one, then they decided to go with the bigger one, and then they felt like I had taken their firstborn when I when I reduced the amount of countertop that they had. And nobody likes to see the cost go up either from my p on my end. Right. Well, I think it for me it was more about, oh, my countertop is smaller. Well, you made, you know, 12 inches of counter top. Yeah, you made the the thing bigger. So, whenever I see people on the fence about that, I always plan and suggest that we start with the bigger one and then if you go down, great. If you stay there, beautiful. Everything's worked out in the beginning. Okay. Um, one thing just to bounce back to refrigeration for a second too. Uh, one detail that is not obvious to most people. In built-in refrigeration, the compressors in the refrigerator compartments, especially if you're doing the columns. So, you'll have a compressor for the freezer. That's going to be a traditional frozen compressor. Maintains a lack of humidity, sub-zero temperatures or around zero degrees Fahrenheit. Uh, the refrigerator compressors in most brands, if not all, built-in refrigerators will do what's called a wet compressor. So, it's a different style compressor, produces 33° air with 60% humidity, right? And that's a big deal because it changes how the food's stored. The It's like using your whole fridge as a crisper and then your actual crisper ends up being like an uber crisper. Okay. The um one of the classic examples is from Subzero where I saw a demonstration from them where they put an apple in one of their fridges and they put a little post-it note with a date. 6 months later, I was in their showroom and that apple looked like something you'd pull out of a fruit bowl and eat. So, food preservation in the built-in fridges is significantly better. We talked about range, what that is. Oven, cooktop. I think everybody gets that. So, let's go back to the refrigeration. So, there's two types or two categories in my mind of refrigerators. There is freestanding. Yep. Right. And then there is built-in. Yep. And freestanding would be the classic LG GE, you know, KitchenAid like finished sides and a top. And you can it's meant to be seen from more than just the front. And they're typically deeper and they're typically shorter than the other type that we're talking about. the and they have one compressor almost always. There are some exceptions, but almost always there's one compressor, right? And this is where the thing happens when your food dries out in your in your typical freestanding refrigerator. You have to put everything in a lid or seal it up because the compressor cools to the freezer. Yep. with very little heat. You've been paying attention when I talk about this. So, the compressor only feeds cold air into the freezer and when the refrigerator calls for cold air, some kind of baffle thing opens and the cold air travels from the freezer into the fridge until the thermostat says, "Oh, it's cold enough." Yep. Closes the baffle. And so, the downside of that is that the air that's coming in has no humidity. No air. That's why things dry out. Yeah. Frozen air can't contain humidity. Exactly. Correct. And there's a a baffle system and a little fan that pushes air. So, it pushes the cold air because it's heavier into the top of the refrigerator compartment. It pours down over your food like a like a fluid. It is technically um and then it behaves as a fluid. Yeah. It goes back into the uh freezer compartment. So, it's carrying the the moisture off of all of your fresh foods. Oh, it recirculates. Yes. Oh, I didn't I thought it was a one-way deal. Okay. So, no. So that that's a recirculating. Yeah. Well, because it's the coldest air that's available to replace the air being pulled out of the freezer, right? Okay. So, it's essentially pumping the the the humidity and the moisture off of your fresh foods onto your frozen foods. So, that weird taste on old ice is off your onions and your chicken and your Is that why things get um icy in the freezer? That's why they ice up in the freezer. Or you got a bad door door seal. Sometimes that happens. But yeah, um but yeah, that's the frost and freezer burn and weird flavors in the freezer stuff that's coming off all your fresh foods. So having two separate units or in a lot of built-in fridges, not all of them, but a lot of them, even if it's one piece, there'll be two compressors, one for the freezer, one for the fridge. It's one of the reasons they're so much more expensive. Exactly. And they're also designed to last 20 years. Right. So like Subzero, MA, who would you say are the built-in the built-in Bosch, Thermodor, Gagenau, Lee Bear, even GE, Monogram, the Monogram line, which monogram we got to be careful with. Some of theirs have two compressors. Some don't. Okay. But all the Subzero, all the MA, the Bosch Thermodor, all for sure those guys do great. And then those are the those are the built-in style. They're typically taller. Yep. They're shallower, 7 ft tall, right? And they're designed to build into a cabinet. So, the freestanding fridges are on wheels. Like, you can you can grab that thing and slide it out. U the built-in fridges, they go in, they lock in place through whatever mechanism that manufacturer decided was appropriate. They screw in. That's it. They don't come out unless you're like, you know what you're doing. And it's a good thing because they're big, 7 feet tall. You know, their their their footprint is less than 24 in deep. So they're they're actually a tip hazard. So we don't play with those, right? They're they get installed or they're, you know, they're left in the crates and then you can do those now where like you can get that super flush look where we put cabinet doors on them and they don't we have one here in the showroom, Mila, we got from you guys that you can come in you like when you look across you don't even know there's a fridge over there. Right. It's to the point it's they've gotten so good at it. It's really funny. A bunch of the single family spec builders, they refuse to put cabinet panels on them because sometimes people can't find the fridge. I believe it. And ours we have over here is we've got touch latch. So there's not even any handles on them. Yeah. So that's a thermodor. Uh oh, it's a thermodor. Yeah, that push to open concept is on a thermodor. Okay. Thermodor. Sorry. Thermodor, not me.
Here's one people talk a lot about is matching brands. We touched on that. I I'm not I don't think it's necessary that I like to buy the best thing for the application. And I think like one of the ones I see it happen a lot I think is dishwashers because they're made by fewer people and you put somebody else's name on it. And then I really think that's the case with hoods and a lot of at least the blowers. Yeah. And so a lot of hoods are OEM. That's absolutely true. Pretty much all of the blowers are OEM. There's a couple exceptions, but that's very rare. Um, there's one manufacturer I absolutely love called Vent a Hood out of Texas. They'll make just about anything you want. If you want a hood that's brass or copper, antiqu, hammered, you know, 160 different colors, um, all of that stuff is amazing. And their blower is theirs, right? Um, it's pretty unique. It's pretty And you'll find that blower in many branded products other than Venta Hood. No. No. They're exclusive. Yeah. It's So they don't brand for other people. No, there it's they have in the past and it's exceedingly rare. Last company that I heard of that they were OEMing for was called H. Uh very very high-end. Yes. And last I heard H was actually retracting. Okay. Uh so I don't know if that's happening or not off the top of my head right now. Okay. Um but they did OEM for Viking in ages past. Um I think they did for decor many many years ago. Um, but the biggest hood manufacturer by far is Brone. And almost all blowers are coming either from Brone, um, or there's there's one other company I can't remember the name of right now, but Zephr is another major hood brand. Uh, Best and Brone are the same company. Ah, okay. So, Best is the upper end arm of Brone. Okay. So, like the um years ago, we'd have trouble for a client with a back order situation. we could actually sub out a brone blower if we had a back order for a client on a Wolf blower. So, there were little tricks like that that we learned. We don't do that anymore. We got to be careful with this stuff. Um, but the shell of the hood is really where the cosmetic impact is. And because it's so high, it's visible from every place in the kitchen. That's a massive factor for most people. Sure. And there's hood liners, which is that's basically you're buying the guts of the hood from me. You're providing the cabinetry material or the box around it of whatever. Sometimes we'll build them, sometimes it's cabinets, and then you and then you see the lights and the the controls are part of what we get from the lights, the blowers, the filters, all the functionality comes from me. The cosmetic comes from your team. Um I mean, I've seen them done. Stuckco, mosaics, all kinds of crazy stuff. Absolutely. And then there's, you know, classic wall hoods, chimney hoods. uh you get into custom stuff or you know we try not to do it because they don't work well but downdrafts um oh yeah most people are not happy with them downdrafts I mean we're almost to the point that that we really don't want to install them because they're just almost never going to work or meet the expectation of the client well that's the client that doesn't this doesn't work I told you it wasn't going to work I told you this thing was I've had that conversation so many times but that's the client who doesn't cook who doesn't care who they just need to pass code for their stuff and that you could leave their cooktop not plugged in like that range you were talking about 100%. So tell me if you would state or would you agree with the statement kind of the thing I was looking here is like what should you splurge on versus save on and I would add to that or sort of as a part of that question that when I talk to people a lot about doing kitchens most of the kitchens we go into that we're talking about doing they have freestanding fridges I would say 70 or 80% you know there are those that have the built-in refrigerator already that we're remodeling the kitchen I mean and that's at an upper end home or blah blah blah But for the most part, they they are freestanding. And but these can be 1.4 1.8 reaching $2 million in value. Yeah. And one of the things I tell people a lot is that I don't really care whose brand it is, but if you're doing a kitchen today that I think in a house of this value, you should absolutely do a built-in refrigerator. That it's befitting the home. If you're going to sell this house at some point down the road and someone walks in to buy a $2 million or approaching $2 million or more than $2 million house and they see a freestanding refrigerator there, I I think that is out of sync with the expectation of a home at that value. Overwhelmingly, I will agree with you. And I so I I push that like, okay, so I you agree with that statement. Great. Excellent. But what about should you splurge on versus save on? Where is that strategic disproportionate spend for you? Again, we come back to what's important to the client, right? Typically, the splurge is on cooking. Okay. Um, for the client who's more concerned about aesthetics, that's typically more of a splurge on either the hood or the refrigeration. Okay? Because both of those are a bigger cosmetic impact than the cooking is. Um, and to kind of wrap this up to a question that you had before about do we do matchy matchy appliances that are all the same brand or to do we do mix and match again that's going to be up to the client. There are a lot of manufacturers that will incentivize using their products financially. Sure. So promotions and whatnot. Well, that's something I'll call you like, "Hey, what's coming up? I got need a whole package. Like if you buy this and this, we'll give you that." Right. You know, Fodor has been doing it for years, right? and you'll say don't order until next month because I know there's a deal coming. You know that or the rumor is there's a deal. Maybe you don't know for sure the rumor is there's a thing coming up. The other one that happens more often is hey I heard about a price increase. Let's get this ordered now. Then we can lock in the current pricing. Right? So the the the the matching or not, that's a divide that I typically see in builders because builders get heavily incentivized to do matchy matchy for everything. Of course, the manufacturers want all of their stuff in there to give them a better deal. Most of the custom kitchens that I work on, there's more of a best in category function or they'll, you know, say they splurge wildly and they do the the the Wolf induction range and a custom hood and they're like, you know what, we killed our budget on this, so we're going to need to do freestanding fridges over here. There's stuff to kind of cheat it a little bit where it can look like a built-in even if it's freestanding. We do that. We put panels around them, you know, and so they give them that kind of built-in look. Yep. uh with a freestanding fridge. So there's there's ways there's ways to do that for sure. But in that so the weird very very rough number when I came into the business again you know 20 25 years ago the rough concept was around what was it like 2% the value of the home. So a million-doll house we expected to get around $20,000 in appliances. And this was how long ago? Uh it's around 20 years ago. Okay. 2% value of home for the appliance package, right? And and double check my math on that, please. But so in modern days, the property values around here have gone so insane that it's more like.1%. So a million-doll home today, we expect to get around $10,000 worth of appliances, you know, 10 10 to 15. Uh a $2 million house, we're talking more like 20 to $30,000 worth of appliances is kind of the benchmark for it. And that's where like you got a, you know, a tiny house with this gorgeous view and it's worth 2 million. Maybe that's not warranted there because the view is what's going to sell it, right? So, there's always an exception to the rule, but that that 20 to $30,000 package affords a built-in fridge. So, that very much supports your concept, right? I Yeah, I think that that's a I talk to people. I'm like, look, it's your thing. I don't even You got to talk to Andrew about appliances. I'm not I don't get anything out of the appliances. You just got to design around them. He wanted to talk to me so you don't have problems. Yeah. Um, what would you say uh if I was to say like, okay, what is the exciting, you know, what what's going on in the lab with appliances? What's the new trend? What's the thing that's exciting or the stuff that's coming? What about smart appliances, connected appliances? What what is there anything that is like cool and you know what out there that you would say is interesting or that you're aware of? We've talked about it a ton, but the biggest growth edge in our industry right now is induction still. Okay, that is exploding. Um, in the last, what is it, year and a half, most of the R&D from all of these companies has borne fruit and that we've seen new induction products from almost every major manufacturer. I may need to get a new cooktop and just get on the game for updated wine. Let me know when. I just got drop in. So, we got a hole. Just drop it in there. And I got the 50 amps there already. So, I'm good to go in most instances, I think. Yeah. Um, now, one thing that you surprised me, another thing that I had was completely unaware of when we were talking beforehand and kind of prepping for this was what you said about the dryer. Remember what you told me about the dryer, right? Back. Heat pump dryers. Heat pump dryer. So jumping to the laundry category for a moment is the heat. So dryers right now, right? Washers or washers, right? Front load, still top load. Most of us are familiar with front load washers these days. Um the front load washers are way more energy efficient. But the weird part most people don't realize is a front load washer actually uses more electricity than a topload washer. M the reason it's more energy efficient in the net usage of the machine is because the front load machine spins so much faster. The clothes by comparison to a top load washer are half or 3/4 dry when they go in the dryer. When they go into the dryer. So the dryer is on for half the time, right? Because there is no bigger energy hog in a residential home than an electric dryer. They're pulling in this wonderful conditioned air, whether it's heated or cooled, heating it up, and then pumping it straight out of your house with your, you know, like your heated air and and the moisture right out, right out that dryer vent. So, a bunch of companies, so in Europe, it's been super common for a very long time to have what they call condenser dryers. Okay? The traditional condenser dryer warms air, moves that across the clothes. It picks up a little bit of moisture. That warm air then goes over a cool plate and the water condenses like a glass of ice water on a hot day. It in the traditional heat the drain. Yeah. So, it actually goes out the drain with the washer. Okay. Um that traditional condenser style takes a lot longer and people are typically not real happy with them. Okay. Now, the new thing in dryers is heat pump dryers. So, you're exaggerating that temperature differential dramatically. So, you got heat pump inherently, one end of its hot. So, it takes that hot air, moves it over the clothes, and then moves that over a refrigerated plate. So, that temperature differential being so exaggerated, that's like that, you know, 85 90°ree day. You sit out on the patio with a glass of ice water and it's just pouring water off the outside. It's super effective. So, that also needs a drain. It does need a drain as well. Okay. Where a regular gas electric dryer does not need a drain. Correct. We hook up the power, we hook up the vent, you're done. If it has a steam capacity, there is a water supply to it. Sometimes they have those, sometimes they don't. Um, but there's no dryer, there's no external venting required. So, in a lot of condo projects, the towers that I'm working on, those are actually a major appeal. It also gets some energy credits. Oh, so no vent on a heat pump dryer. Correct. No 4 in. Right. Okay. So, they don't have to deal with any puncturing of the envelope of the building and running that venting is expensive. So, the dryer of course is going to be a little more expensive and they do take a little bit longer than a traditional vented dryer does. The weird part is because a modern frontload washer takes around 45 minutes to an hour. If you're doing a traditional vented dryer, they're typically 20 to 40 minutes. So if we increase the time to line up with the time used on the washer, so we're about 45 minutes to an hour on the dryer on both on both whether with the heat pump dryer, you're gaining massive amounts of energy efficiency and it's way more delicate on the clothes. So especially because you're not just like scorching it, right? Just blasting that hot air at it, which I'm sure wears out the fabric, right? Essentially. Yeah. Yeah. Traditional, you know, vented dryers, they'll crank up to 150, 160 degrees Fahrenheit, which that's hard on clothes, right? Yeah. Anything. I mean, really, not just clothes, but anything. Um, okay. So, let's see here. Refrigeration, storage, cooking, deep dive, decisions. Um, smart technology connected. Let like like that's out there. That's a thing. I mean, I see the refrigerators with this TV and order the thing. like is that is that here yet or is that still a little early? Is there value in that? The biggest value to it that I see is actually for diagnosing for service technicians. In some cases, if it's set up properly, it can actually So there's MA in particular came out with this concept. They were the first ones that I saw that did it. If you registered your product appropriately, the appliance could self diagnose and send a message to MA. send only so and say, "Hey, my compressor is starting to go bad." Mila would get that information. One of their um call center people would call you and say, "Hey, I see your compressor starting to have some issues. We'd like to send a service technician out to to check this out for real." Now, the inherent problem with that is a lot of people don't register their appliances. Sure. So Mila had all of these red flags going off and they could see the serial numbers and they could see the model numbers and they could see the problem, but they had no idea who had it, right? There's nothing they could do with it. Exactly. So, I mean, you got to have you gota you got to close the loop if you really want that. Personally, I want my appliances to do what they're supposed to do primarily. Right. Um, I do have a number of clients. Robin actually got a GE laundry set where she downloaded the app on her phone and connected to her Wi-Fi and it would give her an ETA for when the wash was supposed to be done and it would give her an alert when it actually was done. So, she could be out in the garden doing whatever she was doing and she'd get pinged, oh, time to change the laundry. So, I've had feedback that some clients really like that, right? You don't have to use it. Um, so but are you overpaying for technology that you aren't using kind of thing? Is that I mean in a lot of cases if you're getting a certain model feature level, right, you can't delete it. There's only so much you can do that. Yeah, I got you. All right, so we're going along. Thank you for your patience. I hope that this has been um educational and informative and you found some value in this. But before we go, Andrew, is there something that we haven't talked about that I didn't ask or we left out that you would say for people at home that you know, sort of regular homeowner level of experience and information about appliances? Something that you would say, "Oh, this or talk about that or learn this or be aware of this or whatever is what's what would that be if there was something?" One of the categories that's most often overlooked, we touched on a little bit, but is companion cooking, that kind of cooking adjacent um speed ovens, right? So, that's a miniature convection oven with a microwave function. Or there are steam ovens, which are typically miniature convection ovens with steam functions, and they can typically cook in 100% steam. Mhm. So if we have a client who is really health focused, a lot of people have kind of gone off microwaves. Okay. So steam isn't it's the best way to reheat. Um understanding the science behind all of this, it's changed how I cook in a bunch of different ways. Okay. Um so like inherently when you're storing food, it dries out a little bit, right? So you get that, you know, fantastic steak that you had at say Ruth's Chris or, you know, Metropolitan. You reheat it the next day with steam. It's almost as good as it was the day before because you're reintroducing a little bit of moisture to it. Um, so those things are things that I would think about. Steam cooks almost as fast as a microwave, not quite. And it's typically a better flavor, a better result, and healthier. So, it's amazing for vegetables. It is amazing for any chicken or fish. Um, a lot of Asian food features steaming pretty heavily. Most of us have been to dim sum at some point in time. Almost all of that steamed. So those are things to think about if and there's always a learning curve for clients too. So if they're willing to get through that learning curve, they're amazing. Yeah. The combo. Yeah. That's something we talk about a lot. The combo unit, the microwave, it's a an oven that can either function as a microwave. Yep. Or it can function as a convection oven. They they broil, right? Like you depending on the on the on the brand, some have some will have broiling capability, some won't. But so it that's but you can't be both at the same time. If you put something in it and you're cooking the casserole for 45 minutes, you can't then like throw something in the microwave and heat you got to take it out. Right. Right. Right. Right. So, but it does dual function. They will actually typically mix. So, you can do like you know 25% convection or 25% microwave and you know convection at 350. So, I've seen examples where um you know GE has this product that has a lot of this functionality. It's called an Advantium, right? They pioneered that technology. Yeah. Yeah. They basically built, from what I read, I remember this is a long time ago is they built the thing and then said, "Okay, how do we make it work?" Pretty much and they just started playing around with it. Yeah. They did it. They had that one uses a bunch of other technology we won't go too deep into, but it's got a menu driven control system. Yeah. And I saw this demonstration being super skeptical of it being like the old school cook. Uh, I saw a chicken like they hit the chicken button basically, put a whole chicken in there and it was 25 minutes and it looked and tasted like it came out of a convection or a normal oven, right? It was amazing. Um, I was back there for a training a million years ago. I did biscuits in the Advancium and they were fantastic. You know, but they did this like uh, you know, kind of Iron Chef competition at the end of the weekend. So, we did you know you were in Louisville, Kentucky, where most GE appliances are made. Um, and you know, kind of playing to the the chefs for the judges there. We did biscuits, a sausage patty on top of that, a poached egg on top of that, and then a jalapeno, which was our secret ingredient, infused sausage gravy over it. So, it was like halfway between eggs benedict and biscuits and gravy. Yeah. The country benedict. Yeah, pretty much. The southern benedict, if you will. Yeah. Okay. So, and and we cleaned up, of course, but you know, a biscuit cooked in one of those speed ovens. Nobody wants a microwave biscuit. No. That's gross. Right. So, real quick, my cheat on the microwave because I don't have a steam oven is that I know what you're talking about. And so, the way that I do that if I'm going to be heating reheating something is typically a reheat thing is that I'll put a little shallow dish in the microwave with water in it. Yep. Get it hot, boiling, rolling off some steam, then put whatever it is in there with it. And so I'm creating this steam m while I'm reheating something in the microwave to b to try and cut down on the drying out. Solid cheat. Now, if you can try to keep those in the same container cuz too much steam in a microwave will be hard on the microwave. Right. No, I Yeah, I cover it so that it's like sort of trying to trap it. One of the cheats that I do in my oven. So I've got sourdough that I play with occasionally and that thick chewy crust on sourdough that everybody loves in the artisan breads is typically from steam. you know, refer to my bagel baking years, right? Uh so I'll actually put one of my cast iron pans in the bottom of the oven while I'm preheating the oven and give it a longer preheat time so that heat soaks into the pan. I'll put in my bread and throw half a cup of water in that cast iron pan and it gets that initial steam effect. So there's ways to incorporate that if it's more of an occasional thing, right? If I can ever afford my kitchen remodel, which I've got designed out, u I do have it designed to put a steam oven in. I want one. Beautiful. All right, folks. We're going to go. We went long today. I appreciate it, Andrew. So many things we didn't talk about. Um, so many more things to get into. We could deep dive on some of this. Um, maybe we'll have you back do another one. I would love it. There's just so much to talk about. Filtration on refrigerators, air filtration, you know, just so many things. So, thank you guys. Charlie with Let's Build with Armada podcast. uh Armada Design and Build here in Belleview, Washington. If you're thinking about a project, you want to do a kitchen, Andrew at Metropolitan Appliance in Seattle. We'll have all his contact information in the show notes, linky, that kind of thing. They can reach out to you if they need help on deciding about some appliances, coming to see these appliances. You guys have a huge showroom with tons of stuff to see and touch and open and play with kind of thing. Um so, if you're thinking about a kitchen design, give us a call. Andrew for appliances. A wealth of knowledge. I really appreciate it. Thank you guys. We'll see you in the next one.
