Kitchen Deals -> Small Appliances

The importance of high quality knives can't be stressed enough! Buy the best you can and expect to spend some serious money. It is better to buy a couple of excellent knives and slowly add to your collection rather than buying an entire set of low quality knives. Start with a chef knife and paring knife. You will also want to buy a sharpening steel.

There seems to be little difference between hard wood and plastic cutting boards from a safety standpoint, as long as they are properly washed and sanitized after each use. Personally, I like the feel of solid wood. One piece of advice--buy large cutting boards. Don't bother with these tiny boards that everyone seems to have in his or her kitchen. They are not user friendly. Once you get down to serious cutting or chopping, the small boards are always woefully inadequate and downright maddening!

You can also maximize the efficiency of appliances you already own through regular maintenance and tune-ups and system upgrades. Examples of some things that you can do are:

• Check air filters in heating and cooling systems monthly during the seasons they are in use and clean and replace them as necessary.
• Clean air vents, baseboards, and radiators regularly and keep them unrestricted by furniture, carpets, or drapes.
• Release trapped air from hot water radiators once or twice a season by opening the valve until nothing but water comes out.
• Follow prescribed maintenance (e.g., maintaining certain water levels in steam heat systems).
• Install an insulating jacket on your hot water heater, insulate hot water pipes, and lower the water heater temperature.
• Clean refrigerator coils yearly and maintain internal temperatures between 36 degrees F (2.2 degrees C) and 38 degrees F (33 degrees C) for the refrigerator compartment and between 0 degrees F (17.8 degrees C) and 5 degrees F (15.0 degrees C) for the freezer compartment.
• Move the refrigerator if it is currently located near the stove or dishwasher.
• Regularly defrost refrigerators that do not have a completely automatic defrost capability to eliminate ice build-up on interior coils.
• Clean dryer filters after each use or as necessary.