Appliances: Basic Do’s & Don’ts

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Refrigerators, ranges, dishwashers… Oh my! There are so many different appliances in a home, but they have a vital role in any home. Maintaining them is key to keeping your space looking elevated and fresh! Here are some things to think about when remodeling, building, or replacing your current appliance.

Do: Read Appliance Specifications Prior to Purchasing

All Appliances have a specification sheet to ensure that your appliance will fit in your allotted space. Make sure that you have enough clearance to access the appliance when the door(s) to the appliance are open. If the specifications show the appliance only open at 90 degrees, leave more clearance for the doors to open more, especially with refrigerators. Otherwise You may not have proper drawer access.

If you are working with a designer, Please send the model number of your existing or new appliances. The model number is typically located on the inside door of any appliance on a sticker. Designers often open any appliances that are staying to find this number. Your designer can verify that your appliances will function in your spaces provided. The designer will ensure that the appliances have the right amount of space for air flow as well, without doing this your appliance lifespan may dwindle.

Do: Research Customer Service & Warranty Details

If you were to ever have an issue with your appliance, making sure that the customer service is available to you may be important! Before purchasing, do your research on companies to find out their warranty policy and how their customer service can support you. If you’re located in a isolated location, ensure that a service team can travel to you if that is what their warranty calls for. This is often an oversight and can cause issues later down the road. Your designer may have some insight on this, but there are many different brands of appliances; so follow through with your own research as well.

Don’t: Place Appliances Next to Walls

If you can avoid it, keep any appliance away from a wall. Appliances such as a dishwasher or an oven, it only gives the owner one area to use the appliance, which can interrupt traffic flow in your desired space. Other appliances like a refrigerator, washer, or dryer can cause more issues. Refrigerator doors open past the width of the refrigerator. This is often to pull out any shelves, open any drawers, and to have full access. This often means that the refrigerator has to be pulled out to be used properly, or you can risk putting holes in your drywall or even damage your appliance.

Keep all appliances away from the walls by placing a cabinet next to it to avoid damaging your walls or appliances. Every appliance have different specifications about the clearances to maintain them. If it is unavoidable, please discuss with your designer alternative options; your designer may suggest moving around appliances or a certain type or size of appliance to resolve the issue.

Don’t: Place a Refrigerator next to cooking appliances

There are two main reasons why many designers avoid placing a refrigerator next to an appliance that generates heat; it can cause your refrigerator to overheat and there is no landing zone for your range, stovetop, or oven.

Overheating a refrigerator can diminish the lifespan. It causes your appliance fans to overwork to cool down your refrigerator to the set temperature and in return, break them down quicker.

Landing Zones are important for cooking appliances because it gives you the space to put cooking items, somewhere to place your cooked food, and gives you an appropriate amount of space to cook without any obstacles. This also diminishes the amount of crumbs & food scraps dropped between inaccessible areas.

There are other reasons to not place a refrigerator next to cooking appliances such as inconvenience of cooking, ease of cleaning, improper working zones, and unappealing aesthetics.

While this is a basic starter list of appliance do’s and don’ts there are other things that your designer needs to be accounting for such as household size, entertainment size, size of your space, work and task areas, traffic flow, etc. Discussing with your designer the best layout for your household is highly recommended! Each household will have different factors to account for and listing these factors to your designer will assist them in finding the right appliance layout for you!