Decide what to buy

It’s not a particularly great time to be moving house at the moment so for those of you who just want to spruce things up a bit, you can do so for less than you think.

The kitchen is where all the action happens, food action, that is. It’s also one of the most expensive rooms to totally redo because of all the appliances that have to go in it. But there are some great bargains to be had in the appliances department. We’ve been through all the reviews to pick out a load of cheap appliances that have great reviews from their owners.

We’ve even managed to find a fridge-freezer, washing machine, oven, hob, dishwasher and microwave all for under £800!

We’ve also included some smaller items like kettles and toasters. Check them out:

Best cheap appliances

Washing machine - Indesit WIB111 - £175

Oven - Indesit FI21KB - £135

Hob - New World NWGHU60Ss - £78

Fridge-freezer - Hotpoint RFA52 - £209

Microwave - Russell Hobbs SMS21 - £40

Dishwasher - Beko DWD4310 - £160

All the above for under £800!

Kettle - Kenwood Mona Kettle - £15

Toaster - Kenwood TTP103 - £18

Food processor - Kenwood Delia’s Cheat Gadget - £17

Some real bargains there. I can’t believe that food processor is only £17! It’s been reviewed by 333 people and has a score of 9.1/10 so it’s definitely a little gem. It was also recommended by TV chef extraordinaire, Delia Smith, so it must be good.

There are plenty more bargains to be had too but just make sure you read the reviews first to ensure the product is actually any good.

LG shocked the world of washing machines in 2006 with the launch of its proprietary Steam Direct Drive unit. The range has continued to evolve, and since May it has been possible to purchase one of the new F1402FDS5/6 machines capable of washing 9Kg of laundry.

While fantastic to be able to wash so much in a single go, it’s still the technology behind the machine that deserves the most attention. Like Dyson introducing the bagless vacuum cleaner to the world, LG decided to throw conventional washing machine design principles out of the window and try something new.  By converting the water into steam before mixing it with your laundry, these machines are able to achieve the same or even arguably better cleaning results, whilst saving on the amount of water and energy used. This is a huge plus point, in a time when energy and water costs are rocketing sky high, and saving resources is high on people’s agendas. Another fantastic feature of a steam powered washing machine is its ability to rid your clothes of creases, so no more ironing!

All this does come at a price though, with the range retailing at between £600 and £700 from places such as Boots, Sainsburys and Currys. In the long run however, the extra initial outlay could pay for itself further down the line. For those of you out there that might not want such an expensive and feature rich machine, there are cheaper ranges also available that use the same core steam technology. If you are hungry to delve further into the world of steam powered washing machines head over to the LG website.

[Guest post by Andy]

Here’s a gadget for those of you that need a little help in the kitchen department. This digital pasta timer spoon will make sure you produce a perfect plate of pasta, every time. You key in the type of pasta you’re cooking - from one of its 11 pre-programmed varieties - the weight of the pasta you’re cooking and even your preferred texture. An alarm will sound when your pasta is coked and then Bob’s your uncle - Perfect pasta! (well, in this case, Roberto’s your uncle, if we’re being authentically Italian ‘n all).

You can pick one up for £16.20 from Premier Cutlery, who ship globally.

If you think this is a cool gadget, you can vote for it in Coolest Gadgets’ weekly competition.

We’ve talked about eco kettles in the past so we thought it fair to offer up an alternative to the somewhat disappointing offering we’ve had already.  This Eco Kettle helps with the problem of not knowing how much water to put in your kettle every time you boil it. Most people end up boiling far too much and wasting a whole heap of electricity. In fact, the folks over at The Big Green Shop claim that on average, we boil twice the volume of water needed. This means twice as much energy and twice as much time. With a 3kW kettle that’s the same as wasting the energy of around 50 light bulbs!

So why is this kettle different? Well, it’s got two water chambers. A central reservoir can be filled up and then a button allows a certain amount of water to move into the second chamber, which will then get heated. You can decide how much water you send through from one cup to full capacity, so that you know exactly how much you’re boiling (rather than standing at the sink, trying to estimate, filling it too much, having to empty some out, emptying too much out, having to fill up again – I think you get the point). Apparently, the Energy Saving Trust did some consumer trials and found that the kettle used 31% less energy than standard kettles, on average. There’s a complicated sum that measures how much we could save a year here too. These kettles are £29.99. For those of you in the US, you can pick one up from the Enviro Centre. They’re a little more expensive but they ship globally.

But before you rush off and buy one, we checked out some of the reviews. There are people who are very happy with their purchase, however, a few others aren’t. Check out the eco kettle reviews for yourselves.

We thought it was about time we carried on our rooms on a budget theme. This week, we’re looking at kitchens on a budget.

We’ve looked at everything you’d need for a kitchen – minus the cabinets themselves – and our budget kitchen comes in at £1114.

Obviously everybody’s kitchen will be different colours so we’ve gone for standard, yet sleek, black and stainless steel.

First up are the essentials, sink, oven, hob and fridge-freezer. 

We’ve gone for the attractive Astracast KO10RS sink. It’s £150, 98 cm wide and has a bowl size of 43 x 50 cm.

Everyone knows that if you want the best control over your cooking, the only way to go is gas. We’ve found this great stainless steel hob and oven pack from Baumatic. It’s £200 and has been rated 9.1/10 on Reevoo.

The top rated and best value for money fridge freezer we could find was the Indesit TA5S. It’s £240, has more fridge room than the large American-style fridges and it’s got some great reviews. Lots of owners are very impressed with its capacity, quality and value for money.

Ok, so far we’ve covered the essentials and we’re up to £590. Not bad for a fridge-freezer, oven, hob and sink?

Let’s move on to appliances.

The Breville JK123 kettle is simple to use and great value for money at £16. The matching Breville TT48 toaster is only £19. It has independent controls for each slice and a digital display.

This £51 Kenwood SJSS25 microwave has been rated 8.5/10 by the people who have bought it. Its capacity is 25 litres and it also has a grill function. One review reads “Easy to use, attractive, cost effective, efficient, fast, easy to wipe clean and maintain”.

For a dishwasher, we’ve gone for the Hotpoint FDL570. It’s £215 and it’s only 49 decibels so you won’t annoy the neighbours.

And finally, the washing machine. The A-rated Hotpoint WF321 is £223 and it has a larger than average load capacity of 6kg. Pam  from  Salisbury says “It is easy to use, not too noisy, nice big door and nice looking”.

So there you have it, a stylish kitchen for a little over £1000. Job done.

I think we can now officially say it’s summer, so to celebrate, I’ve picked out a few summer essentials to help you make the most of the weather before it’s too late.

You can’t enjoy summer without a lovely fruit juice at your side so I’ve checked out which juicer shoppers consider the best. At the moment, the Philips HR1861 is top with 8.6/10. It’s a 2 litre stainless steel super machine that pulverises whole fruit into juice in seconds. Shoppers hardly have a bad word to say about it. Check out the juicer reviews to see for yourselves.

As gadgets are always on my mind, I feel the need to insert a gadget I saw the other week that would be a perfect accompaniment to this juicer. Unfortunately, I can’t find the exact equivalent in the UK but for all of our US readers, you shouldn’t have a problem finding one. It’s a radio controlled drinks and snack holder for the pool. Summer can be a hot and sweaty business so don’t exert yourself, deliver snacks to friends in the pool without even having to move from your chair, or get snacks delivered to you on your lilo without having to get wet. For those of us in the UK, here’s an equivalent snack and drinks float that’s unfortunately not radio-controlled but it’s still pretty cool. All for £19.95.

If you don’t have a pool, how about one of these. It’s a 15 foot pool that can be put anywhere and it comes complete with a cover, ladder, pump and ground cloth. It’s £170 but surely it’s worth it for 3 days of sunshine a year?

And you’re going to need something to chill those drinks in. One of the best rated mini fridges is the Woolworths Micro Chiller. It’s a bargain at £14.

You’ll also be needing somewhere to sit, so how about this eight piece garden furniture set? It’s £199.99 and at the moment, it comes with a free sun lounger, worth £29.99.

And finally, no self-respecting sun worshipper can do so without some tunes. We featured the wireless outdoor iPod speaker a few weeks ago and I think it would be the perfect addition here. The speaker comes with a small transmitter that you plug your iPod
into. You can then apparently wander up to 240 feet away from the
speaker and still enjoy your favourite tunes. Perfect for the garden and wire free.

Some summer selections there. Here’s hoping we get some summer to enjoy them…

In this week’s Green Piece, we’re looking at the Green Cone Food Waste Digester System - sounds tasty, doesn’t it? It’s quite a handy little addition to your kitchen and your garden that claims to make your organic waste disappear – almost.

The 4 litre Green Cone Caddy sits in your kitchen, which you fill up with all of your organic kitchen waste such as tea bags, bones, stale bread, vegetable scraps or even raw and cooked meat. Whenever you need to, you can then go and empty the caddy into the Green Cone, which sits in your garden.

The Green Cone needs to be placed in a sunny spot in your garden to work properly. It is solar powered and has a double wall which makes things nice and toasty for the micro-organisms that break down the food. The cone actually sits in the soil so that worms and other creatures can move in and out of it freely to promote further break down. But don’t worry, this part of the Green Cone always stays in the garden so you won’t be taking a zoo back into the kitchen with you.

If you’re worried about smells and those pesky flies and rodents, the fact that the cone sits in the soil allows it to filter out the smells and keep the flies and rodents at bay.

When it gets to winter time, decomposition naturally slows down so they’ve got some natural Green Cone accelerator powder to sort that out.

Household food waste is converted into water, carbon dioxide and small amount residue that will apparently only need to be removed every few years. It’s been designed to take three-quarters to one kilogram of food waste each day, which is apparently the typical amount for a family of four - a great way to save on plastic used in bin bags and space in your bin. If you fancy making your organic waste virtually disappear, you can find a Green Cone at Green and Easy.

Have you ever considered that all of the appliances in your home may have been designed by people who have never had to use them? For example, that your fridge was designed by someone who still kept things underground to keep them cold? It would certainly seem so, going by some of the reviews we’ve been reading.

As we’re on the subject of fridges, we’ll start there. The Bosch KGU30605 fridge has been designed by a genius who thought an egg tray with space for five eggs was revolutionary. The unfortunate sixth egg that almost certainly is included when you buy a standard pack of half a dozen eggs, will have to find its own home amongst the jungle of jars and leftovers.

How about the Elba C96DF 90 gas oven that gets nice and hot on the inside but feels the need to heat up its surrounding area by getting dangerously hot on the outside too? I guess we could all start frying our eggs on oven doors to save energy. Maybe that’s what the designer had in mind here.

We talked about the amount of energy you can save by not leaving your appliances on standby last week but what if your TV wouldn’t turn off at all? The LG 37LF66 can only be turned off by switching it off at the mains. And there’s even a washing machine that insists on washing cotton and synthetics at 60 degrees - all in all, just great for your energy bills.

If you feel your life isn’t inconvenient enough, why not purchase a couple of dishwashers? One won’t fit standard sized cups on the top shelf and one won’t fit standard sized plates on the bottom but by buying them both, you can be sure that your crockery will be squeaky clean…one way or another.

And for those of you looking for something to amuse the kids over the summer, you might want to check out the reviews for the Easy Store Large Slide. It seems to be multipurpose - a slide and a bug collector. It’s all kitted out in bright yellow so that hundreds of insects are attracted to it as soon as you set it up. I wouldn’t advise sliding on it but it could be great for a wildlife project.

These are just a few of the dodgy designs we found by reading through reviews. We’ve compiled a list of the top ten so that you can take a look. If you’ve got something that you think must have been designed by wild monkeys, let me know and we’ll add it to the list.

1. Bosch KGU30605 Fridge - the egg tray which only holds five eggs instead of the standard six.
2. Zanussi ZWF14581 Washing Machine - The default temperature when you choose cotton or synthetics is always 60 degrees. But almost all synthetics are labelled 40 degrees or less.
3. LG 37LF66 Television - that doesn’t turn off. You have to pull the plug out of the wall to turn the TV off.
4. Easy Store Large Slide - the bright yellow colour attracts thousands of bugs in summertime.
5. Kenwood DW12CFE Dishwasher - Normal sized plates stacked as design suggests in the bottom tray stop the spray arm spinning, and thus the top layer does not get washed. Trays are non removable so the dishwasher won’t run without the top tray in. Hard to fit standard sized dinner plates.
6. LM Tech Battery Powered Heated Gloves - the heating element doesn’t get warm, and doesn’t cover the fingers.
7. Carlton CTD1W Table Top Dishwasher - doesn’t fit standard mugs on the shelf
8. Elba C96DF 90 Gas Oven - the knobs heat up when the grill is turned on
9. Hotpoint RLA21 4.6 Cu.ft. Larder Fridge - there is no light inside so it is impossible to see all the food at the back.
10. UNI MEDIA 22/1 IDTVDVD 22” HD Ready digital television - It is impossible to adjust the picture when the picture adjustment box pops up in the middle of the screen and covers most of the picture.