The Cost of Home Ownership - Part I

I like buying new things, but hate replacing something that has broken. First of all, I just hate dealing with it; the hassles of getting someone in just to tell you, "Yeah, buddy, this thing is toast" and then having to find someone to get and install a new one or go find out where you get a new one and, lord help you, pick out a new one. Second of all, you go through all this hassle and you end up basically where you started (you are after all replacing something you already had), only your checking account is missing some funds. So it's a net loss: product-wise you are back where you started (if you are lucky) and you are down some much needed dollars.

We've been in our home for nine years now and it was new when we bought it. Over the past few years all those bright new appliances that came with the home have begun to break. We spent a ton replacing one of our air conditioner units last year and having our oven repaired. So much money in fact that my wife began looking for some relief. She found a place called American Home Shield that basically is an insurance policy for your appliances. The thing we liked is that they handle everything; if anything breaks in the home you call one number and they send someone out, they diagnose, they repair or replace as needed. Yeah, you are still out some bucks, but in smaller increments and over time, but all of the hassles are removed. So, my wife signed us up and two months later our dishwasher goes out.

We are covered, right? Nope, it seems the coverage does not kick in until November, so let the hassles begin. It only takes a few days of doing dishes by hand to know that we need a new dishwasher and we need one now. Our dead dishwasher (and all of the appliances that came with our house) was a KitchenAid and my wife wanted to stay with the same brand. Other than that, we had no real requirements. Nor, in my stupidity, did I think there should be any other requirements.

I check on-line for stores that carry KitchenAid and it looks like Lowe's is our best bet, so off to the nearest Lowe's we go. They carry in the store a selection of maybe thirty different dishwashers, five or six of them are indeed made by KitchenAid and none of them look anything like ours because, well hell, ours is nine years old. So, we start checking number of cycles and how quiet they are. Now we notice that the least expensive ones are said to be "Whisper Quiet®" which sounded pretty damn quiet to me, but maybe not because the more expensive ones are "Whisper Quiet® Plus." Our old dishwasher was really quiet, but I never checked what it was called before driving to Lowe's, but I'm sure it must have been "Whisper Quiet® Plus" since it was so damn quiet.

Once we settle on "Whisper Quiet® Plus" our only real choice is color and where the controls are located. The more expensive models have the controls in the top edge of the door, so they don't show at all. I like this idea but my wife doesn't. I'm married so we go with the controls that show and since all our other appliances are white, we go with white. So we're done; all they have to do is tell us when they are going to install this puppy. Only, they don't know. They don't actually have any KitchenAid dishwashers in this gigantic warehouse, only the models. They will order it and when they get it, they'll give us a call. They guarantee it won't take more the six weeks!

It took two and a half.

The first thing we noticed when we got home was that our old machine was "Whisper Quiet Ultima™," surely some long abandoned designator since Lowe's didn't carry any models with that option. Well the Lowe's people installed the new dishwasher and it seemed quiet enough, so we were satisfied and back to where we used to be and the hassles were over and we were out about a grand. All in all a normal session of "fix/replace the broken product."

Then we saw the DVD.

Our dishwasher came with a DVD and like fools we played it! That's when we found out that or top-of-the-line dishwasher was...eh... not so top-of-the-line. In fact, none of the dishwashers we saw at Lowe's were the top-of-the-line model. Now the DVD was informative; we learned a lot about the great features of our really wonderful dishwasher. Unfortunately we also learned all of the wonderful features of the dishwashers we never knew existed; and we liked those features (like the aforementioned "Whisper Quiet Ultima™") more than the ones in our dishwasher. We went from satisfied and happy to unfullfilled and irked.

As a marketing tool I think KitchenAid ought to rethink their DVDs.

I'm beginning to see that the Cost of Home Ownership is a lot more than just money.