BUILT TO LAST
Today’s kitchen appliances feature lots of gadgets, but not durability of forerunners
They don’t make 'em like they used to, which is not always a bad thing.
Modern kitchen appliances offer conveniences
and efficiencies that would have been unheard of a half-century ago. And the relative cost of those appliances has held steady or even, in many cases, dropped. !
And yet.
The durability of modern appliances often leaves something to be desired. Consumer Reports judges that these days, a refrigerator or stove that reaches its 10th birthday is nearing the end of its useful life. But decrepit or not, a decadeold appliance is a mere babe compared to some old-timey appliances still chugging along 30, 50, even 70 years after they were first plugged in.
Jan Deppner, 63, has lived in her Minerva Park house for two years. Her
GE electric wall oven has lived there much longer — since the house was built in 1957, in fact. The oven apparently was part of the original kitchen, Deppner said.
“When we moved in, someone had remodeled with new tile and backsplash, new countertops, a glass-stove top.”
In one corner, though, was the old oven, squash yellow — a popular color at the time, though not so much now.
“But there is a coolness about it,” Deppner acknowledged.
“And we knew if we decided to replace it, we’d have this great big space to fill with something,” she said.
The double-oven “works really well,” Deppner reported. “There’s a regular-sized oven on the right, and a smaller oven on the left that’s perfect for pies and casseroles.”
The oven “runs a bit hot, and I have to turn things halfway through the baking process, but the new ones are the same way,” she said.
“The only thing that doesn’t work well is the old light. It’s dirty and I can’t get it out. But I don’t think I could find a replacement if I could.”
Cooking with gas
Kate Curry-da-souza has a massive, 1949 Maytag gas range in her 1898 house in Woodland Park.
“People see it and say, 'That’s taking us back.' They might joke about it, but I wouldn’t trade it for the world,” she said.
In fact, Curry-da-souza, 37, sought the stove out several years ago. She and her husband wanted a large stove on which to cook for dinner parties, she said. So they pulled out some cabinets and put in a big, sturdy, antique gas range.
They found their new (old) Maytag for sale at an old house in Clintonville, she said.
“The women who bought that house wanted all stainless steel, all matching (appliances), so they sold it to me for a song.”
Her husband was supportive, even though he had to help lift the massive Maytag, she said.
“I know he really loves me because he helped get it into the house.”
The stove is beautiful, she said. “And the fact it works really well is icing on the cake.
“I don’t mind it doesn’t have 10,000 electric gizmos. That’s the beauty of it.
“It’s from an era when things were made right,” she said.
Modern appliances can be “so disappointing,” Curryda-souza said.
“These days you buy (an appliance) and in seven years the computer board has gotten fried and you have to pitch it.”
Even so, the rest of her kitchen is “pretty modern,” she said.
“But I do have an old Sunbeam stand-mixer from the 1950s. I have a love for old things.”
Mighty microwave
Kathleen Puccetti also has a couple of elderly, still-functioning kitchen appliances in her Hilltop home: a 50-year-old upright freezer and a microwave from the early 1980s.
Thirty-something might not seem so old for an appliance. But home microwave technology was still relatively novel in 1985: Fewer than 25 percent of homes had microwaves.
“My mother was living with us at the time and I remember her saying, “I’m not going to want to use any microwave!” Puccetti, 81, recalled.
But even her mother eventually came around and realized how much time it could save, Puccetti said.
The Sanyo countertop unit is huge compared with modern microwaves, Puccetti said, but that makes it handy to cook large items such as roasts.
Her freezer is a Tru-cold brand the family bought from Montgomery Ward in the late 1960s.
“It’s still running and serving its purpose,” she said.
Puccetti said she’s had good luck with other appliances, too.
“Just last year I had to replace my old refrigerator. It was 33 years old.
“My family has been in this house for 60 years. We don’t move a lot, and we don’t get rid of stuff very often.”
Forties freezer
Sitting in the basement of Susie Kanter’s home in the Eastmoor neighborhood might be one of the oldest and most well-traveled chest freezers in all the land.
Kanter has known her General Electric freezer for 75 of her 79 years.
“My parents bought it in 1944 during the war,” Kanter recalled.
She remembers her mother sending her downstairs in their Pittsburgh-area home to get an item to thaw for dinner.
“Mother would say, 'Go down to the freezer and get a pound of ground chuck.'
“My father passed away in 1967. When my mother sold the house, she gave me the freezer.”
Kanter is the youngest of three siblings.
“When I tell my brother and sister it’s still working, they can’t believe it."
The freezer has never needed a repair, she said.
“I don’t know how it keeps working, but it just keeps humming along. The rubber seal around the lid has kind of crumbled. I’m sure I couldn’t find the part, although I could probably get some kind of seal.”
Kanter said she defrosts the unit a couple of times a year.
“When I turn it back on, I always wonder, is it going to work? It always has.”
How unusual is the freezer’s longevity? That’s hard to say. A few years ago, Kanter sent a letter to GE about her marvelous appliance, but got only a form letter in reply, she said.
The venerable freezer has accompanied her on moves to several apartments and five different houses, including one in Arizona. She (and her freezer) have been in her current house about 20 years, she said.
During that time, the freezer has become something of a celebrity.
“Every time I’ve had an appliance repairman in to fix something else, they say they want to see the old relic. I guess it — and me — are the relics.
“I just hope it goes before I do.”
sstephens@dispatch.com @Stevestephens