In each issue of Consumer Reports, the Selling It page covers the goofs, glitches, gotchas, and howlers that appear on product packaging, in advertising, and elsewhere. Below you’ll find a few recent Selling It entries that relate to the home. We’ll present these pieces on this blog from time to time. (Click on each image to enlarge it.)
Look for more Selling It items on our Web site—new ones are added monthly—and click here to submit ideas to this section.
Military mix-up
This offer for a door knocker (right) says, “Show your pride for our Armed Services.” Just don’t be picky about which service you support. As a Maryland reader pointed out, the knocker identified as “Army design” has the Navy design; “Navy” is Air Force, and “Air Force” is Army. The Marines design is correct. (From the December 2007 issue of Consumer Reports.)
Maybe you use scissors?
Cuisinart’s Mini-Prep food processor (right) came with directions to heed before use: To get an even chop, “always cut large pieces of food into smaller pieces of even size—about 1/2 inch.” (From the January 2008 issue of Consumer Reports.)
A kinda sorta guarantee
The language on the package at right is common in lightbulb packaging (longevity depends on how bulbs are used), but those two tiny words—"up to"—still shed very little light. As a Georgia reader reasoned, “If it lasts one minute, one hour, or one day it fulfills the guarantee.” (From the February 2008 issue of Consumer Reports.)
Gee, no GE
This package for a replacement part (left) had a Massachusetts reader scratching her head. (From the March 2008 issue of Consumer Reports.)
Essential information: Learn more about entry doors and door locks. Find the best food processor. Consider replacing incandescent lightbulbs with compact fluorescent lightbulbs. Choose a new coffeemaker.
Written by larrylarr on May 8th, 2008 with no comments.
Read more articles on news.
My 84-year-old father told us a joke at the dinner table last Sunday (remember, this is a joke): “A guy cutting down a tree with a chain saw accidentally severs his left pinkie. His wife rushes him to the local hospital, where the emergency-room doctor explains to him, ‘You have two choices. We can replace the finger using expensive experimental microsurgery—it’ll cost $75,000—or you can live a perfectly normal life without the digit. Which would you prefer?’
“The guy tells the doctor he needs to quickly talk it over with his wife. The wife comes in, and her husband asks her what he should do. She ponders the question for a moment and replies: ‘I’d rather have a new kitchen.’”
There’s a raunchy version of that joke, but its point is the same: People love to remodel their kitchens, and some are willing to give up a lot to do so. And even in the midst of the economic slump we’re in, kitchen remodeling remains popular in the United States. In fact, kitchen projects are estimated to be the biggest source of remodeling spending in 2008, garnering 18 percent of the total home- improvement dollars American consumers will shell out, according to the Home Improvement Research Institute’s 2007 Project Decision Study. (Adding a bathroom accounts for 7 percent of spending; replacing a roof, 8 percent.) The average kitchen remodel in 2007 cost $6,800, according to HIRI.
Some other interesting findings from the HIRI study:
• 46 percent of U.S. kitchen remodels were completely do-it-yourself, while 62 percent were at least partially DIY.
• “Buy-it-yourself,” or BIY, remodels—in which the consumer buys the products and has a contractor install them—account for 21 percent of kitchen remodels.
• Women initiate most kitchen-remodeling projects. Still, men initiated 31 percent of kitchen remodels, up from 18 percent in 2003.
• The use of built-in appliances in remodeled kitchens is growing. (Read our recent Q&A on the repair history of built-in refrigerators.)
• Average spending on kitchen remodeling projects has not increased much over the last two years.
With inflation on the rise, how have consumers managed not to spend more on their kitchen projects even as prices are increasing? The answer might lie in the BIY trend: Savvy homeowners who shop around for materials and appliances are making wise choices in the products they use and are getting good deals.—Karin Weisburgh, Senior Research Analyst
Essential information: Be a smart shopper yourself and read our report on where to buy appliances.
Written by larrylarr on May 8th, 2008 with no comments.
Read more articles on news.
