Archive for October, 2007

Range Pans, Drip Bowls, and Cooking Season

Wednesday, October 10th, 2007

cooktop drip bowlThe “cooking season” is fast approaching. Not a bad way to look at winter right? Thanksgiving, Christmas and New Years Day all come rushing in a sweet succession of ham, turkey, roast, pie, cookies, sweet corn… ah, I could just type this stuff all day! And with the food come guests from near and far. No, not a bad way to look at winter at all.

For those of us in the appliance parts industry, this season means it’s time to stock up on oven elements and drip bowls. And boy have we!

Right now we have a ton of the Whirpool universal style chrome drip bowls- part number 3150246 (the small one) and 3150247 (the larger one). And, if you want to get fancy, we also have these exact bowls in black porcelain: part number 3169204 (the small one) and 3169205 (the larger one) .

Sometimes you just have to replace these things to get the stovetop looking clean again.

So happy cooking season! And if you need anything along the way remember A-1 Appliance Parts- we’re stocked up and ready to ship.

black porcelain whirlpool drip bowl

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Whirlpool Water Filter 4396508 Replacements

Wednesday, October 3rd, 2007

Brita Whirlpool Water Filter

When Whirlpool introduced it’s bottom front grill water filtration system (a little close to the floor in my mind… I know, it’s just me) it was an immediate success. Refrigerators bearing this filter started showing up all over the place. And people started looking for replacement filters– only to find that they had to go through Whirlpool and end up spending as much on the filters as they did on the refrigerator!

Patent laws kept other companies at bay for a long time. It couldn’t last forever though. Brita (still fighting through the legal issues I think) has released a very nice replacement filter for the Whirlpool 4396508 at a reduced price. It’s part # WPRF-100 and when you consider it needs changing once or twice a year, the savings you’ll see with the Brita filter add up.

Brita isn’t the only company taking a swing at this filter though… Supco (Sealed Unit Products) just announced that they have begun production on yet another alternative here and their 4396508 replacement filters will be ready by January 2008. The Supco part # will be WF285. Supco’s filter will cost even less than the Brita filter!

It seems Whirlpool is already feeling some price pressure on this item. The Brita filter is just as good as the original 4396508 and Brita is a trusted name. I bet you can’t even name the company currently making the filter for Whirlpool! Um, it’s a great company too (I don’t mean to imply otherwise)… still, you get what I mean about name recognition and trust. I think Whirlpool is in for an aftermarket dogfight. And in the end that’s good for customers.

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