Home Appliance | Household

Classes Of Home Appliances

Home appliances are those electrical and mechanical appliances that are used for household functions such as cleaning and cooking. Traditionally, home appliances have been broken down into to classes: major home appliances and small home appliances.

Furthermore, major home appliances can be classified as “brown goods” or “white goods”. Brown goods are those household appliances that are electronic and more for entertainment purposes than practical cleaning or cooking appliances.

Home ApplianceTypical brown goods major home appliances include such things are home theater systems, televisions, camcorders, CD and DVD players. White goods include major household appliances such as air conditioners, dishwashers, refrigerators, stoves, furnaces, water heaters, microwave ovens, washing machines and clothes dryers.

Interestingly, the term “brown goods” came about because those items traditionally came with faux wood finishes. Though this is now rare and outdated, the term seems to have stuck. Obviously the term “white goods” comes from the popularity of white finishes on such things as washers and refrigerators.

Home ApplianceAnother difference between brown and white major appliances is that brown goods tend to be electronic and require a high amount of technological know-how in order to repair them, whereas white goods many times require common knowledge or even brute force to fix the appliance in question.

Small home appliances include kitchen appliances, and to a lesser degree general home appliances and personal care appliances. Kitchen appliances include such items as blenders, breadmakers, food processors, toaster ovens and electric mixers.

General household small appliances include humidifiers, vacuum cleaners and irons. Personal care home appliances include curling irons, hair dryers and even electric toothbrushes.

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