I posted these questions in the "Kitchens" forum, but then it was pointed out to me that they might belong here instead. Apologies for double posting: OVEN BROILER: The broiler element in the top oven of my double oven used to work fine. Now it heats up partway, but it no longer gets fully hot. It never turns red, for instance, and food placed under it does not really cook. The top oven still bakes with no problem. The bottom oven works fine. Do you think I need to replace the broiler element? Or is the problem somewhere else? Is this a DIY fix? Thanks! SUB-ZERO FRIDGE LIGHT: I have a Sub-Zero 511 fridge in my kitchen, of indeterminate age. The previous owners installed it, and we've lived there since 2006. The lights inside the fridge have stopped working. Over a period of a few months, the fridge light became intermittent. Sometimes it would be off, but fiddling with the switch would cause it to come on. Then it quit completely. I took the plastic cover off to find that this fridge has four specialty bulbs. All of them had turned black. I ordered and installed all new replacement bulbs. The fridge still won't light up. This suggests to me that something may be wrong in the switch assembly. Is this a DIY fix? If anyone has any guidance in disassembling a Sub-Zero light switch, I'd be grateful.

"I was grown up to believe that german technology was second to none." Geeze, I wished you could have taught the 2 mercedes Benzes that I owned that!!!!! After about 10 years of keeping the Service Dept of the Mercedes Benz dealership well financed, I finally got tired of that, and bought a 1993 Cadillac Allante. It has seen the Cadillac Dealer service dept once, and that was to buy and install a battery for it. I have a friend that still buys Mercedes, and after 70,000 miles gets rid of them as He says that's when the repair expenses start to really escalate! I did buy a Miele DW, back in 2006, as it was the ONLY DW, back in 2006 that had the 3rd tray, (cutlery rack). It is rarely used, and has been trouble free, whilst my Electrolux Oven, speed oven, Induction cooktop and wine fridge are used all the time, and are alto trouble free. My Jenn-air fridge has only needed 1 repair about $350, since 2006, You cant even talk to an SZ repair man for that (yeah I'm exaggerating just a little) and I doubt you would be able to get much repaired on a Liebherr fridge for that price either. Moral here, is there are more makes of fridges other than SZ or Liebher. Take a look at some of the Whirlpool products, (Kitchen-Aid, Jenn-air, Whirlpool), Look at some of the GE's. When I had my rentals, I just bought "garden variety fridges", and I never had any problems with them, certainly not the kinds of problems that you see with this new "esoteric Expensive Stuff"! Gary

Thanks everyone (especially Pal for the feedback on this unit and Bee for the idea). Unfortunately, my cabinets are semi-custom, so I cannot get a 27" wide 12" high wall upper that would symmetrically fit about the fridge. But, two great things I found out are that the company sells a 3" wide upper and a 3" wide lower that have pullouts with shelves for spices. So I'm going to use those with the "new" space between the refrigerator panel and range with some filler on either side to make it 4" wide, then I'll have another filler or refrigerator panel on the wall side, taking full advantage of the 32" opening I have to work with, and giving me some great storage for spices, etc. (I cook a lot). The upper above the refrigerator is still going to be a little complicated as I mentioned above. I love Bee's idea, and it could be done with a 30"+ wide refrigerator, but not this 27" wide one (with my cabinet company). There aren't even open shelf options. So I have one option that's actually pretty good. I can mount a 27" wide x 18" high x 12" deep two-door upper abutting the soffit and run the crown along the ceiling. That way, the fridge stack will run all the way to the ceiling and be perfectly symmetrical, and I will still get my 3" wide spice pull out. What do you think? And, good news today, my homeowners is going to cover the cracked granite (some of you may recall my granite cracking during my holiday party when I left a hot mac and cheese casserole dish on it). So I can replace that granite and the 4" backsplash and be subbed out with my leftover 4" square calacatta gold tiles, and get my new 4" strip for next to the range for my deductible. I haven't decided whether I will do leathered absolute black or honed antique brown (marron cohiba). I'm leaning towards the antique brown, which I have in the bathroom paired with calacatta gold but in a leathered finish). What do you think?

You want to apply wood panels directly to the sides of the refrigerator? First - the sides of the unit aren't finished at all, and aren't flat, either - so the amount of wood and pieces that you'd need would be pretty difficult to make look good. I think the biggest issue is that with Subzeros - they are very tall and *very* heavy. They can't be "free standing" - the way that they are installed is by attaching them at the front to the side panels on the left and right. If you don't have the filler to the left and the filler/return to the right and just tried to attach wood "panels" to the unit, not only would it be unsafe - it would most likely void your warranty. You could decrease the size of the filler/return on the right to 3/4" and make the filler against the wall wider and maybe more decorative? I actually think that with the panels on the front with the icebox hardware - you'll achieve the look you're going for, even if it's not totally "historically" correct.