Electrical Appliances

[Worldwide Worker]

Hi All Expat Friends

I have search through here and cannot find the answers I am looking for. Has anyone from the UK moves to Australia with their appliances?

In general I have always had the policy that furniture does not move, except the sentimental old pieces as it is cheaper to buy at the other end. However I have been pricing some things using IKEA and it costs a small fortune and rental is not a long term option.

I now that a UK fridge may be a problem as the compressor would probably be to small consider it is a lot colder in the UK. But what about the electric cooker, washing machine, drier and television. As the personal effects will be container shipment the incremental cost of the additonal items does not provide a major increase in cost or saving when considering buying in Australia.

Any advice on this score would be appreciated.

Take care

[michellemarie]

Hey again worldwide worker,
not sure if this helps but if you are renting, it is generally standard that all places come with a cooker/stove. your electrical equipment will work there, just plugs need changing...you can buy most 'white goods' second hand but it is not a good idea as most have outlived their usefulness when traded in. to buy a new washing machine...anywhere from 600-1200 aud depending on brand and kg load...most machines are top loaders. dryers tend be be quite cheap and with tvs I would check the meghz frequency as we brought our tv and vcr to ireland from aus. a few years back and they did not work (ireland is on a different sound freq.

furniture, yes IKEA is pricey but if you go to fantastic furniture you can buy an entire house package for a resonable price in comparison to shipping over all your stuff and their stuff ranges from the really cheap packages (you get what you pay) middle range to high. we got a middle range and it was perfect.

[Worldwide Worker]

Hi again

Thanks for the prompt reply.

Yes I have picked up that the sound frequency seems to be the problem with TV's which is sad as I have a brilliant TV which will cost a fortune to replace. Somebody gave the tip of the New Zealand forum about just buying a replacement DVD machine and then using that to convert into your UK TV, but I already have such a conglomeration of cables around the TV that I would not want to add to the total and complete confusion.

Yes pricing the white goods is what prompted the question as those are things which are cheap in the UK and a good Indesit one can get for A$500 and I have worked shipping out to be about A$50 extra based on the volumetric quote I have. Guarantees are obviously a problem. We need to buy as the house we are renting has it all.

Thanks for the furniture reference, had a quick look and I will now price our house furniture with that and see how it compares.

Second is not an option and I agree that is usually items on the brink of dying completely.

Take care

[michellemarie]

just another little bit of useless info on the tv... when we got a repair guy in Ireland to check and see if ours could be adjusted, he did say because they were quite new if he had the technical manual for it he could adjust to suit frequency of country we were in. we had owner manual but that was it. If you go to the place where you bought it and enquired they may be able to give you a copy of the tech manual for a technician in aus to readjust. no extra cables...worth a shot if nothing else! logging out now, catch up again soon. Michelle

[kaz101]

Also as far as a television is concerned our tv worked okay as long as it's connected through a set top box. We will eventually buy an Aussie one but this one does us for now. When you see the quality of Aussie television with adverts every few minutes you'll see why

Because we had been in the process of moving for so long (about 5 years) we didn't bother buying any new stuff in the UK, so it made sense for us to buy new when we got out to Oz. We found that we could negotiate on anything in the shops and so got discounts - not sure whether that's because we bought locally from locally owned businesses rather than chains like Ikea (we don't have one of those locally anyway).

For small appliances like juicers etc. we just changed the plugs and they worked fine.

Telephones and faxes have different connections out here by the way, although you can get them to work, we had bought new ones by the time we had worked that out!

Regards,
Karen