Fisher & Paykel are known as innovators in the appliance industry and for good reason. Their inventions include the extremely popular Dish Drawer dishwasher and the Smart Drive system used in their washers and dryers. Fisher & Paykel were also the original manufacturers of a single top/bottom mount fridge with water dispenser and the first to produce a top load washer with a 4-star water rating. Alongside these innovative products they also manufacture a large range of quality fridges and dryers. Fisher & Paykel's technological advancements and their unique characteristics have made them a household name in Australia and abroad. In fact, the Smart Drive™ clothes washer - which for the first time used a Brushless Direct Current Motor - was the flagship product that paved the way to brand recognition in Australia.

I've no recollection why it was four years ago that we went shopping for a new washer and dryer not where we would generally tend to select our kitchen appliances, but to another place altogether. It was one that we knew had been in business for an awfully long time, and perhaps they had been advertising special sales on appliances. We were faced with the necessity of replacing our old set because they were on the verge of breaking down entirely and had been repaired too often. And we thought we should be looking at more energy-efficient machines.

Which was what brought our attention to a Fisher & Paykel set of clothes-washer and dryer; expensive and entirely electronic, so we did wonder what we might be getting into. However, both were energy efficient and although the washer was a top-loader it was a high-efficiency appliance nonetheless. We made the purchase and awaited delivery. I did do some preliminary research on the Internet and thought that complaints about intrusive and frequent sound alerts when the washing machine was out of kilter, didn't sound too serious as a deterrent.

So we had them delivered, and first thing we noticed was that the dryer shell had been slightly dented and chipped, so we alerted the seller, and they assured us they'd send on a replacement. One putative replacement after another arrived hugely dented; the first one when it was unpacked by the deliverer, so badly out of whack the door wouldn't shut securely, and the second was no better, so we decided to keep what we had.

I soon came to understand the complaint about the sound as I became acquainted with the chirps the washer regularly emitted when a load went out of whack which it did one time out of three loads, necessitating response and readjustment of the wash. We had taken out an extended warranty above the usual one-year warranty on purchase, and several years later called on it when the washer began leaking into its interior. The store had gone 'out of business', declared bankruptcy. But it opened under a new name, same store; different name. They agreed to honour the extended warranty and sent out a serviceman.

A month ago the washer began leaking again, but we were out of luck with service since the company decided it could no longer 'afford' to extend service, despite we had paid for it. So my husband installed two little turn-off valves for the water on the pipes going into the washer, so it no longer leaks. A week ago the dryer stopped its heat function, though otherwise it responded in whirling the wash about; simply no heat however.

We called one of the few appliance service businesses in the city that can look after this brand of appliance. And yesterday the serviceman arrived. A frail, elderly looking man, very affable, and remarking that the company certainly didn't make it easy for repair personnel to reach its interior mechanisms. It was mid-afternoon so we invited him to take a cup of tea with us and relax preparatory to work, since it was obvious he'd been working elsewhere up to then, and he obliged, and we chatted.

When he put the dryer through the electronic phase that self-diagnoses it cheerily responded that nothing at all was awry, puzzlingly. Our doughty serviceman made a few calls, and then proceeded to take the metal skin off the front of the dryer, revealing its interior and its controls matted with dryer lint. Despite that I assiduously empty the very generous and never-full lint bucket, it soon became evident that dryer lint is not completely caught where it should be for user disposal, but filters down through the machine and settles on the air intake and controls. Causing, in this instance, the machine to rectify the situation by closing down heat rather than burn out the functional part and possibly cause a house fire.

Some advanced technology that is. Resulting in a charge of almost two hundred dollars to clear lint from the interior of the clothes dryer. Now that everything has been cleared, the dryer is operating at full capacity. I cannot recall the last time a load dried so efficiently; swiftly and completely dry. I no longer must scatter half-dried items about various places in the house to ensure they're sufficiently dry to be put away.

Would I ever commit to another appliance produced by this company? Hugely unlikely.