Built-in refers to how the appliance is set into the cabinetry. The opposite is a freestanding appliance. See example below.

British Thermal Unit. BTU’s are used to measure the heat output of gas cooking appliances.

Used when talking about kitchen ventilation. Cubic Feet of Air per Minute. A measurement of the volume of air that is flowing into or out of a space.

Convection is a form of cooking that works by moving heated air using a fan.

By moving fast hot air past the food, convection ovens can operate at a lower temperature than a standard conventional oven and yet cook food more quickly.

The air circulation, or convection, tends to eliminate “hot spots” and thus food may cook more evenly.

The front loading washing machine design mounts the inner basket and outer tub horizontally, and loading is through a door at the front of the machine. The door often but not always contains a window.

Agitation is supplied by the back-and-forth rotation of the cylinder and by gravity. The clothes are lifted up by paddles on the inside wall of the drum and then dropped. This motion flexes the weave of the fabric and forces water and detergent solution through the clothes load. Because the wash action doe not require the clothing be freely suspended in water, only enough water is needed to moisten the fabric. Because less water is required, front-loaders typically use less soap, and the aggressive dropping and folding action of the tumbling can easily produce large amounts of foam.

Induction is a form of cooking that uses a powerful, high-frequency electromagnet in the ‘element’ under a cooktop’s ceramic surface.

When a large piece of magnetic material- for example, a cast-iron skillet–is placed in the magnetic field that the element is generating, the field transfer (“induces”) energy into that metal.

The transferred energy causes the cooking vessel to become hot. By controlling the strength of the electromagnetic field, we can control the amount of heat being generated in the cooking vessel and these changes can be made instantaneously.

The top loading design places the clothes in a vertically-mounted perforated basket that is contained within a water-retaining tub, with a propeller-like agitator in center of the bottom of the basket. Clothes are loaded through the top of the machine, which is covered with a hinged door.

During the wash cycle, the outer tub is filled with water sufficient to suspend the clothing freely in the basket, and the movement of the agitator pulls the clothing downward in the center towards the agitator paddles. the cooling then moves outward and up the sides of the basket to repeat the process.

A measurement of the heat output of electric cooking appliances.