If you talk to five different appliance salespeople, you can end up with five different kitchens—and four will be wrong. Not because anyone’s trying to mislead you, but because most conversations start with brands and features instead of how you actually live and cook. In this video, I walk through the five questions that should come up every single time, because they determine whether your kitchen works or just looks good on paper. First, I’m not starting with “what brand do you like?” I’m starting with “how do you cook?” Baking, broiling, wok cooking, griddling, or mostly reheating changes everything: gas vs. electric vs. induction vs. dual fuel, and even the size of the range. Then we get into the stuff that gets missed and becomes an expensive surprise later: where the vent is going, how duct runs and elbows kill performance, and why ventilation has to match high-heat cooking. In Massachusetts, makeup air is non-negotiable over 400 CFM—no makeup air can mean no occupancy permit, and it can also create real air quality problems in tight homes. Finally, I cover two questions that protect you long after the sale: why a salesperson is recommending specific brands (especially if they feel random), and who will service what you’re buying in your area—because the best appliance is a bad deal if nobody can fix it.