A broad topic, I know, but I thought I’d illicit some (any?) advice or recs.
Our Amana range is old (it was not new when weI moved in to this condo 11 yrs ago) and a PITA to clean (cleaning it is one of the banes of my existence, in terms of household chores). The grates are also not great (they’re very narrow and rounded, and smaller cookware doesn’t feel particularly stable on top; cookware def doesn’t slide). It cooks well enough. Pre-heating the oven seems to take awhile.
At any rate, we’re looking at a new range. I would describe our price as… mid-range? We definitely do not need or want a pro-style range.
When we’ve checked out ranges in the store, a lot of the stainless steel ones have lots of scratches where the grates presumably crashed into the cooktop before being placed in their correct position. Have people noticed easy scratching w/ their stainless steel ranges? Is not having a drip pan (our current one has removable pans around the burners) a big deal (it seems like none of the ranges in our price have drip pans).
Two of the ones we’re looking at ones well-reviewed by Wirecutter. Two of them also have what seem to be black enameled cooktops, so hopefully they results in less scratching? The build quality of the GE (non-Profile) is… not impressive. The Frigidaire knobs turn almost too easily.
Anyone have experience w/ these? Or any other advice?
A service guy told me that self-cleaning super-high heat cycles burn out the electronics, which was why we had to keep replacing our circuit board. So for a rental unit I was managing for a relative I got one with a steam cleaning feature. It also had steam cycles for baking, which seemed cool.
For ourselves we got a Wolf 304, which has no fucking circuit board (or digital display, or membrane switches) to need replacement, but they’re quite expensive.
We LOVE LOVE LOVE our Electrolux. With lots of nice added features. Had it several years. It’s my favorite stove I’ve dealt with hands down and that includes my Mom’s fancy Viking.
While I have a strong preference for cooking over gas (because old style coil electrics and infra-red range tops had other issues) apparently, modern electric induction heating can get SEARINGLY hot and is one of the most energy efficient ways to cook. Rather than spilling heat out into the air towards your cooking vessel (very inefficient), it turns the vessel itself into its own heating element. It also means your kitchen will be somewhat less of a sweatbox if you have a bunch of things cooking at once. Induction burners are also really good at maintaining even, LOW temperatures. So if you’re the type that makes your own ragu or will take a day to make your own stocks, induction is your friend.
Of course, this means you have to have the right cookware. Glass won’t work at all.
I have no other advice to offer other than I walked through one of those hoity-toity high end kitchen showrooms the other week and had to restrain myself from drooling over the Viking and Wolf gas ranges and if I had infinite money I would certainly own one along with a fancy electric oven with steam injection for bread baking.
I’ve been cooking on induction for, I’m guessing, around ten years and wouldn’t trade it for THE most expensive gas cooktop. We’ve been renting a house for the last year and are moving into our new home soon. My range is there waiting for me
We’d love an induction range, but our condo building was built in 1974 and doesn’t have 240V plugs. The work and cost required to upgrade (since it might involve replacing our breaker box and a whole series of inspections that might end up finding other things that are not up to code) means that induction (or any European brand that uses a 240V plug) isn’t a viable option.
Good point. The house we just bought truly needed a new breaker box so I guess I never thought about it. And, yeah, that process required three separate electrical inspection.
Yeah, we’re completely re-doing the master bath (which wasn’t even quite a truly voluntary choice since about 1/3 of it was destroyed in a common area flood… but that’s a whole 'nuther story), and the inspection requests have been insane. Each trade does their own pre-/post inspection and, not only do they keep adding stuff for us to do, they also not infreq will directly contradict each other (in addition to the thousands of dollars in overages already).
So we really need to keep it simple for the range (for $, but also for our own sanity!).
Forgot to mention @robert’s point about the self clean. We have pets, so we have no plans to ever use the true self clean function (and I also have read about self cleaning burning the circuit board). Every model we’re looking at has a steam clean function. I’ve heard it doesn’t work that well, but maybe if we use it frequently…
Maybe some brands / models are designed so that the super-high heat of the cleaning cycle doesn’t burn out the circuit board. The last two we had were not.
We’re thinking of going w/ the GE Profile. I went to the Costco website to see if they sell it (it’s on back order).
Maybe a helpful FYI (which I didn’t know until I looked just now): buying from Costco doubles the manufacturer’s warranty (2 yrs vs. 1), and there’s a 90-day return policy (!!!). Makes me feel much more comfortable about making the purchase…
We got a Frigidaire Professional slide-in gas range a couple months ago. (I know you said you don’t want “professional,” and we weren’t necessarily looking for that either, but the old range had literally fallen apart and the dishwasher was ancient. We found a great deal on a floor model Frigidaire Professional suite and decided to go ahead and replace everything.) Anyway, love the range so far other than it is indeed a PITA to clean. Very happy with the dishwasher, fridge and microwave as well.
The Frigidaire Professional range isn’t necessarily a hard-core “pro” style one. We looked at it, too, b/c it’s in our price range.
What do you find the most difficult about cleaning the range?
I also need to edit a sentence I wrote above. Apparently, the only gas ranges that utilize a 240V plug are ones that are “dual fuel” (gas cooktop, electric oven). Full gas ones should use a 120V plug… Which means that I can look at the Bosch range again!!! I went to Best Buy to take a peek, and the grates are SO light compared to other brands. But no steam clean function, and I can’t get one from Costco.
If you’re talking about the model that sells for under $1500, that’s definitely a consumer model, they just slapped the word “Professional” on it. “Pro-style” ranges start around $4000.
Yeah MSRP for the 30" gas version is about $3k but I didn’t pay anything close to that.
Cleaning difficulties may in part be user error . I have to take the grates completely off to clean up cooking splatter, and I tend to bang them against the back and leave black marks on the stainless, as you mentioned. Also our counter space is small so crumbs and such tend to end up on the stove top, and then when I try to wipe them up they end up lost in the crevices.
The Bosch has the rubber feet on the bottom of the grates. A lot (all?) of brands do, too, but, when I lifted the grates in the store, it seemed like only the Bosch didn’t make a clanging noise when I put the grates back in place. And yet I’m reading a few complaints in on-line review about easy scratching. Bleh.
. I have to take the grates completely off to clean up cooking splatter, and I tend to bang them against the back and leave black marks on the stainless, as you mentioned. Also our counter space is small so crumbs and such tend to end up on the stove top, and then when I try to wipe them up they end up lost in the crevices.