Kitchen Range reccomendations?

[ColdNH]

In the same boat here, our 15+ year old kenmore gas range thats running propane is on its last legs, only 3 of the four burners work correctly and correctly still takes 15 minutes to boil water???

problem here is that our dishwasher and fridge and overhead microwave are all the bisque color. wife wants ss of course. but the other appliances are no where near the end of their life. so its a waste of money to upgrade them all and id rather not have miss matching appliances.

regaurdless im looking for a 5 burner gas stove with convection for under a grand. sears has a fridgeair and a kenmore in the 900$ range. anyone know if these are decent brands?

 

[firefighterjake]

In the same boat here, our 15+ year old kenmore gas range thats running propane is on its last legs, only 3 of the four burners work correctly and correctly still takes 15 minutes to boil water???

problem here is that our dishwasher and fridge and overhead microwave are all the bisque color. wife wants ss of course. but the other appliances are no where near the end of their life. so its a waste of money to upgrade them all and id rather not have miss matching appliances.

regaurdless im looking for a 5 burner gas stove with convection for under a grand. sears has a fridgeair and a kenmore in the 900$ range. anyone know if these are decent brands?

As you probably know Kenmore is usually a rebadged brand from another company . . . if you do a google search for the particular model you can usually find out who actually builds it and then get an idea if it is good or not.

 

[eclecticcottage]

In the case of propane, they leave an unpleasant odor in the house.

As someone who has used electric, electronic iginition and now a standing pilot propane stove, this is NOT supposed to happen! We have only smelled propane due to the stove for these reasons: #1) old electronic iginition hotpoint circa 1980's had some sort of malfunction in the oven (we blew through 20% of of a tank of propane in a 700ish pound tank using it TWICE). I don't know what, but we hauled that hunk of junk to the scrapyard and replaced it with my beloved Floyd Wells. #2) when someone doesn't light the match FIRST when lighting the oven and leaves the gas on while lighting the match. I do NOT do this, I like the nice mellow swoosh when I light it by lighting the match first, then turning on the gas. It's not as mellow the other way around, lol (it's not dangerous, like a mini explosion or anything, but it's a little more dramatic).


I already posted my opinion on the original post on Old House Web and I'm sticking to it :D

 

[JeffRey30747]

We have a 5 year old Jenn-Air double oven dual fuel range and have had no problems with it so far. There wasn't a matching Jenn-Air branded microwave hood for it at the time either but the Maytag unit (same parent company) did match. My wife loves it and I have always preferred to cook on a gas stovetop but have had less than stellar results with gas ovens. At the time we bought ours, it was available in white, black and stainless. Our kitchen appliances are all white.

 

[ColdNH]

We ended up going with a samsung 5 burner gas/converted propane stove. was debating going offwhite/bisque to match the existing appliances or making the switch to stainless to stop the never ending bisque appliance cycle, as you can see I chose to stop the cycle. now I need to replace the dishwasher, fridge (gd, those are $$$) counters, floors... never ending..

More then pleassed with the stove tho.

 

[Corey]

IMHO, something is CLEARLY wrong with your oven. It may hit the right temp, so the T-stat is OK... don't know if you've lost one leg of the 240V, have a loose connection, burnt out an element or two, but something is severely limiting the heat output. No stove on the market is going to take an hour to warm up normally. I don't know what exact model you have. I have a GE Profile oven circa 2007, I doubt it take 5 minutes to warm up to 400ºF, so you might want to take a deeper look in your unit. Even if you don't plan to keep it, a simple fix might boost the resale value quite a bit.

As far as cook top, I've actually become partial to my smooth top. I like the way I can turn the burners on in stages depending on what size pot is on the stove. I don't know how it stacks up 'on paper' for burner BTU's vs gas, but it seems a gas stove has quite a bit of heat going into the air and going around the pot. With the smooth electric top, 99% of that heat goes into the pot. I can put my hand on the cook top 2 inches away from a boiling pot of water and it's barely warm. Very noticeable in the summer if you happen to have a couple burners going...you're really heating the pot, not the air and rest of the kitchen. It also makes a very even heat...not like a gas burner where you get a ring of heat in the center and cooler edges. When I brew, I actually put my 6 gallon pot on the 12" mega-burner for steeping and to get the wort boiling fast, then transfer outside to my gas burner for the rest of the boil.

 

[jharkin]

Ok, I just went and timed the preheat. Convection bake 350F... 12 minutes.

regular bake takes around 20 if I recall. 475 for a pizza takes 30+

From what Ive read this is normal for ovens with hidden bake elements. Mostly we just want gas

 

[Corey]

Matter of personal preference to be sure. If you want gas, then by all means get a stove you like.

For grins, I just turned my oven on for a warm-up. Room temp to 350ºF, 6 minutes, 3 seconds - I walked away for a minute and missed 400ºF. The 'ready' beeper was chiming to signal 475ºF at 9 minutes, 55 seconds. This oven does have the hidden element, but I've noticed it's also much better insulated than my old unit and this new one kicks on both the 'bake' and 'broil' elements for the warm-up, where I believe the old oven just used the bake element.

 

[semipro]

As far as cook top, I've actually become partial to my smooth top. I like the way I can turn the burners on in stages depending on what size pot is on the stove. I don't know how it stacks up 'on paper' for burner BTU's vs gas, but it seems a gas stove has quite a bit of heat going into the air and going around the pot. With the smooth electric top, 99% of that heat goes into the pot. I can put my hand on the cook top 2 inches away from a boiling pot of water and it's barely warm. Very noticeable in the summer if you happen to have a couple burners going...you're really heating the pot, not the air and rest of the kitchen. It also makes a very even heat...not like a gas burner where you get a ring of heat in the center and cooler edges. When I brew, I actually put my 6 gallon pot on the 12" mega-burner for steeping and to get the wort boiling fast, then transfer outside to my gas burner for the rest of the boil.

Voice of experience here: that kind of talk will get you "flamed" in this thread.

Also, to those here that think you can't smell an open propane flame in your house; you're just used to the smell. Its called "odor fatigue". It happens with other gases such as hydrogen sulfide. I (and others) can tell the minute we walk into a house where they've been cooking or heating with propane. (not that you can do the 1st without the 2nd as Corey mentions). The only time I've experienced someone cooking with propane that I couldn't smell was because they were using some monster range hood.

No combustion is 100% complete especially that of simple stovetop burner. The ethyl mercaptan added to propane is not fully burnt so some sulfur-like smells result.

 

[jharkin]

Update:

I finally found a reputable plumber who could run the line for under a grand (tie into the existing 1" boiler line and run 35ft of 3/4 black pipe through a tiny crawl and up to the range location) and we are having it installed Monday.

Still cursing some previous owner who disconnected the original range line at both ends (and no plumber will take the liability of reusing it) rather than just capping it when they switched to elec.

Range shopping to follow.

 

[Highbeam]

Range shopping to follow.

We did a sears range shopping walk through and I was a bit disappointed. The cast iron grates above tthe burners have become a style and often there were parts that easily flexed and looked very weak. Keep an eye on the strength of these grates.

Then the prices were very high but we had limited out search to the dual oven models. We really like the idea of a small upper oven.

 

[ColdNH]

We did a sears range shopping walk through and I was a bit disappointed. The cast iron grates above tthe burners have become a style and often there were parts that easily flexed and looked very weak. Keep an eye on the strength of these grates.

Then the prices were very high but we had limited out search to the dual oven models. We really like the idea of a small upper oven.

We visited Best Buy, Sears, home depot and lowes, sears definitly had the best selection of ranges on the floor to choose from, but bestbuy by far had the best deals. YMMV

 

[jharkin]

Update:


Its been a long time coming, but we are finally cooking with gas! We ended up changing our mind re: stainless and looking at a lot of brands including LG, Whirlpool, Frigidaire, GE, etc... but after seeing a lot of them in person and talking to the folks at a couple of appliance shops about repair rates we kept ending up back at GE.

Its a bit more expensive than the other options, but we love the looks and the controls are very familiar being pretty much the same as our old GE electric. We especially liked their stainless model because its not overpowering - rather than all stainless its mostly black with some stainless trim, and helps tie in our other mismatched appliances (black DW, Stainless fridge).

And best of all?

That bad boy will preheat to 500 in 10 minutes flat




We also got the matching profile over the range microwave to replace the 25 year old Modern Maid I have to install that this weekend.

 

[firebroad]

Congrats, Jeremy! I know you will be very happy 'cooking with gas'! Is it a dual fuel, with electric oven? I actually prefer an electric oven, it seems to bake more evenly.

I wish I had gas. Oh wait, I did the other night after that bean burrito...

 

[jharkin]

Its an all-gas model. We decided to splurge and get a double oven unit and there we very limited choices for double oven dual fuel units in standard 30 inch size. The larger lower oven is convection and has all the modes (bake/roast/convection/etc). the upper over just has a temp dial and has the broiler.

I was surprised to find that though its technically "all gas" the lower oven has an electric top element.

We are just delighted to be back to gas, we had gas for years in the various apartments we lived in before buying the house and its the one thing we wanted to do since the day we moved here.

 

[jharkin]

We are especially excited to try out the built in center cast iron grill/griddle. Which interestingly is made by lodge.

 

[jharkin]

Well, I got the microhood in this morning. Thought it would be a 45 minute job but it ended up taking twice as long. It looks like the same idiots who did the electrical and plumbing around here installed the last microwave, and the rear vent was dumping into a roughly 12x6 inch jagged hole in the drywall, with no sealing around the short duct stub connecting to outside. It must be a testament to how weak the previos microwave's vent fan was that th inside of the wall cavity was not coated with grease. got it sealed up and venting outside OK for now but sometime I might pull it out and redo the entire duct.

Overall I am very pleased with the result. It will be nice to have a real functioning exhaust for once. The oven bakes so much better than the old one the Mrs already almost burned a couple things - we have to unlearn bad habits!

 

[begreen]

The moment we moved into the house I pulled the drop in electric range. It was replaced with a new lower cabinet and a simple gas cooktop. This was 19 yrs ago and it is still going strong and trouble free. I put in a Kitchen Aid wall oven, which was ok, but not great. A few years back I changed it out for an Electrolux convection oven which is the bomb.