We have struggled on this a long while. I wanted a 36″ range so we can cook with more than two burners at a time. Why? Conventional 30″ stoves have 9 to 9 1/2 inches between burners. That means small skillets or pans. Medium is 10 inches, large is 12 inches. Pro-style stoves are 11 1/4 inches or there abouts.
Pro-style are also double the price and some of them even have very small ovens. One for a while was getting around this by measuring the oven with the door open but they got caught and got honest. Sure, sure.
We had given up on the big stove and were ready to make the commitment for a more conventional but full featured stove. But we did still wished we could find one with 5 burners, warming oven and oven controls out front. And that was good looking as well and did not have controls on a upward facing panel to catch all drips. We gave up on that, but went back to State Street Appliance once more on a Saturday two weeks ago. We wandered around and suddenly, there it was! Pricey but a salesman rushed over and pointed out there was significant price incentive in affect for the next two weeks. We did some more looking around and it is the winner. On order, will be here soon.
It is a GE Cafe 30″ Free Standing Gas Range. Very nice pro-style stainless steel design with a glass touch panel oven controls. Four burners with a fifth oval one in the center for a griddle, which is included. Or you can swap it out for a cast iron grate when you are not using the griddle. The oven, convection and self cleaning of course, is a huge, 5 cu ft. and it has a smaller oven in a drawer at the bottom for warming plates or actual cooking.
We are on propane here so unfortunately we will have to suffer the reduced heat output due to the conversion from natural gas. We did find one from Sears that shipped as LP from the factory and had burners at full rated output. But you know, I check on what happens with Viking and Thermadore and on LP they suffer the same problem, and in fact would have slightly less output than this GE does.
We were a bit surprised by the hood we chose. Requirements were for big, easy to clean and quiet. Most hoods come with mesh filters you can put in the dishwasher, or stainless steel baffles which are more scrubable. What we saw, and chose, was a Vent-a-Hood 36″ hood that is 24″ deep, instead of the conventional 19 or 21 inches. That means you can mount it higher so you work more under the hood instead of outside of it. And it covers the primary front burners where all the heat and stuff comes from. Duh! The is no filtration. Instead the fans (two) are in a stainless steel box with suitcase latches. The fan blades sling the grease outward to the inside of the box. To clean you spray some 409 in, run it a bit, then remove the boxes and wipe out. Less restriction in the air flow means less noise. About a third to a half less than others.
And it has halogen cooking lights and infared warming lights. Cool!
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