So my circa 2003 microwave is making all sorts of interesting noises and I am certain it is on the way out. When discussed replacement with the wife I suggested we do the old coil element range as well seeing as it is a complete POS and has never really been what we have wanted (We moved into a new home in 2003 but we got it at about there 95% complete mark including low end appliances).


As gas is out of the question I am looking at some mid range units and my only concern is durability of cook top. Right now we have a decent set of T Fal cookware that has ridges on bottom and I am curious if that will be an issue.

Mothing is ever easy

I am going to watch this thread for suggestions. I currently have gas for most appliances, but we plan to move to a new custom built home in 1-2 years which will have solar electricity so I would imagine I am going to want all appliances to be electric since. I am so used to cooking with gas, but am sure I can adjust to electric.

quote:

Originally posted by StorminNormin:
I am going to watch this thread for suggestions. I currently have gas for most appliances, but we plan to move to a new custom built home in 1-2 years which will have solar electricity so I would imagine I am going to want all appliances to be electric since. I am so used to cooking with gas, but am sure I can adjust to electric.

I actually wish I could have gas but house is not plumbed for it.

So electric glass top ranges things to consider.
Some ranges are 4 elements some are 5. The 5th element is generally a warmer and not for cooking.
Some will have a bridge element that syncs two elements together to use a griddle.
Look for different size elements. This is to match your pot and pan sizes.
Some elements have 2 or 3 rings. That’s to match pan sizes even more so.
Not all large elements are high wattage. Look at the wattage ratings for the elements on each range.
Some elements will have “ fast boil” or “power boil”. Those are your higher wattage, boil water faster burners regardless of their size. Be careful using cheap aluminum or copper bottom pans on high heat. Those tend to soft and leaves stains. Most manufacturers recommend cerama bryte to clean the cooking surface.

In the oven some things to consider. Size may be important if you are a baker. Hidden bake elements make for easier clean up. Some ranges have self clean (super high temp). Some have steam clean. Some are manual clean. The self clean setting is hard on the electronics because of the heat. They turn the stuff to ash inside. Steam clean uses lower heat. You add water to a reservoir and it steams up. Easy to wipe out.
Some ovens have a “fast bake” feature some have “convection” ( true convection or European convection. Fast bake is a fan that moves air around in the oven for even baking. Those oven generally have two racks inside. True or European convection has an additional low wattage element on fan. This lends for even more even baking. It also lowers the temperature and shortens the cooking time. Generally those ovens will have three racks. Think cookies here.
Some ovens will have a probe feature that allows you to monitor internal temps of roasts, turkeys or hams for example.
Bigger ovens have smaller storage drawers under them. Some will have a warming drawer. Some ranges will have roller racks that pull out making it to lift a turkey.

Range forms are changing. The older slide in styles are slowly vanishing. They are being replaced by front control units. Front control units are the same size as free standing ranges. They have a built in look with out the customer counter top work that slide in had.

Example of good featured unit https://products.geappliances..../gea-specs/JB750SJSS
This is about $699 on sale.
Here is another.
https://www.lowes.com/pd/Frigi...29-875-in/1000618529 $749

There is an Lg units that do well, check in your area for servicers.

quote:

Originally posted by Kevmo:

quote:

Originally posted by StorminNormin:
I am going to watch this thread for suggestions. I currently have gas for most appliances, but we plan to move to a new custom built home in 1-2 years which will have solar electricity so I would imagine I am going to want all appliances to be electric since. I am so used to cooking with gas, but am sure I can adjust to electric.

I actually wish I could have gas but house is not plumbed for it.

If you really like the idea of gas but have electric look at induction. Find a showroom that has live display. You won’t believe how it works.
The temperature control is virtually like gas. It boils water faster than gas. The surface of the range stays much cooler so clean up is easier.
We have done demonstrations with newspaper on the cooking surface. Water boils at about 212 degrees, paper burns at 451 degrees. It makes clean up a breeze.
The down side is your pots and pans have to hold a magnet to work and it’s not good around a pace maker.

We have a glass top range. It’s not the induction type, which weren’t around when we bought it. My bride wanted it.

I frequently catch my bride doing things on it that the owner’s manual proscribes (like using the glass top as a cutting board). And people are always putting all kinds of stuff down on it without checking to see if it’s hot. Someday something will happen to destroy it and I can replace the damn thing with a plain old electric range I won’t have to worry about.

I damn sure wouldn’t consider another glass top one. If gas or propane were a practical option for us that house, I’d sure prefer it to any type of electric stove.

We have a Maytag glass top. Works quite well for an electric.
Cleaning the top is a pain a razor blade is pretty much a must. Pretty sure this is indicative of all glass tops.

We've had one in our house for close to 20 years. My wife cooks and uses it a LOT and it has held up well. Our previous house had a gas range and she hated it.

quote:

Cleaning the top is a pain a razor blade is pretty much a must. Pretty sure this is indicative of all glass tops.

Yeah, and until you’ve lived it you’ll think this won’t apply to you, you’ll just keep it clean. Nope, even with that you’ll have some burnt on liquids that simply won’t come up without a blade. We had worst combo in one house; glass top under gas burners. Some fancy GE deal. Worked great but damn I hated cleaning that shit.

To OP you’ll also only be able to get decent results from perfectly flat pots and pans. You’ll find that even some high end stuff will miss that mark eventually.

We have had a Kenmore Elite glass top range for 14 years now. My wife picked it out and still loves it and it looks as new as they day we bought it. It does have bridges built in and will cook pretty much every type of pan that you have. It is almost instant red and cooks things very quickly, which is what we wanted.

A word of caution. It requires some effort to keep it looking good. I do use a knife occasionally to scrape something off but my wife never does. She purchases special pads and glass top cleaning creams off of Amazon. You could probably buy them locally but much cheaper on Amazon. For minor, daily stuff she hits it with a quality glass cleaner spray and paper towels to wipe it down. If ours ever died I would buy another one of these in a heartbeat.

quote:

Originally posted by Georgeair:

quote:

Cleaning the top is a pain a razor blade is pretty much a must. Pretty sure this is indicative of all glass tops.

Yeah, and until you’ve lived it you’ll think this won’t apply to you, you’ll just keep it clean. Nope, even with that you’ll have some burnt on liquids that simply won’t come up without a blade. We had worst combo in one house; glass top under gas burners. Some fancy GE deal. Worked great but damn I hated cleaning that shit.

To OP you’ll also only be able to get decent results from perfectly flat pots and pans. You’ll find that even some high end stuff will miss that mark eventually.

We have had glass top ranges for over 20 years.
Not one of them has seen a blade.

Bob

We built a house about 2 years ago and I posted about gas vs induction. The replies were humorously tilted in favor of gas, even along the lines of “only people that don’t know how to cook use induction.” After two years of it we love using it. The positives are total control of the entire cooking range of temperatures and no mess. Yes, you can boil water quickly. You can also reduce the temperature and keep something mildly warm. As far as cleaning there are glass top cleaners you can buy that will quickly removes anything that gets on the glass. For non burned on messes I use fabuloso which is the purple, lavender scented cleaner followed by sprayway cleaner. Our is 36” JennAir, with a bridge on two of the “burners” that turns the two into a larger burner for something like a griddle. I will echo the comments of an earlier poster and tell you to find an appliance store that will do a demo on one for you. Ultimately it comes down to whatever you want but without a demo you can’t really get a good idea of what an induction cooktop does and how it works.
I’ve never used a blade to clean anything on it, only Glass Cooktop Cleaner and Polish, brand name is Magic. Purchased at Lowe’s I think.
You will need to make sure that your cookware is flat, even slightly curved bottoms may affect the cooking. Of course that may be in my mind as I can’t stand anything with a curved bottom and will get rid of it immediately. On a positive note cast iron cookware is GTG. Just make sure that you don’t slide them around on the top and that you pick them up and place them.
If you do go down the induction route waxonware skillets are excellent.

Two criticisms of glass top ranges:

1) Couldn’t use cast iron on ours
2) The small lid of a sugar bowl will crack the cook surface if dropped on edge on it. Ask me how I know this.

We replaced ours with a gas cook top. I’d go with the old fashioned electric coil cook top before I’d have another glass one.

One thing to remember about induction cook tops is that you do need to have pots and pans that will attract a magnet. Induction will not work well without "magnetic" pans which will limit what you can use. Saying that we had one in our last house and loved it. Heats up extremely fast and cools down just as fast.

I have never owed one but I thin the glass top ranges are awful.... but then I don't like electric of any kind... problem with either is they stay hot too long and take too long to cool down or change the tempt. of the eye....

We has a glass top Frigidaire from 03-07. The two things I didn’t like about it was it a pain to keep clean like the others said. The razor blaze was our friend. The second was the coils were too inconsistent. It was either too cold or too hot (which caused boil over and the need for the razor blade).

They look a lot cooler than coils but it’s a toss up if that were my only options. We’ve been lucky since and have been cooking with gas for the last 12 years.

quote:

Originally posted by Kevmo:

quote:

Originally posted by StorminNormin:
I am going to watch this thread for suggestions. I currently have gas for most appliances, but we plan to move to a new custom built home in 1-2 years which will have solar electricity so I would imagine I am going to want all appliances to be electric since. I am so used to cooking with gas, but am sure I can adjust to electric.

I actually wish I could have gas but house is not plumbed for it.

Was looking at kitchen appliances yesterday, if I'm going to drop all this money on granite, high end cabinets, back splashes, under cabinet lights etc. What's another few hundred to get gas ran to the stove. Should be cheap, will pull my old generator gas guy to help. He can't do the work anymore, but he has tools some materials and can tell me how to do it under his supervision. Probably only need to cut a half dozen holes to do it, and that's all in my laundry room.

Wife wants glass topped for appearance and ease of cleaning.

Not sure who wins that one, I do the cooking, so she'll probably default to me, so do I feel like cutting holes, patching, and painting, that is the question.

quote:

Originally posted by rbert0005:
We have had glass top ranges for over 20 years.
Not one of them has seen a blade.

Maybe, but if true I bet your microwave is a MESS!

quote:

Originally posted by Skins2881:
... so do I feel like cutting holes, patching, and painting, that is the question.

Jesse - if you've ever had gas you already know the answer is yes. Especially if you're the cook. If you've not had gas, you'll know why the answer is yes the next time, after you do it this time!

When we remodel our kitchen, we will have induction; my wife has already tossed out the non-induction-ready cookware. We have used almost exclusively a countertop single plate induction unit for several years. Then we bought a rental home with a Kenmore Elite induction range and stayed in the house while fixing it up.
We are totally sold, for reasons described above. We dial in the temperature we want, prevents burning food and cookware.
Also we now have a solar system, so pay essentially nothing for electricity.
Cookware sold now will have a stamp on the bottom indicating if it works with induction, and if you buy from Amazon you need to watch for the induction-ready notice.
Oh, we have a grandchild now and I believe the chances of injury from a hand on the stove are much lower with an induction unit, but I haven't seen written evidence of that.

Used one in an AirBnB for a week, I thought I'd like it, since it was modern and sleek looking. I hated it at the end. The cleaning was probably the biggest issue as stated by others. Any and all drips & spills had to be dealt with. Scratches from sliding pots/pans were evident from prior users, not sure if there's a weight limit or, limit on how heavy but, if you're using a dutch oven or, stock pot, you're going to be sliding them.