We are being forced into a full kitchen remodel since the flood has left the kitchen gutted. Might as well make the best of a bad situation and do something we had talked about before. We want to eliminate our 36" cooktop with downdraft and 27" wall oven and change to a duel fuel range.

My budget is $5,000. I seem to be limited by my 36" width in range choices. Or maybe I am not. I have this vision of a 4 burner stove with griddle in the middle, possibly a double oven below. I am finding the "commercial style" in a 36", but most everything else is 30"

So It looks like for my budget, I am looking at the Kitchen Aid Commercial Style or the Thermador. I really like the GE Profile Series and have had a good experience with them at other peoples houses, but they only come in a 30".

Take a look at Bertazzoni

I think I am leaning hard towards the Kitchenaid . I also need to find a range hood, and it will probably need to be a island hood since we have a window behind the range. Any suggestions?

Are you limiting yourself to 36" based on space or cost? If you want two ovens you need to go at least 48" or else you'll end up with two small ovens that aren't particularly good for anything. A 36" oven is nice though.

Your range sitting under that window is going to pose somewhat of a venting challenge. My understanding is that downdrafts don't particularly work well and a hood mounted high enough to clear the window probably won't work that well either. You'd probably need to go with a higher CFM blower than normal and oversized hood to expand your capture area.

As far as brands...these were the "players" we saw suggested when we were shopping for one a couple of years ago:

Capital
Thermador
BlueStar
DCS
GE
Wolf

AJ Madison sells almost all of the brands so they're a pretty good website to shop and compare (they aren't bad to buy from either).

The window opening is 40" so we are going with a 36" High End Range. We are thinking of pulling the plantation shutters out and using an inland hood so you can still see out the window.

I see the benefits of two ovens but can get by with one huge one, But we are going to get way more use out of the griddle. We have a double burner griddle pan now that only leaves the cook top if I needed more than two burners.

So I am hoping the island hood would not look totally out of place. All the uppers are going away so we will be able to shape the cabinets around the hood.

03_Aggie said:

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As far as brands...these were the "players" we saw suggested when we were shopping for one a couple of years ago:

Capital
Thermador
BlueStar
DCS
GE
Wolf

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GE sold off their appliance brand to the Chinese(Haier), so I'd stay way from them.

Blue Star. We really like ours!

How do you plan to run your duct work to the attic? Going to hang an island vent from ceiling down or frame and Sheetrock a "box" to be able to hang it lower?

So... and correct me if I am wrong. The new cabinets will be going up the the ceiling. We will bring the shroud up above the alcove head an that will be covered with a millwork panel. the duct will turn 90 degrees into the wall and either go straight to a duct hole we would cut into the exterior brick, of if we are lucky, it will be at the height of the roof over the alcove and we can use a roof jack.

Kinda will look like this

Ive installed Bosch in two different houses. 36" gas cooktops with electric built in ovens below them

I pulled the trigger on the Bluestar RNB 36" with griddle yesterday. And a 42" Zephyr hood. I am excited and will try to remember to post pics if this ever gets finished

If your thinking about kitchenaid, I would look at Jenn air. Better look in my opinion and about the same price. On vents, ventahoods are the best.

dummble said:

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I pulled the trigger on the Bluestar RNB 36" with griddle yesterday. And a 42" Zephyr hood. I am excited and will try to remember to post pics if this ever gets finished

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AGMECHANIC

Are you an appliance guy?

Got a repair/modification question for you.

Thanks

getting closer, I just need them to hook up my sink so if i use it I could wash dishes.

Got the same hood but went with a 36 inch bertazzoni range

Turns out that when both my furnaces are running, I am preheating the oven to 425 and the griddle is on, I do not have enough gas pressure in the house to sear the fudge out of meat.

I have a call into Centerpoint to upgrade my meter so I get more flow.

Does it have a griddle in the middle position? That's the one thing I'd have done differently at our place.

It does. On our last cooktop it had the long burner and we pretty much never took our cast iron griddle off. between pancakes, tortillas, hamburgers, steaks, chicken. It was always in use.

So this one has a gas griddle with thermostatic temp controller. Super even heat. Pancakes come off diner perfect and evenly browned.

It's not for every house, but at ours it gets a lot of use. Bluestar makes a griddle that spans two burners, but no temp control obviously, just heat control.

dummble said:

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It does. On our last cooktop it had the long burner and we pretty much never took our cast iron griddle off. between pancakes, tortillas, hamburgers, steaks, chicken. It was always in use.

So this one has a gas griddle with thermostatic temp controller. Super even heat. Pancakes come off diner perfect and evenly browned.

It's not for every house, but at ours it gets a lot of use. Bluestar makes a griddle that spans two burners, but no temp control obviously, just heat control.

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I'd be interested to know what temp variation your thermostat is set at before the burner kicks back on?

Jealous... when we bought our Blue Star cooktop they weren't making one yet with a griddle. Hindsight is 20/20 but I really should have bought a rangetop instead since those came with one. Didn't think we'd need one which of course was wrong. Maybe once our cooking skills improve enough to justify it we can make the jump.

everybody still happy w/ their bluestars? also, recall the additional charge for changing knob color? i'll probably be going w/ a 48" rangetop.

It's only been 2 months and this is the first "professional style" range I have ever had or cooked on. I also got my gas problem sorted. It was user install error.

I love the burners and the output. The amount of heat is nuts and even.

I love the griddle and think it was a great choice for our lifestyle.

the oven is super even side to side but the temp at the back wall seems a bit higher. I only notice this with pizza that practically touches the back wall.

I have not personally tested the broiler, but my brother's GF who loved the oven for baking almost burnt some pastries since she was not ready for that level of heat.

I got a round bottom wok because Bluestar. There is a 2" void in the very center of the wok that does not get heat from the burner. This makes a very hot ring, but dead center is not as hot. I am still learning how to cook with it but have been very pleased with the results so far.

You can adjust the flame level so I am still trying to dial in simmer and low on all the burners and will probably end up with 4 levels of "low"

Cleaning is easy. Invest in a good vent hood if you want to play with wok cooking.

After you dump your pasta in the water that only took like 3 minutes to boil, be sure to reduce the heat since it will boil over pretty quick.

I paid $480 for color knobs, no ragrets

This picture shows what I am talking about with heat ring on the wok.

thanks for the feedback.

how many CFM is your vent?

600cfm max, 6" duct with one 90 deg bend, 42" wide set at 36" above the cooktop. Those are all pretty much the minimums for this range.

When it is on max I can feel it pulling in the cool air from the adjoining rooms.

I have only smoked up the house when I forget to turn it on before doing something dumb. Like seasoning that wok indoors.

Great pics, especially the one of you smoking out the kitchen with hood off.

I have a 6 burner Blue Star and am very happy with it.

Need something this month. Great to come back to this thread for a starting point. Price point is medium to high end. Would love dual fuel with the thermostatic temperature controlled griddle. Not sure how to search for all those options. Dealers don't always know what you're talking about or brands they don't typically stock/sell.

Will post pics to show it off a little when we are done. Getting 220 in will be a challenge due to there being four feet of solid concrete behind the interior wall. I know that sounds confusing. The explanation would take a whole lot and some pictures.

Thanks for listening. Now please just pick my oven and hood for us.

I will second the rev on ventahood. Happy with ours (48')

Unfortunately we had a very bad experience with Miele on our 48' range. It's a double oven, 6 burner and griddle . Propane range/griddle and electric oven. Bought it over Wolfe and other high end ranges.

Why we chose it:

It looked very nice. I'm the oven was the only one at the time that had the steam feature, and we got a built in Mielle coffee maker. Mielle was the only one that had a plumbed coffee maker . So we got all Mielle appliances (except hood and beer fridge)

We've had it 14 months and it only fully worked for two of those months. We FINALLY got them to replace it and that was done just this Wednesday.

I'm very hopeful the range is going to prove to work out for us in the long run. Over the past 14 months m, the parts that worked, we did actually love. But their customer service was so horrible once it became apparent this needed to be replaced. I could never recommend them based on that.

Long story short:
Range was broken during installation. They tried to push it in the last two inches or so by the handle. It has a large RED sign not to do that as the oven door will shatter. Well, it shattered

Took about 4 weeks, but they did replace the door.

It fully worked for two months

Then the hinge on the door they replaced broke, they said it was a known defect and would replace it

They came out and replaced it. Surprisingly that "required" a near filled day of complete disassembly. Did not seem like the Mielle guy knew what he was doing (multiple calls in to others and even looking at YouTube videos)

Well, after that we spent the next 10 months dealing with a variety of the 6 burners not working. They came out 4 separate times to fix it but it never worked right.

Finally they agreed to replace it (sometime in February). They thought it was too unsafe to keep the gas hooked up so they unhooked that until the replacement. That was finally done on June 11! We got to the point of calling them multiple times a day and even hired an attorney to right a letter demanding this be done in a timely manner as it was a violation of their warranty and fair trade practices.

Well, here I am, finally have the 25k in appliances working after 14 months and much headache.

After spending that kind of money I expected to be treated better.

Won't work with them again. Fingers crossed they work for us now .

Truth be told, when they are working I do like them

We just started looking on our house build. Friends with all wolf and sub zero appliances.....not sure I want to go that high end, will probably look at jenn air. If I understand it right, whirlpool owns jenn air and kitchenaid....have friend of a friend that works for whirlpool that claims he can save me 40-50% off.

my wife is not a big cooker so wanting the 36" range with single oven but definitely want the griddle in the middle.