Submitted by OriginalKid t3_12664tc in BuyItForLife
My wife and I are purchasing a house and I am able to choose appliances and that includes a gas range and was wondering if anyone had either good or bad experiences with certain brands? Thank you in advance!
Gas really makes no sense for a stove, though op may have no choice. I think the air quality thing is overblown, but gas stoves are also:
The only legitimate reasons to have gas are slightly valid, but also stupid if you think about them for 5 seconds:
The air quality thingie also depends on how often you fully ventilate the house and how good are your burners. Even with good burners though, you get toxic molecules as a combustion byproduct. The quantity of those is higher if the burner is dirty, if food gets on the burner, or if you smother the flame in any way (like with flame roasting). Keeping the flame low can also cause more combustion buildups
If you have kids, it can be really bad. One in eight cases of asthma are caused by gas stoves.
Headlines far oversimplified what we can actually conclude from that study.
Either way, there's no question bad things get in the air from gas stoves, and gas stoves are a stupid way to extend reliance on fossil fuels in individual homes.
Reply about your bullet points ^ Caveat: I have zero experience with induction.
Depends on your fuel. Propane produces a hotter flame than natural gas. I have used both.
Simmers, eh, I have a very old (32 years) Hardwick, and I use a heat diffuser when I need a low heat for simmering, depending on the cookware I'm using.
I agree with pita to clean, because my range does not have sealed burners! That option was available, but was above my budget when I bought it. I think they are pretty much standard nowadays, though. :)
I guess a comparison of costs of electricity vs natural gas/propane could be a factor in OP's decision. It was in mine.
BlueStar
I wpuld go for induction instead. Gas ranges are inefficient and lower the indoor air quality by a lot. If I wasn't renting I would change the gas range I have with induction immediately.
Having said that, almost all gas ranges are BIFL. If you are still convinced for a gas stove, look for one with a very sturdy inox plane and normal, standard and replaceable, parts. You want one with the security check (checks if the flame is active, if it's not it turns off the gas supply) as those are considerably safer.
I had an LG with a dual oven and "true convection". The burner flames were too wide for many of my smaller pots and pans. The broiler took forever to kick on and the mini ovens were too small for most tasks.
There’s a lot of factors into this. Are looking at free standing/slide in? How large of an oven capacity do you want/need? Do you prefer a double oven? Is a convection oven a requirement? How about controls: front facing or faces down? How many burners do you need? Is color/finish a factor? Whatever the case, LP/natural gas ranges don’t have much complexity, compared to electric or induction. I personally would look at Bosch or Miele. For something cheaper, I’ve had luck with Frigidaire. Consider looking at your range hood as well - most over the range hoods don’t have the proper coverage area, especially over the range microwave hoods. Good luck.
I’d reconsider gas appliances these days. I believe some states are even banning them in new homes, they’re on their way out for health and safety reasons.
I’d recommend induction which is better IMO anyway.
I have a Whirlpool gas stove and I like it. One of the main things I like is that there are five burners, and only one big grate across all of them. It means I can move pots and pans around without worrying about tipping them or finding a space for them.
The main downfall is that cleaning it is a bitch. No matter how often I wipe it down, it always seems to have a layer of grease on some part or another, because there is so much to clean, between the grate and the surface underneath, and even on the little burners themselves. I used to have a glass surface electric stove, and it was a breeze to clean up, I just didn't care for it with all my cast iron.
I bought a GE Café range late last year. The oven controller was faulty, and it took them three tries before I raised hell and they replaced it (no Christmas cookies, and we had to have our traditional holiday dinner catered). Then the new one had some packaging tape on the oven blower that flapped and made noise, so I had to pull the oven half apart to fix it. Not recommended.
Just gonna weigh on the "buy induction because it is better" argument. Yes, it's true, it's also not an option in a lot of US homes built in the mid 20th century with gas appliances unless you can afford to have an electrician run a 220v circuit to the kitchen, and possibly upgrade your electrical service too.
If you're remodeling your kitchen you should 100% go induction (or mixed fuel if you really need gas for certain things). If you have to stick with gas, any modern range/oven with electronic ignition is probably fine. If you go with a less expensive model you can put the money you save towards an Alen 75i air filter to take care of the particulates created by burning gas.
Or you can just put a box fan in the window blowing out, which is what I will continue to do until I get around to remodeling the kitchen. (On days when the Clairton Coke Works is trying to suffocate the city it's better to keep the windows closed and enjoy those sweet, sweet natural gas fumes.)
Induction is tremendously expensive to repair, it is a trending concept but absolutely not a BIFL appliance type.
Your question lacks depth and you need to research this topic much more.
You don't buy on brand per se. The term gas range means many things to many people. There are gas cooktops. There are gas stoves. There are gas double oven stoves. There are gas double convection ovens. There are La Cornue Château Series gas stoves which cost more than $100,000.
As a form factor, a gas cooktop and oven are kid simple BIFL items intrinsically. A $50 yard sale item will function just as long as a $13,000 Wolf stove, the kicker is we don't know any of your use case items which are many: budget, oven amount/size/form factor, size, griddle need, grill need, downdraft vent need, color, and many other things.
So for anyone to give you a brand name will be a disservice without you asking a more specific question.
sindark t1_je8a4no wrote
You may want to read up on how gas stoves impact indoor air quality. Those pretty visible flames are by definition incomplete combustion, meaning volatile chemicals are being emitted from incompletely burned fossil methane. If you are worried about toxins in your environment, fossil fuels are a questionable choice.