The OH and I are considering a Range Cooker. One of those freestanding gas and electric cookers of 1.0 or 1.1 metres wide.
Any folk got any advice, from experience, as to makes, models features to have or avoid?
Range Cooker, advice please.
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peter
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Hello Peter, Not being able to afford an Aga, I bought a Rangemaster (company owned by Aga) and am very pleased with it. Like most things there are good and bad bits. It is quite sturdy apart fron the covers on the burners which are a bit tinny.
We've got a Rangemaster too and it's good value. If you want to spend a bit more, there's a number of semi-professional ones available (mostly French and German).
The only problem we've found with our Rangemaster is that we use it too much. At least, that's what the man says when he comes to mend it. We do lots of baking and lots of slow cooking (as per Heston and his 24hr roast) and lots of evry other type of cooking and 'the man' says domestic cookers are not made for that amount of use, which is why we've got through 2 elements in 3 years.
So - we've recently bought a commercial stainless steel range with 6 burners and 900 wide oven. It was just a few months old, about to be taken out of a church hall, so we could try it out. It's made by Lincat. I think a new one is just short of 2K and we got ours for £250 on Ebay.
I'd love to have a Wolf range like the one in JM's house (only 16K for just the oven apparently) but I think our bargain will be just fine!
The only problem we've found with our Rangemaster is that we use it too much. At least, that's what the man says when he comes to mend it. We do lots of baking and lots of slow cooking (as per Heston and his 24hr roast) and lots of evry other type of cooking and 'the man' says domestic cookers are not made for that amount of use, which is why we've got through 2 elements in 3 years.
So - we've recently bought a commercial stainless steel range with 6 burners and 900 wide oven. It was just a few months old, about to be taken out of a church hall, so we could try it out. It's made by Lincat. I think a new one is just short of 2K and we got ours for £250 on Ebay.
I'd love to have a Wolf range like the one in JM's house (only 16K for just the oven apparently) but I think our bargain will be just fine!
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cevenol jardin
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We bought an Ariston range 5 gas burners and 90cm wide elctric oven- It cost about £500 its pretty BUT 3 problems with it. The first may not be an issue for you but the others will be.
1.as we are on bottle gas i think there is not enough pressure to reach all burners so we only have 2 regular burners and the wok burner functioning.
2. You cannot get the flame low enough to gently cook anything which is a problem for curries, stews and loads of other stuff.
3. The grill is inside the oven so if you grill in it you can get fat on the upper level which turns into acrid smoke just when you want to make a cake
and so far i can't find a way of dismantling the grill to get to the upper level to clean it.
Just a word of caution to look for one you can clean particularly grill if you use it (i don't use the grill anymore) and that at least 1 burner is for low heat.
On the plus side the wok burner is superb, timer is very useful and the wide oven means you can fit in a lot of stuff. Hope that helps. Cookers are a big expense and we made a mistake with ours. Well done Tigger yours sounds like a bargain
1.as we are on bottle gas i think there is not enough pressure to reach all burners so we only have 2 regular burners and the wok burner functioning.
2. You cannot get the flame low enough to gently cook anything which is a problem for curries, stews and loads of other stuff.
3. The grill is inside the oven so if you grill in it you can get fat on the upper level which turns into acrid smoke just when you want to make a cake
and so far i can't find a way of dismantling the grill to get to the upper level to clean it.
Just a word of caution to look for one you can clean particularly grill if you use it (i don't use the grill anymore) and that at least 1 burner is for low heat.
On the plus side the wok burner is superb, timer is very useful and the wide oven means you can fit in a lot of stuff. Hope that helps. Cookers are a big expense and we made a mistake with ours. Well done Tigger yours sounds like a bargain
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Hello Cevenol
Although you are on bottled gas if your cooker has been installed properly you should easily be able to run all the burners. I suspected the problem is with your gas supply pipe being too narrow. Its not a pressure problem but a matter of supplying enough gas to run all the burners at one time. We have a bottled propane oven (4 burners and two ovens) which is some distance from the supply bottles and the installer and I had to get our calculators out to make sure the correct diameter supply pipe went in when it was fitted.
John
Although you are on bottled gas if your cooker has been installed properly you should easily be able to run all the burners. I suspected the problem is with your gas supply pipe being too narrow. Its not a pressure problem but a matter of supplying enough gas to run all the burners at one time. We have a bottled propane oven (4 burners and two ovens) which is some distance from the supply bottles and the installer and I had to get our calculators out to make sure the correct diameter supply pipe went in when it was fitted.
John
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cevenol jardin
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a-ha thanks John
we installed it ourselves without the aid of a calculator or anything else
We did try putting the bottle right next to the cooker tho and a short hose with the same prob. There are 2 sets of 'heads' or fixtures of some kind for each of the burners one for bottle and one for mains gas - we did fit the right ones but again we did it ourselves so perhaps its not quite right. The other thing is that one of the furthers away burners soots up the pans if you try to use it - does that have any bearing?
Maybe we should try and get someone up to have a look - not easy in these parts. Also the 2 furthest away (from the inlet) burners don't work even if the other burners are not on
we installed it ourselves without the aid of a calculator or anything else
We did try putting the bottle right next to the cooker tho and a short hose with the same prob. There are 2 sets of 'heads' or fixtures of some kind for each of the burners one for bottle and one for mains gas - we did fit the right ones but again we did it ourselves so perhaps its not quite right. The other thing is that one of the furthers away burners soots up the pans if you try to use it - does that have any bearing?
Maybe we should try and get someone up to have a look - not easy in these parts. Also the 2 furthest away (from the inlet) burners don't work even if the other burners are not on
Getting closer to the land www.masdudiable.com
Hello again Cevenol
I'm not a gas engineer I'm afraid so I hesitate to give you any specific advice. It does seem from what you say that you need to get the installation checked over.
The burner that is sooting up sounds dangerous to me as it means that the gas is not burning away completely. If this is happening it means that some carbon monoxide could be produced.
John
I'm not a gas engineer I'm afraid so I hesitate to give you any specific advice. It does seem from what you say that you need to get the installation checked over.
The burner that is sooting up sounds dangerous to me as it means that the gas is not burning away completely. If this is happening it means that some carbon monoxide could be produced.
John
The Gods do not subtract from the allotted span of men’s lives, the hours spent fishing Assyrian tablet
What we observe is not nature itself, but nature exposed to our method of questioning Werner Heisenberg
I am a man and the world is my urinal
What we observe is not nature itself, but nature exposed to our method of questioning Werner Heisenberg
I am a man and the world is my urinal
I bought a BAUMATIC (90 cm wide)
I got it 6 years ago and it has been super.I think I paid 900 for it although it usually goes for 1200, the internet proved to have some good deals.
What I like is that it has 2 ovens, not just one oven and a plate warmer,which some of the others had. It also has a rotiserie.
I got it 6 years ago and it has been super.I think I paid 900 for it although it usually goes for 1200, the internet proved to have some good deals.
What I like is that it has 2 ovens, not just one oven and a plate warmer,which some of the others had. It also has a rotiserie.