Kitchen Ranges
What's Available?

There are many choices in kitchen ranges. Dual fuel, double oven options, as well as having many different sizes. There is sure to be one that fits your lifestyle, but what's available?

Sizes range from 24 inches to 60 inches for residential applications. A 24 inch range is a great space saver in a small kitchen. If you are a gourmet cook, a Five Star professional quality 60 inch range is the top of the line.

The larger kitchen ranges, over 48 inches, often have more than one oven in the same range. The flexibility in the larger ranges is outstanding when compared to the smaller ranges. All of these extras come with a huge price tag though, some cost as much as $9,000. But for a professional quality range the price is comparable to other professional quality ranges.

Heating Methods

Conventional ovens have no fans to move the air around the oven. This increases cooking time and the heat is not as even throughout the oven.

Convection ovens move the air around the inside of the oven. This evens out the cooking temperatures resulting in faster cooking times.

The Three Types

Electric

Element types are coil, ceramic, quartz halogen,and solid.

Coil types are the most common in older electric cooktops. The thicker the coil, the faster it will heat and the longer it will last.The coil type generally take quite a while to come to temperature.

Ceramic elements provide almost instant heat and are very easy to keep clean. This type can also be set flush with the countertop to give a seamless look. These heat faster than the coil type.

Solid element cooktops are cast iron disks with electrical resistance wires encased in insulation to transfer the heat. These are also easy to keep clean. They also heat relatively quickly.

Quartz halogen is the type that glows red when turned on and have smooth tops which are very easy to keep clean. This type heats almost immediately. It's efficiency is around 65% in the transfer of heat.

Read the documentation that comes with your cooktop because some cooktops cannot have certain metals in contact with the surface when hot. Having the wrong cookware can permanantly etch the surface.

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Gas

Gas kitchen ranges come in two types, natural gas and propane. It's very unsafe to connect the wrong fuel to the wrong cooktop. Propane is also known as LP Gas, which stands for liquefied petroleum gas.

These kitchen cooktops have various attachments like Wok cookers and broilers. Pilots are a thing of the past and most have piezoelectric starters which save a lot of money because the pilot isn't burning all the time.

Burners heat instantly and are about 55% efficient in the transfer of heat. Not the best efficiency and the lowest of all types.

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Magnetic Induction.

Magnetic induction kitchen cooktops are very new to the residential market in the US and Canada but have been used in Europe for quite some time, and are sometimes very hard to come by in North America.

Induction cooking works by creating a magnetic field that reacts with the iron in pots and pans. This type of cooktop needs ferrous metal cookware such as cast iron and steel.

If you buy this type of range you may also have to buy a whole new set of cookware. The benefits are the only the cookware itself is heated and not the top itself. This makes it much safer for households with children.

The efficiency is outstanding, around 90%. This is by far the most cost effective in fuel efficiency as it pertains to cooktops. This type also boils water twice as fast as gas and electric.

Energy saving induction cooking
Energy saving induction cooking uses much less energy than conventional electrical cooking and has the instant-off ability and precise control of gas cooking. Plus it won't heat up your kitchen. For details see Energy saving induction cooking at Green-Energy-Efficient-Homes.com.

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Sizes
The sizes range from 24 inch up to 48 inch and almost all sizes in between.

Dual Fuels
Dual fuel ranges are great because you get the best of both worlds. Having gas at the top and electric in the oven. Ovens are not used as much as the tops so the cost is not a huge issue with having electric in the oven, unless you bake or use the oven regularly.

The heating types are explained in the kitchen cooktops section.

When deciding on kitchen ranges the choices are vast and so are the prices. The extras will add up and increase the cost, therefore deciding on which extras you may not use very often, or not at all, will help to keep the price down.