OT cooking stoves and hand vacs

We re-did the kitchen a couple of years ago. The new stuff for kitchens, just in the past few years, is amazing! I now have a ceramic-top induction stove. The closest you can get to gas, and even more sensitive in many ways. And energy-saving: it heats the food directly in the pot, rather than having to heat the pot first. Water boils in no time! Oil is ready to fry almost instantly. Cleaning is easier because spills don't get heat-glued to the surface, and it cools down faster after cooking. The down side (or maybe the up side, depends how old and beat-up they are): you need to toss out all cookware that isn't iron/ steel.

My bottom-line absolute must for my new kitchen was a built-in oven closer to eye level. So it's not part of the stove, and I can see what's going on without bending over. Electric convection oven with grill. And instead of a microwave (we have another arrangement for that), I ordered an extra steamer oven. This is great! Roberta in D

"Polly Esther" schrieb im Newsbeitrag news: snipped-for-privacy@corp.supernews.com...

Consumer Reports did an article on kitchens and appliances quite recently. You could find it in the library.

Martha

I wish I needed a new stove with all the discussion here. Mine is a sealed gas drop in cooktop/oven. It is GE and not quite 10 years old. The worst thing about it is the burner pans and grates are a light color (that was standard with the bisque color) They are a bear to keep clean. The part that lights the oven died and was pretty expensive to replace. I have since learned if I had just called the gas company they would have replaced it at cost. The repair guy said usually the control panel goes first. It has a high heat and a simmer burner. The simmer one is pretty worthless for my needs and the high one isn't all that hot. I picked up a set of rollers at Lowe's not long ago and we put the stove on those. That is kind of neat for cleaning. A friend just got a new cooktop with the glass or ceramic top. I don't know much about those. SHe did have a razor knife to clean it. She said if her 90 year old SIL could figure it out she could too!

I have not had good luck with hand held vacs. Years ago I had a wet/dry dustbuster that was really great. The ones these days seem kind of weak in comparison. Does anyone have one of the dirt devil Kone hand vacs? They look kind of neat.

Good luck > I don't do any more cooking than I have to, but one thing I would look

Had one of those 'attach to your reg vacuum sets'. couldn't get it to stay on the regular size vacuum hose. I gave it away. Might work on the in-house vacuum set-up tho, like we have now. Not about to spend money on it the 2nd time to find out. Did buy mine eons ago--when they first came out--might be better made now? Had a lot of diff attachments for it at the time. Sorry, not much help

Have an electric flat top cook stove that has the 'bolts for the floor to keep it from tipping'--got rid of the built-in convection microwave as I couldn't lift things into it.(Have a regular counter top free-standing microwave now). I baby-sit when cooking so it doesn't spill over... so far I haven't had trouble keeping it clean. Can't handle the fumes from the cleaner--so I go outside when it's done.

Since you are going to have this a long time, I would shop around as much as possible. We did a lot of online looking before we even went to a store as I couldn't walk much at the time. Ended up getting one of the 3 that we had narrowed it down to online. Knew more about it than the salesman--he was nice enuf to let us 'read' the manual in the store.(Ended up getting it at Sears for the best price-WATCH the delivery fees--get it in writing BEFORE you leave the store. Sure glad we did)

HTH Butterfly

Howdy!

(Ginger, please send back the elves.)

A few years ago I had the cooktop replaced w/ a ceramic solid surface cooktop (Whirlpool Gold): love it! Love it, love it, love it!

Heats up fast, takes no longer to cool off than any other electric stove I've encountered, and is so easy to clean & keep clean: baking soda. No open rings & pans to clean off, dig out, clean under, replace, try to keep shiny. One of the (2) big burners converts to a medium size or a simmer ring w/ the flick of a little switch. Switch covers pop off w/ a little tug (they aren't loose) to clean around, and that's it: solid surface is fabulous. It was time for new cookware, got some flat-bottom, easy-clean Calphalon --again, love it! Cost? about $100 at Kohl's sale; more than worth it.

Convection oven: tried one in a friend's house for a few days: no point in having one here, just wouldn't use it much. Best tools I've found for better baking: cooking stones, well-seasoned in just a week. Often wish I had a 2nd oven (we rented a house in Calif. that had a 1950s era stove, big old Buick-looking thing, w/ a regular oven & a smaller oven beside it-- wow! what a deal: why did they stop making such sensible appliances?!?

Vacuum cleaner: The Bosch works great, esp. when I remember to clean the filter after a few months of snorting pet hair & thread bits. I like to get a newer, light-weight vac every few years because they keep improving them, good suction, easy to carry, great on stairs. Cordless-- not so far but that's an idea; my lawn mowers & trimmers are cordless electric. Son Eli likes the little feather-lite vacuum "stick" he has, an Electrolux w/ the dustbuster attached, rechargeable that lasts long enough for his use (bet he'd loan it to me for a plate of nachos).

If you get the ultimate stove/cooktop/oven for one kitchen, will the other kitchen feel left out? Maybe ought to buy it a new sewing machine.

Ragmop/Sandy--love to cook, love to quilt, love to eat... tonight: corn on the cob w/ avocado lime butter

Polly, This thread is interesting, even though we'll be hanging on to our stove for several more years. I'd like to mention what SonOne has. It is a freestanding electric Maytag. The larger oven is beneath a smaller oven! The small one can be for warming, as Leslie mentioned, or can be used in normal cooking function. This small size in handy for people who cook small amounts, and then the larger oven is available for large cooking chores. One draw back is that the pans in the large oven are lower than normal. I am about average height at 5'6", and found it a tad clumsy when we cooked a turkey. Since you have mentioned that you are a small person, perhaps this is okay for you. Plus, how often does one cook such a large food? HTH. PAT in VA/USA PS: I hope to go for the dual fuel someday ... I like Leslie's choice!

Hmmm ... well, I don't really cook or clean, but considering that hubby says it's in my job description ... I'll try to help!

Now, on the stove, I can't say ... I just have an ol' regular one that came with the house. :)

BUT on the vacuum cleaner I can give some input ... I take apart computers pretty often and I DO clean the innards (and the moving parts of my sewing machine - I'm a NUT for that!) and what I use is an attachment for my vacuum cleaner. I've tried Dustbusters, Sharks, etc, and not a single one of them does as good a job on the tiny bits o' dust and thread snips like MY vacuum!

So I decided to chuck the itty bitty vacuums and just bought the attachment kit (it was about $15) and it works like a CHARM! :) I bought it at a quilt show about 8 years back? And has NEVER failed me!

Now they're cheaper ... I did a search and came up with this:

Here ya go- a duel fuel with a double oven- Now that's a great combo! (Maytag doesn't seem to make a dual fuel???)

Roberta, my DT recently switched to an induction cooktop, and she just loves it! I wish .... ;) Anyway, DH and I went to a Japanese restaurant not to long ago, and they had individual induction burners on the tables so we could cook our own "hot pot" stuff -- *wonderful* invention! That's what I want one day.

Roberta, my DT recently switched to an induction cooktop, and she just loves it! I wish .... ;) Anyway, DH and I went to a Japanese restaurant not to long ago, and they had individual induction burners on the tables so we could cook our own "hot pot" stuff -- *wonderful* invention! That's what I want one day.

Reading this thread has been a treat. Stoves-- I am fond of electric stoves/ovens because of bad experiences with gas ones. So was delighted when we moved into this house to find electric built ins. They are still here and functional, more or less. (We have lived here for almost 23 years now, and they were far from new when we moved in. so doing pretty well I'd say.) Just went and checked, they are Westinghouse brand. The stove top has rheostat controls, not buttons, so the temp is as variable as with a gas stove. Which is wonderful. (Yes you have to be a bit careful about setting something down on a hot burner, but you can learn to turn the burner off just before something is done. It becomes automatic. ) The oven is built in and is oversize. I can set 2 9x13" cake pans or 2 cookie sheets side by side on a shelf. It heats quickly too. Doesn't have a separate broiler, but we don't need one, if we want to "broil" meat or such we usually use the outdoor grill. (Which is gas, but I can deal with that.... instead of charcoal. )

Haven't looked much at new stoves, and hope I don't have to for a while. We did have to get one burner element replaced, but that wasn't a problem. And I generally only use 2 burners most of the time anyway.

My microwave, which is getting into the "elderly" stage, being about 25 years old, is a combo micro/convection oven. Rick bought it for me when he sold a story or something long back. Haven't used the convection much, but it is nice to be able to have shelves in the microwave.

Vacuums: bought a small one that was supposed to work on computers and sewing machines. It didn't. have the small attachment set that goes on a regular vacuum and haven't used it. (No, I don't do a lot of cleaning. sigh. Yes my house is a total disaster and needs lots of help. working toward that. Time for the decade cleaning or something. )

Pati, in Phx

Polly Esther wrote:

I think the stove topic has been just about thoroughly covered.........and now for the rest of the story.

Scathingly Brilliant Vacuum Solution: ~VBSG~ ;-D

I found a solution for the vacuum that has worked *really* well. I have the micro attachment set that Connie mentioned (I bought mine from Nancy's Notions several years ago.) but went one step further. It was a pain in the azzzz to keep dragging out my vacuum and swapping things around, which means I didn't do it often enough, so I bought a little electric canister vac at a garage sale for $2. I think it's a Shark canister, looks sort like a silver space ship. As a regular vacuum it doesn't work worth beans (most likely why it was for sale CHEAP) but because of the hose reduction when I put the mini attachments on it creates major suckage. I just keep the little hose permanently attached, dropped the vacuum and all the attachments in a plastic kitty litter bucket and keep it right under my machine table. Because it's so handy and usually plugged in I used it when ever I shut things down on my serger or swapped threads or needles on my machines or finish a project. Those cute as a button teeny little attachments work slick and get into iddy biddy tiny places. I never use canned air, bad juju according to the sewing machine people. When things are handy, plugged in and sitting right by your feet you tend to use them more. When I clean out my computer or keyboard all I have to do is pick up the bucket and take it to my pc. Everything is there and all I have to do it plug it in.

IMHO the hand vacs, cordless or otherwise, and the mini vacs specifically made to clean your computer are useless. In other words, you can't get into tight spaces and/or they *don't* suck, which is the problem.

I'll bet Polly could even step out with that bucket of suckage equipment and good extension cord to clean the dust off the Bedazzled gators with absolutely no problem at all.......YMMV. *snort*

Val

Warning! The Maytag Gemini range has all sorts of problems...not the least of which is the dreaded F1 and F7 fault [prone to setting off alarms in the small of the night. [I've been heard to scream at the stove "I don't care that you can't lock your oven doors, it's 3 AM!!!!] Do NOT buy the gas version of this stove...do a google for the class action law suit and other issues. Mine is electric and I love the little oven, but have had my share of grief.

I did discover that some of that can be resolved by making sure that NOTHING --no salt and pepper shakers, no pots, no little gizmo is ever set in front of the vent above the burners. Once I made sure those vents were always clear, I had fewer unexplained shut-downs: I'm guessing steam was getting redirected into the circuitry and causing the faults.

If you buy one, I'd surely buy the extended warranty: replacing the main circuit is $300 just for the circuit board--I'm scared to think what labour would be [I'm married to an electronics technologist, so he does his own repairs.]

Great suggestion, Val! I have so many crappy canister vacs (ahem ... Dustbusters that don't bust nuthin') and I'm going to try that. Try to get some money's worth out of the lil buggers!

And definitely, it'd be nice to not have to drag out the monster when I just want to suck out the lint from my bobbin case! :)

Thank you!!! :)

Which is EXACTLY what happened to Compaq computers - they used to be THE best - and then HP bought them out.

What was once the Mercedes of computers became the Yugo. Bought a Compaq thinking it was still Compaq and the PC went to heck within 12 days. Problem after problem, crappy "out-sourced" tech support ... headaches galore! :/

Didn't Singer go through something like that, too? I used to remember Singers being awesome machines and then ... new management and PFFFT. I heard though, that in the last 5 years they've been coming back ...

I mentioned that Maytag was making a nice stove to DH. He said we had one at our last home and it was a daily pain-in-the-neck. Boy! do I ever have a serious case of insufficient memory. I'd forgotten who made that beautiful but very aggravating stove. Woe be unto a stove that wants me to lock its doors at 3 AM. I am appreciating everybody's input and will be better equipped to choose a stove. Gas fuel is not available here and the cleaning lady would rather be quilting but we will find the right one. So glad I'm not in a hurry and very glad I asked you all for help. Thank you kindly, Polly