A little perspective on what EPA 300 is and does. Does it certify anything? I am not sure it does anything other than regulate emissions standards. Something similar to the new gas mileage bill signed where cars have to average 35mpg by 2016 or something like that. Just because the car meets that standard does not mean it is a better built car. It means it complies with the regulations for a certain standards level. What do you give up or gain for that compliance. This thread although a few years old, gives some good detail on the regs, what they mean and how they affect the equipment. I think it is dangerous to use the EPA 300 hour rating as a measure of quality. I think more factors should be used in a purchase decision.

>>> but after the salesman explained how hot the oven doors get and how much extra heat they give off to the room, I took Bluestar off my list. (I have relatively young children, I live in an area with hot summers, and I don't have air-conditioning in my kitchen. * * * So...thoughts on whether it would make sense for me to spend several thousand dollars more for a DCS or a Wolf vs. a standard Frigidaire or equivalent?There are no simple answers to that last question, as Geoffrey_B has pointed out. But, let me offer a few additional considerations. Apart from being marketed as premium-priced, aesthetically fashionable luxury goods, pro-style gas ranges have multiple full-range burners that can go from highest usable heat to the barest simmer. Do you have times where, like gk7 described above, you will need several high-power burners at once? Or, like me, does your production cooking find you often running four (or more) large pans at high heat at a time. Pro-style ranges like the Wolf and DCS have cooktops that are spacious enough to fit all four large pans on at one time, a convenience that is handy for me with all the entertaining I do. While we all know cooking for five can be serious production-style cooking, how often will you be simultaneously running four (or more) 12" diameter pots and pans? Or, will it be a mix of pans and sauce pans which will fit together readily on the stovetops of the Frigidaires and GEs? Going with a 36" DCS or Wolf will increase the stovetop spaciousness, and that is an oft-discussed reason that folks here have cited as a benefit of the larger ranges. Practically speaking, If you really want that spaciousness, you have to buy a 36" pro-style range and you pay a premium for that. Only you can decide if that extra spaciousness is worth it to you to pay the serious price premium. For griddles, consider that the built-in ones for the Wolf (and probably the DCS) have only a 10 or 11 inches wide cooking surface. IIRC, there have been posts here stating that some find these griddles can be a pain to clean and maintain. For around $100, you can get a significantly larger and generally well-regarded Chef-King 14x23 carbon steel griddle that likely will heat as evenly, be easier to manage and clean, and can be stashed out of the way when you do not need to use it. You can use it as readily on a 30" range, too. The larger burners on the DCS and Wolf can make it bit easier to get even heating on that kind of griddle -- major brand stoves will likely have burners of differing sizes (and a small one in the back) which makes it harder to manage a large griddle. As for not wanting to fire up a big oven for a single lasagna --- and for limiting summer time heat build-up, as well --- you might consider a countertop oven like the Breville Smart Oven. (There are BSO threads here and at Chowhound.com that discuss these benefits in detail if you haven't already looked at this option.) One advantage of the large ovens in 36" ranges is being able to fit in full size sheet pans. Several 30" pro-style ranges (such as Blue Star) also may allow this, but you've already ruled them out. The question is, how many full-size sheet cakes do you plan on making? Or, do you think you might be regularly needing to bake three full-size sheet pans of biscuits at a time? (I know somebody who does that several times a week, but they're running a dude ranch.) You mentioned making a lot of muffins. How many muffin tins do you have? I once helped a friend whose own oven died right before she was ready to bake a lot of muffins for a bake sale. Between us, we came up with six muffin tins. I found that I could put pairs of them side-by-side on three racks in the oven in my 30" range. The oven in a 36" range is a few inches wider, but not wide enough to add another muffin tin to each rack. So, "muffin" production is probably not going to be factor for you in choosing between a 30" and 36" range. But, speaking of oven size, do be aware that some major brand 30" gas ranges will have deeper and wider ovens than on the 30" DCS and Wolf ranges you are considering. The ovens on the Wolf and DCS are rated to have capacities around 4.5 cu ft., as do those on numbers of major brand stoves including the higher priced ones. Plenty big enough for a 25 pound turkey at Thanksgiving along with a casserole or baking pans. However, some of the mid-level and higher-priced major brand gas-ranges have oven cavities that are a couple inches taller and deeper giving them capacities of 5 cu. ft and 6 cu. ft. More stuff at Thanksgiving and such times. Some are big enough that you can put half-sheet pans or cookie sheets in side-by-side and have 4 or 6 pans baking at one time. This extra capacity will matter to some folks and not others, and that will affect the calculus of whether a pro-style range will be worth it to you. Looking at your points about small children, hot summers and no a/c in the kitchen, I have to say that the ovens in virtually every all-gas range that I know of can make a kitchen uncomfortably hot in the summertime. It is not so much heat radiating from the door and sides --- some of which you get with electric ovens, too, btw --- the heat that comes from having to vent combustion by-products. The vents are on top of the stove. That can venting can heat your kitchen and it won't be radiating from the doors and sides. As true of major-brand ranges as well as the pro-style models. It is the nature of having fire in the kitchen. I'll defer to nycbluedevil on the Blue Star door issue, but note that some folks have posted complaints about some older versions of the BS ranges (from before 2012, IIRC) having door heat problems. So, even if BS has solved the problem, the salesguy might simply be parroting old info. Or the appliance store may have recent experience. One thing to be aware of with pro-style gas ranges like the DCS and Wolf is that the spaces between the top and bottom of the oven doors and the top and bottom of the framing are larger than on major-brand gas ranges. This gap allows venting to cool the oven doors. (Major brand ranges have narrower gaps because they different arrangement of the vent slots.) If your young children are still crawling on the kitchen floor or have compulsions to poke the fingers into any visible gaps, the heat of the back of the spaces could be a concern. Also, the top burners on gas ranges will have significant waste heat from the stovetop burners -- again, that's just the nature of cooking with fire in a kitchen and will be as much of a problem with major-brand ranges as the pro-style ones. Theoretically, it could be a bigger problem with the pro-style units because somebody could decide to run three huge fry pans and three huge pasta kettles simultaneously at maximum heat and the pro-style ranges have more big burners than standard ranges. But other than those mad-chef scenarios, the problem isn't particularly different for the pro-style all-gas ranges and the major-brand all-gas ranges. One point to consider, though, is that the pro-style ranges heavy-duty cast-iron burner grates and parts absorb and radiate more heat (and radiate it longer) than the thinner grates on most major brand ranges. (With some major-brand range models, such as the GE Cafe stoves, the grates are substantial enough to be indistinguishable in heat retention.) With those heat concerns, I have to ask if your kitchen has 240v service and, ifso, whether you have considered induction ranges as an alternative? Several of them have good sized ovens with strong convection capabilities and might serve you as well or better than the gas ranges your are considering. Plenty of power on the stovetops, too, and comparatively safer for small children in the kitchen. Also, several of them will allow you to use a large griddle that spans a couple of burners. A couple of the current induction ranges even provide a way to link two burners to do this. Finally, valid and informative statistics on appliance longevity is difficult to come by. A few years ago, the National Association of Homebuilders surveyed consumers on the longevity of ranges. They found the average was something like 13.5 years for electric ranges and 15 years for gas ranges. However, that turned out to be as much about how long people kept their ranges as how long the ranges actually lasted. To put it another way, it can be hard to find a solidly-built major-brand gas range without electronic controllers and many of them also have self-cleaning ovens. Those controllers can and do affect the longevity of major brand ranges, and some of them will fail as a result of heat from the self-cleaning cycles. Finding a very capable, heavy-duty gas range with minimal electronics is pretty hard until you get to ranges like the Wolf and DCS all-gas ranges. They are manual oven cleaning rigged with minimal electronics. Those that they have are modules and that are relatively simple, readily available, and replaceable by any reasonably handy homeowners. These are things like the spark modules that run the burner ignitors. That simplicity fixability does have an appeal and can contribute to perceived longevity. Also, the Wolf and DCS have heavy duty cast-brass burner components. They are much more stain-resistant than the cast aluminum and porcelain-enameled burners you find on most major brand ranges. Ultimately, though, every range represents a mix of choices and tradeoffs. The hard part is figuring out what those are and which ones matter to you. This post was edited by JWVideo on Fri, Oct 24, 14 at 18:43

I'm sure I'm not the only one that finds these discussions a little xenophobic (at best). Might just be me (with my particular family history) but things being made in Germany isn't really a selling a point. I agree. I think a lot of folks forget the whole "German engineering" thing was a marketing ploy developed by VW to sell cars. I was an expat from the U.S. living in Germany and working side-by-side with Germans for several years and was not the least bit impressed (especially by the work ethic). But putting all that aside, keep in mind that German-made VWs consistently rank at or near the bottom of the quality/durability ranking, as do many European cars (BMW is currently the highest, ranking only slightly above average). Note this is not my opinion nor is it based on personal experience, it is based on the actual statistical rankings by companies that do nothing but collect this data (i.e. J.D. Powers, etc.) I am an experienced engineering consultant in the field of automation, and as a result get many periodicals. One of the most memorable articles I still recall was from one of the industry pubs I get that covers SPC techniques/rules, etc. On the cover they had an older Lexus ES (the cheaper one based on the Camry) alongside a brand-new Mercedes S class (the one with the six-figure price tag). The headline read "why is this 7-year old Lexus more dependable than this brand new Mercedes?"

I, too, live in a ruralish area with no street lights. The road to my neighborhood is a long, dark, hilly and winding road. I have to use my high beams to light the sides of the road because that's where deer lurk. My last car had Xenon headlights and they were amazing at providing wonderful light. My present car had the option of Xenon or Halogen and I just couldn't take a chance that the Halogen would be less effective, so I chose the model with Xenon, because I knew they worked for me. Both models, former BMW, present Audi, have some kind of feature that adjusts the headlights when a car is approaching so they are not blinded. That feature doesn't work with the high beams but the very bright low beams. I really hate all the big suv's and trucks that people seem to feel they need to drive these days because if you're in a normal size car, their headlights are right at eye level as they approach you. It's awful sometimes.