Fagor owns Brandt, who is the premier manufacturer of induction cooking products residential and commercial. They make product for Fagor, Windcrest, Kuppersbusch, Wolf and others such as De Deitrich.

Thanks. I saw the fagor in action this weekend. It has nice sized hobs. But it is not as powerful as the Miele I saw and I am not sure if that matters. I am having a hard time interpreting the power outputs of the different machines.

Power levels are hard to decipher because there is a lot of bad information out there, including manufacturer's web sites. In case of Diva, I found their hard copy most accurate (confirmed with the company).

Assuming you have the right numbers, then simply look at the wattage. Most of these machines are around 90% efficient so that number can be compared reasonably between different units. I like to see 3,500 watts so that it is able to comfortably exceed the power of the best gas cooktops (equiv. to 30,000+ BTUs). So try to find at least one hob with this power rating. But also make note of where it is. Some put this in the back which for our use, is not optimal as we use front burners most.

The second issue is the number of steps and how easy it is to jump to a setting. Having to select a hob and then change its setting is way, way too slow. So make sure each hob has its own dial. And if it has a lot of steps, see if it has a quick way to jump to one of the settings as holding the up/down button for a while is also slow in my book.

We never cook with ever burner on full blast so power sharing is fine in our book and we could care less about the total power the thing puts out for all the hobs combined.

I am not a fan of "power boost" as that is a temporary measure and from what I have read, cannot be applied continuously. So I would look at the power for a hob, without powerboost.

Thanks, that is very helpful. Which unit do you have?
Judy

I have discounted the ge because of the huge space needed underneath and the Kenmore because I am not sure that it is powerful enough or that they have been making it long enough. What about a choice between windcrest/fagor/miele/diva. I live in Ontario (London). some problems getting the fagor, diva and windcrest but I have at least 1 source for each.

Judy

We don't have any yet. But our current pick is the Apogee Cooktek (commercial) unit. It is only $1,400, has 100 power levels, quick access to any setting in between 1 and 100.

Before that, we looked at Diva and liked them very much. They are quick to use also due to random access. However, only the 3 and 5 burner units have super high-power hobs. The others from what I recall, stop at 2,800 watts which is probably as good or better than best gas ranges. But since we are adding induction to gas, we wanted more power.

Diva is from Canada, yes? If so, that would be a preference for me as these devices can break down and are not easy to repair for a random service company off the street.