This wouldn't work for a lot of you, but it's a near-ideal setup for our household of two: I have a 30" gas cooktop, with a Max Burton portable induction unit sitting on an aluminum cookie sheet over the rear left burner (which was a rarely used and unreliable small 'simmer burner'). The induction top is where all boiling operations happen, from daily water boiling for the coffee press to pasta to blanching veg to (frequent) pressure cooking. A big advantage of this setup is that the placement at the back corner of the stove, directly under the under-powered vent hood and slightly elevated, ensures that steam is carried right up and away. Before, we had to use the front right burner, the most powerful, for boiling, and it's too far forward for the vent hood to capture the steam efficiently. In the heat of summer, the combination of dramatically less heat from the burner itself plus the steam removal makes a huge difference in kitchen comfort. A second big advantage of the induction rig here is for long, low cooking -- simmering down apple butter, or ketchup, or making carnitas. Our cheapo gas stove has real problems with the flame guttering out at low settings, particularly if another burner is in use; the induction unit makes a long simmer worry-free. Likewise, some pressure cooker operations, like chicken stock, spend 45 minutes to an hour at pressure, and it's a blessing to be able to regulate the burner precisely and with no worry about the effect of using any of the gas burners while it's going. This arrangement frees up the powerful front right burner for the more hands-on kinds of tasks it's suited to: searing, stir-frying, browning meat & veg before braising, crepe-making, etc. There are a lot of reasons I'd be very reluctant to give up gas: I've cooked for forty years on nothing but, I have some wonderful copper and aluminum pans that take maximum advantage of the flame, it works when the power goes out (several times a year in our rural area), I regularly toast tortillas directly on the burner, and (for me, at least) skillet operations are induction's weak point. But the 'hillbilly hybrid', while not a thing of beauty, gives us the best of both worlds, seriously increasing the usability of the existing cooktop at an extremely low cost. If I were to get a completely new kitchen, I'd probably go with an induction cooktop: Full induction cooktops have much finer-grained power levels than the portable, with the lowest settings much more usefully low. But I'd add a big gas burner for all the reasons in the paragraph above.

>>>"I'm sure gas is more economical to operate as we had to run a dedicated 3 phase 240 from the breaker ...Two comments in response: one on the relative "economy" of gas and induction and the other on the "3 phase 240 line from the breaker." On operating cost economy, the difference in cost of for running a gas cooktop versus running an induction cooktop is usually trivial. For starters, the energy cost for running a stove (or cooktop and ovens) is a tiny part of a household energy budget -- 2.8% is the figure (1.8% being the oven) I've seen tossed around by the Department of Energy and others. For an idea of how trivial the difference will be, go to Michael Bluejay's website and use his "Mr. Electricity" calculator. http://michaelbluejay.com/electricity/cooking.html Somewhere down the page, he says to figure induction efficiencies by reducing the electric stove cost by 40%. The calculator asks for input of your local rates and how much you use the oven and each burner and how many days per week. When I ran the numbers for my kitchen, figuring in all the cooking I do, I found the cost differential for an induction range was about 70 cents more per month for induction over natural gas cooking appliances. Obviously, YMMV. Somebody in an area with high marginal electric rates --- say, $0.40/kWh --- would see more substantial savings with a gas appliance. Three-phase 240 from the breaker -- are you talking three conductor cable from the breaker or an actual three phase 240v line? From what I recall of the importing-induction threads here (gosh, was it a decade ago, already?), I thought the DeDietrich induction cooktops ran on single phase power. To me, three-phase 240v would be a commercial setup. (Cooktek and Garland make several of big induction appliances including rangetops with six 3500w burners. A "mere" $8k for that rangetop!) Upgrading a residential electrical service to a commercial 240v (or 400v) three-phase service would require a new transformer, a new service line to the house, and a whole-new breaker panel. If you had to go for a commercial hook-up, then that would have been very expensive, indeed! This post was edited by JWVideo on Mon, Dec 29, 14 at 18:45

hvtech's advice strikes me as spot on. As you say, with a friend who could help open the control panel on your 7 y.o. range, what do you have to lose? All the better if it turns out that the control internals just need a little cleanup and drying. The one caution I offer is this: if you do find a problem with one board, keep checking the other boards and connections, too. Most major brand stoves these days (induction and otherwise) have multiple boards and a failure in one sometimes cascaded to or from others. You want to rule out that possibility before you start spending money on replacement boards. FWIW on buying a replacement stove, the Kenmore induction ranges are rebadged variants of Electrolux/Frigidaire's own branded products. On the question you asked about whether to consider maybe replacing your present stove with a gas range, I'll offer a couple of considerations to ponder. One of them is that you can get 30"-wide gas and dual fuel ranges with all of what you called the "bells and whistles ... I would like to keep, built in temperature probe, convection, warming drawer, sliding racks." The trade-off is that they all run on circuit boards, too. Those electronics are as expensive to replace than and may or may not be significantly more durable than the ones in induction ranges. I discovered this some years ago when a board failure knocked out my ten y.o. GE DF stove and the parts cost of replacement boards was going to be $800 to $1500 depending on how many of the boards needed replacing. We might suspect that gas ranges will be less likely to suffer from early board failures because the major brand gas stoves mostly do not have as much "electronica" as induction ranges. Basically, most gas ranges do not need electronics for the stove-top burners to operate. In theory, there being less to break there should be less likelihood of premature failure. But, the question to ponder is this: how much better are the odds? Is it only a few percentage points or is it a lot? I mean, it would be one thing if we could say that buying a gas range would give you 50% better odds of avoiding an electronics failure in the next ten years. It would be quite another if the improvement only turned out to be 5%. Unfortunately, there just does not seem to be any readily available statistical data that would tell us if the odds are significantly better or not. Seems to me that getting a major brand gas or dual fuel stove still leaves you with the same kind of uncertainty over the longevity of the operating electronics. Another consideration that I think bears some pondering is that there are some very big tradeoffs if you choose to improve the longevity odds by buying a pro-style gas stove with minimal electronics. One trade-off is cost. Last I checked a few weeks ago, the current Elux slide-in induction range could be had for about $3k. The cost of all new boards would be around half of that. The pricing on most pro-style-minimal-electronics gas ranges, such as Blue Star start north of $3500. The exceptions are the Hyxion-made brands, (Thor and NXR), but those brands are best suited to the self-reliant and are still priced around $2k. In any event, the trade-off for minimal electronics on pro-style ranges is that those stoves lack every bell and whistle you want except for having a convection fan. A further cost trade-off with switching to a premium-priced "pro-style" range would be that you may have to upgrade your range venting which, in turn, would require a make-up air system to avoid backdrafting your wood-burning stove/heater. Add that cost on to the $750 or so for the gas line installation and extra electrical circuit in the kitchen, and your cost go significantly higher than replacing your Elux with the current model. Plllog suggested that you consider replacing the range with a separate induction cooktop over a wall oven. There is merit to the suggestion and it was something I seriously considered the last time I went stove shopping. What deterred me was the cost and work of upgrading the my old-house-kitchen's electrical wiring and the electrical panel to accommodate the higher power required for a separate cooktop and oven. My kitchen had a 50amp 240v circuit for a stove. A separate induction cooktop and oven would have required something more like 75 amps. That, in turn, would have required new wiring and, in my case, a bigger electrical panel, as well. Just something else to figure in to your decision.

We're a family of five. We eat lots of produce and I cook at least once a day. I bought a CD Electrolux all fridge a few years ago and don't regret it. The one thing it doesn't fit well is a box of those huge 16" take-and-bake pizzas. I have to remove them from the box or clear a shelf that doesn't have a door shelf across from it when closed. My produce may overflow the available space in my drawer for a day or two, but that's not really an issue. I really love that it doesn't intrude on my aisle because the fridge location in this house is stupid. FWIW, my fancy Gaggenau oven doesn't fit those pizzas, either. I have to cut them in half. I wouldn't trade my oven for one that did. It's my precious.