For a 36" five burner cooktop, I also would look at the less expensive DCS or even a Bosch which, IIRC. is sold by AJ Madison for under $900. The Bosch has standard sealed burners. so not as versatile as the DCS. [EDITED TO ADD: just saw bmorepanic's post and I defer to the greater knowledge there on Bosch and Dacor.) My experience with cleaning sealed cooktops is that stainless is no easier to clean and sometimes harder because it can scratch more easily than a porcelain enamel surface. What I've found makes a big difference is the depth of the burner wells and the material used for the burner hardware. With deeper wells (typical of the more "pro-style" appliances), the cooktop surfaces are a but further away from the flames, so less bakes on. The porcelain-coated single-cap burners on the Bosch will require scrubbing with Barkeeper's Friend (BKF) where (I think) the DCS is using brass components which are less likely to stain and spot. I'm guessing the Dacor will be similar but have no experience with it. I have my doubts about a magically more easy cleaning surface. I wound up buying an NXR stove a few months back. It has no magic anything and it's cooktop is one of the easiest to clean that I have owned. Only induction was easier and that was mainly because I didn't have to move the big grates. And speaking of induction, your stainless pots may or may not be induction suitable. You need to test with a magnet. If a refrigerator magnet sticks, the pot will work on induction. However, a lot of stainless cookware is not magnetic. That said, induction has a lot to recommend it and there's a wealth of info and opinions here on the subject of induction cooktops. With your house being built, it probably would be a fairly simple thing to have a 240v 40a line installed for connecting an induction cooktop. Might want to have that done for future proofing in case you decide to swap out the gas for something else. As for fridges, top freezer models are the most energy and space efficient and the least expensive to buy. SO, I would psend a bit less on the cooktop and apply the savings to a bigger fridge. Seriously, a 14.4 cu. ft fridge is tiny for a house where you will be cooking on a 36" cooktop. Unless you shop everyday. The current Maytags are made by Whirlpool (which also owns and makes Amana and Kitchenaid and some of the Sears Kenmore brand). Pretty much any top-freezer you buy without an ice-maker or water dispenser is going to have about the same reasonably good reliability. (Consumer Reports most recent membership survey of 82,000 members who bought a top-freezer fridge since 2006 show all brands having a 7%-8% defect rate. With ice & water, Whirlpool top-freezers are about as reliable but it starts climbing with other brands and GE has defect rate of 13% for top freezers with ice and water). You might want to look at the 18 cu. ft M1TXEGMY or one of the 17 cu. ft. Frigidaires which will run $700 to $800. I have no recent experience with wall ovens, so I'll have to defer to others on that. The dishwasher choice is another one where you might be able to get something better. Maytags are a Whirlpool product. Some Whirlpool made DWs have reportedly shorted out and burned out the circuit boards and several have started fires. Do a search here and you will find people with some pretty strong opinions and links to the sites discussing the controversy. Consumer Reports generally favors Bosch, Miele, and Kitchenaids DWs in more or less that order. They like the Bosch Ascenta line best, some of which can be had from AJ Madison at the same prices as the Maytag "77" model you selected. IIRC correctly, the Ascenta's are supposed to cycle a load in 95 minutes while the Maytags run between 115 and 125 minutes, and the Bosch DWs are generally regarded as noticeably quieter that the Maytags and Whirlpools. The microwave is a commodity product as you've doubtless already discovered. This post was edited by JWVideo on Mon, Feb 18, 13 at 23:37

Would you believe May? Finally got the Berta up and running about two weeks ago. Really like it so far. Only issues so far is that the induction burners are pretty close to each other so putting two largish pots on them is pretty tricky. The other odd thing is that the knobs that operate the induction burners are turned clockwise and go low to high (and then Boost), while the gas burners turn counter clockwise and go from high (light) to low. Also, there is a plug inside the gas inlet for shipping, make sure you or your installer pulls it out before installing. Induction is everything advertised, immediate power changes, things come to heat quickly, loads of control and easy to clean. The large gas burner puts out a good amount of power as well. Haven't done anything overly smokey yet, but the Zephyr is reasonably quite and puts out good light. Will put some pictures up soon.

I'm going to get on my 'open burner' soapbox for a minute here. :) When comparing BTU rating for various gas ranges, please consider the difference between open and sealed burners. Open burners heat much more efficiently because the direct most of the heat to the center of the pan rather than the sides. The highest BTU consumer range I know of is Bluestar (22k) and, luckily, they are also the only manufacturer that produces a open burner drop-in cooktop. The problem of smaller pans on the higher power burner is usually caused by sealed burners than the BTU rating. I've used pans as small as 6' on the large 22k btu burners and it did have a bit of heat escaping up the side but not as bad as on my old Viking sealed burner. The idea of using anything smaller than a 12' pan on the large sealed burner would have been unthinkable. I think the thread riverspots was referring to is the one linked below. Recovery (reheat) time is, IMHO the most important benefit of higher BTU. Nothing like doing a saute and getting a tongue of flame as you flip. I'd say 16k for the largest burner is the minimum I'd go. I would suggest at least 18k if you do any stir-frying. With regard to induction. I've heard great things and am actually considering getting a portable hob for travel and such but for my main cooking, I'm just more use to gas. I'm sure I could use an induction cooktop but I have a hard time imagining it'd be better for wok or saute where the pan/wok is often lifted from the surface to flip the contents. Here is a link that might be useful: BTU thread

So do you run a home nursery and going to have small, under 5 year old children in your house for decades that are not yours? So possible lawsuit situation, in which case I would just close off the kitchen completely. I seriously doubt there is any difference between an NXR door verse a Verona door. Most people simply make way too big a deal about this oven door temp thing. My guess would be like for about the past 250,000 years of human existence that if the child touches something hot they wont do it again. Also most burns that happen in the kitchen come from hot WATER/Liquids or from an "Open" oven door not the outside of a door. If you think you are going to child proof a kitchen you are dreaming, that would be like child proofing the middle lane of the freeway. Best thing is to keep them OUT of the kitchen altogether. I mean even our 2 year old Chihuahua has a chair that she sits on at the edge of our kitchen so she can see everything we are doing but stay safely out our way so she doesn't get stepped on or something dropped on her etc. Took us about 2 days to train her to go right to her chair and stay there. Lets hope that most children are at least as intelligent as a 2 year old Chihuahua. I was checking ours out last night again, my wife turned on the oven to 400 to preheat it and we went out to pick something up, so when we got back the oven was ready to go to bake some bread to go with the sketti. So it was pre-heating and being used at 400 for about 2 hours. I placed my hand on the glass and it was "warm" at best probably just over body temp so about 100, just below the glass was even cooler, less than body temp. The only parts of the door that were remotely hot was the crack between the door and kick plate and the very top edge of the door both areas are actually hard to reach. The handle was actually room temp at best so around 70ish degrees. I have a feeling that ADCO states this because NXR simply says what the oven door could possibly ever get to if left on 500 or maybe broil for hours on end, it could probably reach 150 on the top edge of the door.