I have an entirely different reaction. I do not see why GE's response should be surprising. The manual for the induction ranges clearly says that minimum pan size for the six-inch burner is 4.75" and the minimum pan size for the two 8 inch burners is 5.75." If they put that in the manual, why should a customer service rep say something different in what will be a public posting on their web-site? And look at it from the perspective of the GE customer service reps. My4thGarden is looking at spending $2900 for a GE Profile slide-in induction range or $2600 for the freestanding one. A decent and serviceable smoothop electric range can be had for half of that from GE or, for that matter, from LG which is the subject of My4thGarden's other thread. No issues with using small pans on those stoves, although there certainly will be waste heat around the edges of the small pans. When someone says that they cannot afford to replace the present battery of small diameter cookware and doesn't want to, it makes a lot of sense to say to them: "why don't you consider a different stove that seems better suited to what and how you like to cook?" Plus, you may buy the induction stove and find that your particular small pans don't work. That leads to hassles with returns and refunds. If you work for a company, would you want to start that process? Now, it may very well be possible to use pans with slightly smaller diameters if they have enough ferrous mass in the base. Induction burners have sensors to identify pan size and ferrous mass -- too little of either and the burner will not activate. Trouble is, there is no way to find out how GE engineers programmed the sensors. All we know is that GE engineers have identified minimum pan sizes that can reasonably be expected to work. GE customer services reps are is not going to tell you, "don't pay any attention to the manual, you can do X____ instead." berner43's post shows that pans with diameters 10% less than minimum specified diameters work, at least on the mid and large burners and assuming that My4thGarden's pans have similar ferrous bases. Timdeb's post shows about the same for the 6-inch burner. If that relationship holds for the smallest diameter burner, as well, then even My4thGarden's 4.25" pans might work on the GE's smallest (6") burner. Or might not. Again, we do not know how GE programmed the sensors for the burner. Maybe the bases of My4thGarden's smallest pans won't have sufficient ferrous material in the base to be recognized. Also , bear in mind that a smaller pan is using smaller amounts of energy. If you cover, say, 70% of the burner, you will be only getting 70% of the power. (That is not exact but it will do for this dicussion.) Depending on what you are cooking in those little pans, that may or may no be considered optimum. If I'm manufacturing and selling stoves, and I'm training customer representatives, m I going to have them telling customers that they should use my stove for less than optimum conditions and then want to deal with warranty complaints from customers who may or may not understand what "less than optimum" means? What if the customer is using pans with "less than optimum" ferrous content and the pans don't work? Do I really want to have my engineers testing every possible line of cookware and then publish advice on less than optimum use? If I have to manage that kind of situation, I will be thinking I don't want that expense or headache. The unfortunate reality is that the only way to know is to run a test with the particular pans on an actual GE induction stove as berner43 and timdeb did. Can't find a GE to test your pans on? Then, it seems to me to make a good deal of sense for GE to recommend options other than induction for My4thGarden. "Buying and trying" is an option, of course, but only if you can buy from a vendor like Costco which has an absolute satisfaction guarantee: "I don't like it" is enough for Costco to take it back after a month or so. No restocking fee, either. Those kinds of guarantees are hard to find these days. The only induction range that Costco sells is the Maytag freestanding range and it only carries them in the online sales department. The Maytag is far less costly than the GE (about $1500, delivered). It has twin 6" burners in front with a 9" and an 11" burner in the back. Maytag/Whirlpool has not published minimum recommended pan sizes but apparently have marked them on the cooktop. My recollection from the one I saw last fall when I was stove shopping was that the six inch burners would take pans down to at least 4.75" and the nine-inch burner would handle a 7" pan. (But that was months ago and the memory is faulty on such details.) Virtually every brand of induction on the market will operate pans slightly smaller than the minimum recommended diameter. (Heck, I recall a post from a year ago where somebody here reported using a 5.5" diamter pan on the 11" burner of a Samsung induction range.) Anyway, the Maytag/Whirlpool burner arrangement, with twin 6" burners in front, seems well suited to My4thGarden's cooking preferences. Of course, there is the apparently lame "Aqualift" oven self-cleaning method which may be an issue. (This issue will not matter if you are somebody who avoids running self-cleaning cycles and, if you do, at least you don't need to worry about the self cleaning cycle toasting the control boards.) I noticed a Maytag on display recently when helping a friend shop for a stove. Might have been our local Lowe's or Home Depot that had one on display and mIght have been the identical Whirlpool model. I live in a very rural state, so maybe one of the big box stores in My4thGarden's area might have one, too. Worth looking at. This post was edited by JWVideo on Thu, May 23, 13 at 16:06

A few induction tips: (Love my Induction-- user for 8+ years) Cleaning takes only a few minutes! I cut up old, soft towels to clean the top. Dampen a clean one with hot water and use a drop of Dawn or Joy; rub the cooktop with the soapy-side then flip the rag to just-the-wet side and wipe off the soap. Buff with a clean, dry towel-rag. (I have the stainless steel top and bottom edge--cleaning them this way is no problem.) ONLY USE A CLEAN RAG (sponge, paper towel) EACH TIME for washing or drying the top! I am concerned about thermal-shock to the glass. Get a nice, thick, silicone trivet/potholder and put it on a corner of your cooktop. A great place to move hot pots and pans to or to place pans, safely, from the oven. Learn NOT TO shake pans! (PS - I have used paper towels under pots. They can get scorched. And the one kind seemed to leave a trace of its waffle-pattern that I had to buff out with the cook-top crème. I now just try to use a bigger pot for things prone to bubbling over -- oil, oatmeal, etc.)

I have had induction almost 2 years now. LOVE IT! I found my large, non-stick skillet at Bed, Bath, & Beyond. It is a Farberware. It works great and is holding up great after 2 years of use. My small non-stick skillet I got at TJMaxx - a Tivoli - also holding up well. Both were well under $50 each. Also, I believe you will find that some induction cooktops largest burner is larger on some units than others, and the placement of the largest burner is different depending on the manufacturer. The size and placement of the largest burner was the deciding factor in my purchasing decision. At the time I shopped (there are lots more choices on the market now) I found the 30" GE Profile to have the best for me - one of the largest burners, and placed to the front of the unit (I'm short and don't like to reach over other pans if using my large fry pan). So, that's what I went with and it's been great! I have not found the 30" to be crowded at all - but, again, I think it's because of the way the burners are layed out. Hope these insights help as you shop around. Good Luck!

You can find all manner of odd size pans in induction suitable construction but finding specific replacements may take research and may be expensive. Here's some info that I gathered in my recent stove-buying expedition that may help you along with your research. Induction suitable crepe pans are made by the likes of DeBuyer and maybe even Lodge. I saw recently that Lodge has now started selling some low sided carbon steel frying pans so they might have a crepe pan. French carbon steel crepe pans, IIRC, used to come with a beeswax coating but may still require seasoning. In the meantime, depending on what you cook in the crepe pan, and how hot you need it to get, you might be able to continue using your present crepe pan by getting an induction interface disk. Max Burton makes one that has been discussed here and was recently reviewed at Cooks Illustrated and can be had from numbers of stores including Chef's Catalog and Amazon. According to CI, the disk will work reasonably well for making things like pancackes where it will function rather like a pan on radiant-smoothtop electric stove. For the same reason, it seems to be less suitable for high heat applications. Here's a link to the CI write-up on the disk: http://www.cooksillustrated.com/equipment/overview.asp?docid=36350 Spanning burners with large oval dutch ovens and rectangular griddles is sometimes feasible and sometimes not. I'm not familiar with cooktops, but I do know that the GE induction ranges (freestanding (PHB925 and PHB915, slide-in PHS925) have twin 8-inch burners on the left which GE told me can be spanned (and for which the equal sizing makes heat management pretty easy). Samsung's NE599NOPBSR and NE597NOPBSR freestanding induction ranges have twin rectangular burners which are specifically designed to be be linked for such purposes (Samsung calls this a "flex zone"). The other Samsung induction ranges and the Maytag, Kitchenaid, Whirlpool and Frigidaire induction ranges are not set-up in a way that permits spanning and I believe the manuals for some of them expressly forbid spanning/bridging. With regard to cooktops, many of them have burner arrangements where it is not physically feasible to span burners with griddles or large dutch ovens. Several also forbid spanning. I have read that LG makes a cooktop that is designed with bridgeable elements and comes with its own griddle. And, of course, there are the newly available (new for the US, anyway) "zoneless" induction cooktops where bridging is not an issue because the cooktop sinply heats around whatever pan shape and size is place on it. I think there have been a couple of threads on them, or at least the one by Thermador. A search should turn them up. The speckled "Graniteware" roasting pans that I've owned have been magnetic steel and will work on an induction burner. But, they are thin which means you have to be very watchful with heat management. Of course you must be watchful with such thin-steel pans on any other kind of stove, as well, but induction hobs bring the pans to heat so quickly that they can require additional vigilence. This post was edited by JWVideo on Tue, Dec 18, 12 at 12:30