Please Advise! Best 30' Gas Range (for now and resale!)

12 years ago

I have been scrolling through the discussion boards, and am in awe of the group's collective wisdom. If you can spare a bit of time for a beginner's question, here it is:

We are moving our kitchen up a floor, and need to find a new range. We are a little flexible on space, but think 30" will work the best (although I'd welcome your thoughts on whether it makes sense to shift the layout around to incorporate a 36"). Because of cost concerns, we are leaning to an all gas model, but we could do dual fuel as well.

We like to cook, but aren't professionals. We would like to buy a nice range that would be eyecatching on show sheets, and that would be fun to use in the meantime.

So....what do you think? Our budget is pretty limited (I'd say less than $3500, but there's some room at the margin). Right now the best deal I can find is on a 30" Viking (http://blog.yaleappliance.com/?Tag=Viking%20Range) which we can get on sale for $2750 (but would need to pay Mass tax at around 5%). We're okay paying less or a little more, but would love a good machine and a bit of wow factor for the showsheet in a couple of years. BTW, likely buyers would be a young professional couple, maybe with a kid, doing well but this would probably be a starter home (albeit in Boston, where starter homes don't come cheap.

So tell me your thoughts - is this a good deal, or are we blinded by a sale and nice label? Thanks for your patience with a newbie!

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Comments (6)

ratflinger
12 years ago
Go Trevor's place (Eurostoves) & let him show you what's available.
deeageaux
12 years ago
IMO ranges don't make a huge impact on potential buyers but

If you want pretty nothing beats Bertazzoni in your price range. Berta Pro in SS $2799 plus $700 if you want color. Better than average durability and decent performance.

http://www.ajmadison.com/cgi-bin/ajmadison/X304GGV.html

If you want name recognition nothing beats Wolf but that is a bit above your price range at about $4k.Number two would be Viking but I would run not walk the other way since your are not selling right away. You don't wan't to deal with the problems. Three would be GE Monogram. If you could find one on deep discount this might be appealing.

For performance nothing beats Capital Culinarian and Bluestar RNB. Again a bit above your price range in the $4-$4.3k range plus few hundred more for color.

Then there is the Bluestar RCS304BV1 for about $2849. It gives you that hardcore pro look without the power burners and convection of the RNB.

Here is a link that might be useful: Bluestar RCS
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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.
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MonkeyK
12 years ago
I have a Bluestar, and love it.

But if my goal were to plan for resale, I'd go with something more mainstream. When you get into performance anything, people that don't care see it as impractical. People that do care will have their own ideas what what makes good performance.
Nunyabiz1
12 years ago
Depends on if you want a open or closed burners.

Closed burners and since you are talking about keeping cost down I would say the NXR 30" for $2000 delivered Vs a Viking for $800+ more, the Viking also seems to have a fair amounts of troubles.

Open probably a Blue Star RCS or Capital Culinarian both of which will be at least $500 over budget.

My wife and I bought the NXR a little over 7 months ago and have had no issues at all, cooks great, looks great, not a damn thing wrong with it in anyway whatsoever.
chris11895
12 years ago
Lucyjune,
We put a Bertazzoni into our house on the Cape and get a lot of comments on it's looks - and these are from neighbors with Wolf, etc. We're moving out of our year round place in Manchester (ma) within the next year and will probably put one in here too since the kitchen def needs a makeover before we sell.
stooxie
12 years ago
Lucy,

I think you've gotten some great pointers from deeageaux, monkeyk and nunyabiz, each of them has given you good options from different angles. Personally, I have a Bluestar.

I probably have to agree most with the point of "resale" value being somewhat of a non-issue when it comes to appliances. One person's idea of greatness is another person's misery and I say you're rolling the dice at best trying to second guess what some new homeowner might want.

I remember being the young professional couple with a kid and we wouldn't have known what appliances we wanted if you wrote it down on paper.

If you're strictly looking for curb appeal on the pages of some glossy then your best bet is Viking, Wolf or Thermador. They are the brand leaders, rightly or wrongly. I think you need to decide if you're buying this range for YOU or for the next person.

-Stooxie

Please Advise! Best 30' Gas Range (for now and resale!)

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ratflinger

deeageaux

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