My wife and I are renovating a 700 sq. ft. house. We're thinking of a 24" rangetop and a 24" wall oven. In the Washington DC area the BS deealers are an apppliance store and one kitchen designer who doesn't stock anything. Nobody has an oven. We even tried to get a salesman to give us names of customers so we could ask to look at their's but he wouldn't do it. The factory in Reading PA has a showroom with a 30" oven but it's not connected. If you want to talk to them ask for Monique. She's honest and helpful. I'm looking forward to hot broiler to make black and blue steaks with. I've never seen a salamander but it looks so easy to change the rack position. Oven shelves don't give you such a good choice of heights. If I bought their high splash with a shelf it would perch there nicely without using up counter space and my hood may catch the smoke. It bothers me about wall ovens that you can't vent them when you broil. With an electric oven you have to do it with the door open and a lot of greasy smoke goes into the room. Somebody here told me that with these ovens you close the door to broil. I don't know if that improves the smoke or not. I can't comment on char broilers but all I can think of is my house filling up with smoke. I guess you can see what my obsession is. I'll be waiting to see if you get some info here.

I assume you're indicating I'm not coming clean, Gary, and I didn't mean to deceive. People are getting appliances they can't even use or use adequately, because parts don't work or engineering wasn't thorough. But I'll explain and include what you're alluding to: My oven worked great and looked great as soon as it went in the wall... No waiting, or fussing with adjustments or parts on my end before I could successfully use it, enjoying excellent baking and roasting performance several times a week for a year (Probably 3 or more years of use in a "normal" household.) After that year a problem with the porcelain appeared. I got fast and excellent response from Wolf after only an email and some photos. I had to endure only one service call to swap the oven for a brand new one, with brand new warranty to go with. I had full use of the original oven up until that moment, with no loss of performance, so lost no more than a morning of potential baking time. I sure can't really find complaint in that. But with BlueStar people were getting stoves with unworking ignitors, and now we know that the Culinarian needs major adjustments in order to simmer. Just to come fully clean, the rangetop came grates with rubber feet, which burned off over time, so they quickly sent a new set of grates --and underpans, also, "Just in case" the new grates didn't fit the holes of the old underpans. They did. Wolf doesn't make the rubber feet any more, so that shouldn't be a problem to any new buyers. The only other complaint I've had about the rangetop is my inability to clean the black, shiny underpans. We're not fastidious cleaners, I admit. None of that should be an issue for the sealed burners, which I think are over stainless? But I'm not sure. Anyway, I think I can still say, honestly, that my Wolf appliances have worked just great "Right out of the box."

rebunky: I've spent the past couple of days just silently circling my kitchen and pondering -- DH thinks this reno has sent me off the edge (why are these kitchen posts fraught with unavoidable puns?!). Have also polled a number of my friends out here, and they think it's super counterproductive (heh...counter...ok) to tear down H-CoW to open up space/light, only to put in a new 36-40" wide CoW (floor to ceiling!). I actually spent time yesterday climbing up and down a ladder, connected pieces of posterboard in tow, and mocked up a wall -- tried to see how much light would be blocked from my bank of windows: lots...far too much. Even with that little undercab window pulling light in, I felt like I introduced a mini-cave into my kitchen. Just can't do it. One of the main reasons I'd move the cooktop to perimeter would be to take advantage of the better ventilation (up and out). So, if I made the move, I wouldn't also keep the downdraft. (Envisioning people watching me cook, and I can't get the vision of Graham Kerr out of my head!) I did realize that my current oldie electric coil cooktop has its panel of controls/knobs to the right, so burners have always been ~ 8-9" from the island edge. I may take Pal's suggestion (TY!) of widening the island, but will add the 3" to the cooktop side/cabinet. This may squish that walkway just a bit, but will still leave us with a ~ 36" aisle. The cooktop edge will still be only 4" from the island edge, but the smallest burner of the cooktop is another 2" in from that. Frankly, we decided on this particular cooktop knowing we'd primarily use the large center burner, and the bridge to the left (closest to the downdraft for more effective venting, relatively speaking). We've never found our current 6" burners of much use, but when we have, pot handles are ALWAYS turned toward center. I'm now hoping that widening the cooktop cabinet to 36" may open up the possibility of a small drawer directly beneath the cooktop. With the vent hood housing being 30"w, perhaps this leaves enough space on either side for the drawer hardware to attach (don't know that drawer glides span 34", however). We shall see. Again, thanks to everyone for taking time to provide input!

Electronic controls for the cook top is not really a big deal. Just avoid the ones that have one set of controls for all the hobs. More specifically you have to choose a hob before you can control it, Those require too much thinking and if you need to do something rapidly those type of controls can be a hindrance. The others that have separate controls are just usually simmer through the max setting. If you can count, you can master the controls in short order. Ovens you typically chose the mode bake or broil for example and set the temp. You don't have to use all that fancy stuff. It is true on some induction units if it becomes overwhelmed with water it will cause a shut down until it is wiped away, however in my experience we are talking about a fair amount of moisture. A small spill over will not shut it down. If the controls are on the cook top this can problematic as well. In this regard knobs are your best bet. As someone else mentioned Gaggenau is a good option. I believe Viking has one, questionable quality and Frigidare has one as well. Make sure whatever you choose is properly ventilated. Components on the control board or fan failure is what kills many units.