Search around here for a bit.

Lots of articles discussing dual-fuel (DF) vs. all-gas (AG) ranges.

What else should you look at? At the risk of missing one or more of the highly-considered pieces, here are some that I think have pretty strong followings here:

* American Range
* BlueStar
* Capital
* NXR (though no 48" as far as I know)
* Wolf

In my opinion, there seems to be less general agreement, but a lot of individual support for:
* Dacor
* DCS pre-buyout
* DCS under Fisher-Paykel
* Gaggenau (ranges; their wall ovens seem highly-regarded)
* GE Profile/Monogram
* Thermador
* Viking

Just get a 30". The cost for a 48" dual fuel range will be extreme, so any savings from using its small oven will never be recovered in 10 lifetimes. GE Cafe sells a range with a regular sized oven and a smaller one on the bottom.

I will be purchasing a 48 inch range in the next few months and really like the look, touch. feel, etc. of the Dacor. I plan to use the small oven for the regular meals when it is just the immediate family and both for weekend entertaining and holidays. Not sure how low an oven has to be to put plates in for warming but that might work as well.

Go with Bluestar, Capitol, American.
Dacor = decor - the one I had went through 3 "brains" in under 6 years. The electronic control unit is located over the oven: Name the thing that shouldn't be in this group - heat, humidity, electronics.

If you get the Dacor get an oven thermometer and check the temp right away of the oven. Open the door and let some heat out and see how fast the oven will recover. Try increasing the temp and check how long to reach the new temperature. They have had trouble with computer boards. Also check every square inch of enamel in the oven for chipping. I would like to know how these ovens work now. Some really like their Dacor products other like me had bad experiences. Definitely would get extended warranty.

I had my Dacor 48 dual fuel range installed last Saturday. Immediately the ovens had trouble-small oven didn't work, probe didn't work, large oven Bake mode went from slow to not working! I had to wait till Monday to speak with customer service and the best they could do was to get someone hear the Friday after Thanksgiving. (This created a bit of a problem since I was hosting Thanksgiving.) Well, it's still not repaired and waiting for additional service this week. Before I rant too much,(I really do want to love this new stove/and major investment) I will see how Dacor handles this when I call them tomorrow.

cjays, I made a major investment with Dacor and wanted to like the range(ER36D) and wall oven(Discovery Epicurean) I bought. Keep good records as you go through the repair process and get an oven thermometer. In the end after replacements of the oven and replacement with updated boards on both units multiple times, they could not make my ovens work and with pressure from the dealer bought them back. They promised a third exchange of the oven at Thanksgiving that was supposed to be installed by the next week and they never sent it to the distributor and my service tech at Dacor would not return my calls. I went through a whole holiday season of no working ovens. I have a Wolf range and an Electrolux oven now and they work great.

Thank you for the input, I've started making my notes, I can only hope I have better luck than you and that no one else runs into these same problems. I truly am hoping Dacor will replace this oven and the next will be ok.

Me too. There is nothing worse than spending 10G on appliances and no oven during the holidays.

The good news is that Dacor readily agreed to replace my oven, so we'll see how our Christmas cooking goes! I really want to love this range-its got alot of nice amenities!

I would be curious how long it takes to do that. Others on this forum have had good service so maybe you will. When you get it put it through its paces with an independent thermometer.

Please keep us posted cjays. I am in the market for a 48" dual fuel and have narrowed my search down to the Dacor and the Wolf. I'm curious to know what features made you chose Dacor over Wolf. I personally like the look of the Dacor, but Wolf has a solid reputation.

toomuchremodeling, I hope you don't mind if I answer and making the assumption that all functions work as they are supposed to, the Dacor has some good ideas. I have cooked on both, although I had the 36" range with 2 16" platforms and 4 11" platforms. I like the idea that they utilize the 16 inch platforms on Dacor. That gives you 6 big burners on the 48" Dacor and 8 conventional burners on the Wolf. I really liked the 6 big burners but wanted 2 full sized ovens so went with the 36" range and wall oven. I frequently cook for 20-30. If you cook with really big pans this is a good idea. I liked the burners, they were great for cooking. The Dacor burners seem to set forward a little more than the Wolf and is more comfortable for me. Wolf also cooks well and has very good simmer and most of my pans have fit well. One problem with the Dacor is that the knobs are plastic,so that they can have the pretty blue light, but one broke and I am careful. Wolf is made with heavy cast metal. Maybe someone might be able to talk about the differences in the burners or maybe a sales person might be able to show you.
The Dacor oven is supposed to be within 2 degrees of the setting so comparable to the Miele in accuracy. If you turn the Dacor to 350 degrees, it will do that and if you bake something at that temp, you would say this works great, I love it. The problem was for me on the wall and range oven if you opened and closed the oven for batches of cookies or put something really cold there was no way for the oven to kick on and add a lot of heat(like the typical preheat on any other oven), it had to oscillate and would take 1 hour to move 50 degrees. They admitted this was an issue(even a benefit because my food would not burn with the preheat coming on) and sent improved boards to fix it. Well it didn't burn my food because it didn't even cook it. They never could fix either appliance. There is a cooking school of all things near me that has the same issues with their ovens and can't get them fixed and just try to adjust the oven themselves and add cooking time. Hopefully this has been totally reengineered, but I would make sure that it has before you buy it if you are a serious baker. Also be aware that the boards were billed at $1800.00 each time they were replaced. This was under warranty but if it weren't...ouch.
A friend of mine had her board go out on an older Dacor oven and her husband replaced it for $35 on ebay. The computer board on the Dacor gives it some additional functions but can be expensive.
The Wolf holds a temperature great. I think the Wolf bakes more evenly in convection because it has the dual fans as opposed to the single fan in the Dacor. If you want to raise the temperature by 50 degrees with the Wolf you have to turn it off and then on to get the preheat to come on. I do like the glide rack for the bottom on the Dacor but also like a regular rack because I am always changing them around. Someone told me Wolf is coming out with glide racks too if you like those. I think the preheat is pretty long on both for the oven to stabilize. One other thing on the 48" range is take the pans you use in and make sure they fit in the small side. Some of the 48" ranges allow more room on the small side and leave some room for circulation.

toomuchremodeling
I chose the Dacor range because I preferred the look-I do love how it looks in my kitchen. I also liked the size of the cooktop. Never a problem with fitting several large pots/pans on the jets. Also, the griddle is wonderful-cooks evenly and holds alot. Our kids even use it to cook a burger, they prefer this over the outdoor gas BBQ, which surprised me and is an added benefit.

I received my replacement range today. I'm going to put the ovens to the test over the weekend to make sure they heat up and stay heated.

As upset as I was that the oven had issues at installation, at least Dacor readily agreed to replace it once the service company took a look and confirmed the problems. They co-ordinated the delivery and installation with my appliance dealer. I wish the process was a little quicker but its here in time to bake Christmas cookies!

I can't speak to the 48", or any of the newer Dacor products (opinions do seem to differ on their products).....but, fwiw, I love my 30" Dacor Dual Fuel Convection range. It's probably about 8 or 10 years old (previous owners installed it a few years before I bought the house 6yrs ago), and I've basically had no major problems with it. Only thing I would say is that when I've had issues (bottom element died last year, and my kids cracked the front panel), I've been much better off calling Dacor directly than going to the local appliance dealer where it was purchased.

Not sure what I would do if I had to buy a new range now....good luck with whatever you decide.

Dacor did have Q/C issues. I documented my troubles here like many. I had the Discovery wall oven and went through 4 different units. Each had some issue - chipped enamel, skewed door, etc. Finally after complaining to a supervisor at Dacor they hand picked an oven at their main facility in California, put it on a truck, and drove it to my house in Arizona along with an engineer in tow to test it and ensure it was properly installed. On top of that, they gave me a free extended warranty, roasting rack, and pizza stone for my trouble. I'm a happy camper now, and all is working as it should. About 6 months later, Dacor contacted me to let me know that they had a new computer board that fixed some issues - most notably the fact that it wouldn't beep after your timed bake was finished.

I think the trouble was too much to go through for what I paid, however Dacor did step up and make it right.

Over this last month of investigation into what kind of range I will want and should get, I've called a few of these companies. Some said they'd get back to me and didn't. Others pushed off my inquiries to a distributor or dealer. I understand that's how it usually goes, but for whatever reason, I need to go to the source to learn. I did this in my early years as a musician and ended up with good relationships with some of the best instrument designers round - they had the knowledge and I needed to learn to in order figure out how to get what I was after.

Without any question so far the best response I've gotten for any company was Capital - if I can find a way to buy a range from Surjit Kalsi, I will. I'll put in a good second place finish for BlueStar - Matt Schutte has usually called back within a few hours.

The Dacor range has a lot of appealing qualities, but when I called the company I was told to send my queries through a dealer. I don't think there's really a problem with that, but its not nearly as engaging as having the owner and main designer of the company email you and invite you to call him. To me, that shows a passion for the subject and the product.

Sorry for the typos in the previous post.

thanks to everyone for your thoughts. We did place our order for the dacor, but you all have me thinking of changing to the Wolf 48" DF. I'll have to search the forum, there may be horror stories about it as well.

Now that we have our new/replacement oven we are really happy with the Dacor. The cooktop design is great for us-larger burners and removeable griddle. Ovens seem good too-Used probe in roast and it was perfect. Still need to use a few more of the functions but so far so good.
A few friends who have 8 burner w/built in griddle have said they prefer the Dacor setup.
Good luck!

Thanks everyone for the feedback. It seems there are many good stories, many like their Dacor products and if problems arise definitely call Dacor direct vs. a local dealer/repair. THANKS!