Cost of doing 1" vs. 3/4" while you are replacing it anyway will not be much higher. I have 1.25" for the main line coming from the meter, then down to 3/4" partway through the crawlspace and running to all of the destinations. The actual connection to my 120k BTU furnace is 1/2", as are the ones to my (old fashioned tank )water heaters. While the walls were out, I stubbed out gas to the range location, even though I'm installing induction. Cost little, and I like to keep options open.

From what I understand is that they are Chinese knock offs of Viking and other pro style ranges. There are a few reviews of them and generally they are positive. I would worry about replacement parts and service, which is specific to your area and should be considered with any appliance purchase.

"Cheap Chinese . . . crapola ....." Okay, that is the wrong knock. The "crapola" debate was hashed out here --- and resolved against that opinion --- in threads here five years ago. The knock on the Hyxxion-made stoves (Thor and NXR) is not their old fashioned simplicity nor is it "crapola" build quality Unless the definition of crapola is minimal electronics and manual clean ovens. :>) The knock is poor post-sale service and support for those who are not enthusiastic and self-sufficient DIYers. One might ask, "if these are such simple stoves, why worry about service?" Well, I have not had to "continually fix things" but you do need to consider that the Hyxxion-made stoves (Thor, NXR and Kucht) are a decades old design. Think Wolf sealed-burner stoves from back in the 1980s, long before SubZero bought the residential product line from the old Wolf company and back when the old company first started making a residential product. Or maybe think old-fashioned Jeep 4wd vehicles. Those kinds of products need periodic maintenance. For example, every so often, an old-style Jeep requires replacement points and spark plugs, lubrication of bearings and such. So also, at some point, your NXR or Thor will (just like the decades old Wolf models) will need to have burners cleaned out, will need somebody to remove gunk build-up on jets, and eventually will need some stovetop or oven ignitors replaced. These can be easy tasks for confident and capable DIYers. See the thread ["if-susan-fixed-her-nxr-oven-ignitor-u-can-2"[(https://www.houzz.com/discussions/if-susan-fixed-her-nxr-oven-ignitor-u-can-2-dsvw-vd~2288437?n=32) for an example. But many people are not enthusiastic, confident appliance DIYers. Even if you are, you might not have the time for it. If so, you will need a servicer. At least with an old-style Jeep, you can pretty readily find somebody to work on it for you. Might not be true for appliances if you've chosen a brand with a small market share. Best to check before buying. By "check," I mean you should do more than have Home Depot tell you that it can give you list of servicers if and when your Thor or NXR might need service. Call the servicers on the list. Find out who will actually work in your area and work on that brand. Servicers are getting old and retiring. More and more small service companies are no longer doing warranty work. Heck, when I needed minor warranty work on my new dishwasher -- somebody to replace a leaky $8 hose fitting --- I was given lists of servicers from Lowe's (where I bought it) and Bosch (who made it). Turned out that nobody on either list covered my town. And that was for a major brand appliance! The DIY consideration is for every brand with a small market share. Even Blue Star. Depending on where your home is located, you could have difficulty finding anybody to service any residential appliance from a company with a small market share. If you are not a DIYer, best sort that out before making a decision on what to buy. Also, in every manufacturer's product line, some lemons will get past quality control. Best to think about how you might deal with that if your stove turns out to be a defective one. Me, I bought my NXR from Costco.com going on seven years ago. I bought there because of Costco's policy of absolute full-customer-satisfaction and-full-refund-even-if turns-out that- you-just-don't-like-the product-after-using-it-for-a-while. Now, I also have a truck, a hoist, and burly friends to help load the stove to take to the local Costco, so I could easily have hauled my stove in for a refund or replacement if my NXR had been defective when it arrived. I would not have had to put up with drawn out delays for warranty fixes and eventual return. So, have you figured out what you would do if your new stove turned out to be defective after you receive it? It is true that you could wind up with that situation if you were to buy a Bosch or one of the $1000 major brand gas ranges you mentioned as your preferred alternative. But, those are smaller than and only weigh half as much as that 36" wide $1800 NXR "entree" from Home Depot, or the $2k DRGB floor model. You might be able to haul one of those alternative 30" model ranges back to HD on your own. Could you do that with the big NXR? For that matter, does your local Home Depot even stock the NXRs and Thors or would it be a special order? (My local Home Depot says that they are special order only. Your local HD might be different.) If special ordered, do you know if you could return it to the a local store and whether there would be restocking charges on this brand? What if you buy that older floor model NXR for $2k? (Is that a DRGB 3600 model? FWIW, a DRGB is the model NXR that I have.) Then there still are the 36" width and weight to deal with. To the questions others raised above, I would add the following. Is the stove going into a new build or an existing home? If an existing home, how will it be delivered? Whether you buy the $2k floor model DRGB version of the NXR from the dealer or the $1800 "Entree" NXR from HD, will it be installed for you or just delivered to your curb? How does it get into (or out) of your home? How hard would it be to move in a 36" wide stove? And that leads me to ask what is the attraction of the 36" size of range for you? Is it maybe style such as hoping for a higher-end look for real estate values? Or is it instead that maybe that you are thinking about stovetop cooking space and extra burners? Have you checked to see how your pots and pans will fit, as somebody above suggested? If so, I'd ask how often you think you will need the extra space or extra burners? If not frequently (like every week), I'd suggest considering alternatives for those functions for which extra burners might be needed. For example, I would look at at a large electric griddle which can be stashed when not using it. Say, a Broil-King for those times when you need to produce mass quantities of pancakes. Also, for pots, maybe consider a portable induction cooktop or two which you can pull out when you all need more than four burners at a time. (FWIW, the burners on the 30" NXR and Thor stoves are more widely spaced than on standard major brand ranges.) Do you regularly need to use full size sheet pans (18" x 26") so that the 30" width of the oven would be useful to your family?

Seeing that nobody has responded, I'll give it a shot even though I do not have one of the SC models. Looks to me that NXR's new"SC" line is just a rebranding of its lowest tier "Entree" line of stoves (with standard flat-capped sealed burners) which has been marketed through big-box stores like Home Depot. The new designation seems to be a line aimed at sales through vendors like eBay, NewEgg, BHG, and etc. As between an NXR Entree/SC and a Viking, it is pretty much a Hobson's choice. For most of the last decade here, Viking has had a truly bad reputation and, judging from the recent posts here about Viking equipment, service and support, it has not improved much since being absorbed into the Middleby group about six years ago. Here's the thing about NXRs (and the related brands like Thor Appliances and Kucht) having "a lot of problems." The thing is that these stoves are all built on mature, even old-fashioned technology. Rather like buying a knock-off of an old Willys jeep which uses off-the-shelf parts. Not a bad idea if you have a use for the 4wd, off road functions and have the time, skills and interest in DIY maintenance such as cleaning carburetor jets, re-tuning for altitude, etc. That's what you do with old tech. Getting an old tech vehicle would be a bad idea when what you really want is a Camry-like, comfortable daily driver for commuting, highway trips and errands. When you want that, why get a vehicle for ranch work for which you need the time, DIY skills and interest to do the required maintenance? I've had my NXR DRGB model for going on seven years now.. It has the dual stacked burners. The present model equivalent in NXR's current product lines would be the "Pro" line which is sold by the likes of Costco and Dvorson's. That said, I've had only a few niggling little bits of work over the years i've had it. I replaced an oven ignitor, found and fixed a loose connection in the wire to one of the oven lights, replaced worn-out silicon rubber stand-offs on the bottoms of the stove-top grates, adjusted the burner flames when our utility company varies the quality of the gas delivered (as it does), and occasionally cleaned out burners that get gunked up as a result of that and food spills. The biggest expense was $30 for replacing the oven's glow-bar ignitor when it started to weaken. Old style glowbars can and do wear out. I regard it as normal maintenance, like replacing spark plugs of my old truck. The part cost $30 at the local appliance parts warehouse (would have been a few dollars less on Amazon). Took me 15 minutes to replace the glow bar. I followed another NXR owner's writeup -- see the old thread titled "[If Susan fixed her nxr oven ignitor u can 2![(https://www.houzz.com/discussions/if-susan-fixed-her-nxr-oven-ignitor-u-can-2-dsvw-vd~2288437)" For somebody without the time, skiil and interest for such DIY self-service, this could have been a frustrating and expensive experience. First they would have to had to find somebody willing to work on a little-known brand. They would have to pay for a diagnostic visit. The servicer would then order an OEM part (which would cost five or six times what the otherwise identical generic Frigidaire part costs), and then charge for another trip to install it. You see how that would lead to angry postings about the stoves?