You just don't get it. I'll try just once more. I'm not putting down the CC, but you're quite wrong about the equivalencies. For driving to work, with only a briefcase to haul, the Porsche and SUV are equal. It takes the same time, at the same speed, with the same gas mileage. The marginal ability of the Porsche to merge where the SUV can't is of highly limited utility as long as the SUV is able enough in daily experience (which it is). The Porsche does better on the track. It is aerodynamic and has great torque and a high top speed. It is fairly light weight and has a massive engine. The SUV is great for getting the family to the track. It has a back seat and room for gear. It sits high and is easy to maneuver on the road. It might even have cupholders. It has poor torque (doesn't even haul the Porsche well), and a lower top speed. It is heavy and uses a lot of its big engine just to get up hills. Different better features for different specialized purposes. Same diff for the commute. A great cook can't make a 15K btu sealed burner cook like a 23k btu open burner. You're absolutely right. But a great cook can make anything on a 15k btu sealed burner that he/she can on a 23k btu open burner given know-how and skill. I said so above. You can't sear off a bunch of steaks without high power output to maintain heat. You can do one. And if you have a wimpy old range that won't even do one, you can heat a cast iron skillet in the oven and get a good sear that way, or even two stainless ones, one for each side. People DO NOT LIKE using wall ovens underneath cooktops. They do it sometimes for sleek Euro looks, and sometimes because that's the best way to get induction. Almost no one does it of choice under a rangetop, even when it's possible. That puts the oven at floor level, which is very uncomfortable for many reasons which have been covered in other threads. Professional chefs use high power mostly for speed. In a steak house they're more likely to use a salamander than a skillet for the steaks. When you're not feeding 100 covers a night and trying to turn over tables, you don't need the same kind of power. Most of the people looking to buy appliances here are home cooks. They're not trying to fit out restaurant kitchens. Wekick is hardly the only one who considers oven performance as or more important as burner output. That's why they make a whole bunch of different kinds of ranges. Some people even want the chicken nuggets button on the Frigidaire (I think that's the one, right?). Wolf makes one of the very best residential ranges for a combination of burner output and oven quality, and is therefore a good match for many people. Professional chefs, if they're any good, can cook on anything. People cite the ones complaining on Chopped because they couldn't get a good sear before the CC. I say that's because they were unfamiliar with the equipment, not that they couldn't figure out how to make it work for them if given more than half an hour. Others of the chefs did get good sears. On Top Chef they make them cook with campfires, or irons and wafflers, or what have you. Some, who only cook in professional kitchens, are stymied. The really good cooks, like many a mom, know how to cook given heat and make it work.

At the risk of returning to something at least mildly cooking related, cpovey, while you're right about the physics of how food gets cooked and I think I generally agree with you conclusions about the classic AGA, you had it wrong when you wrote "Therefore, all ovens (except microwave) cook primarily by radiant heat (with a small contribution by convection). In all ovens, the walls get hot. This heat then radiates out to the food, thus heating the food. Thus, Aga ovens are no different than regular ovens in how they heat food." In fact, the predominant way food gets cooked in an oven is by conduction, not radiation: food gets hot by the transfer of heat energy from the hot air in the oven. In a normal oven, the element or flame heats the air, the air heats the walls of then oven, which are then exactly the same temperature as the air and nowhere near hot enough to emit significant infrared radiation. Having the walls warm really mean nothing to cooking except as stores of heat, they help get the air back up to temperature faster when the door is opened. Generally speaking, something has to glow (at least in the infrared part of the radiomagnetic spectrum) before radiation becomes a signficant factor in cooking, as in the case of a broiler. A convection oven cooks somewhat faster because the moving air improves conduction into the food. In this respect, an AGA *is* somewhat different: rather than the air heating the metal, the metal heats the air and the oven walls are often warmer than the air. It's still nowhere near warm enough to contribute significantly to cooking, though, and to the extent it does it's a problem because the oven walls closer to the flame (towards the center of the AGA, in other words) are much hotter than those further from the flame (the side, back and especially the doors). It's one of the reasons why an AGA is so difficult for baking.

if the duct system was sized for heating only there will be an issue in adding hvac. heating is lower velocity than a/c. so sizing of duct system will need to be modified. this would be a good time to mastic ducts also. (ducts, plenums, plenums to equipment and sealing supply boxes where they enter the living space.) mastic, mastic, mastic tape. if electric rates are so high...then gas furnace (90+%). a/c is what eats up utility costs. your bill will be high in summer when a/c is in use. dual fuel heat pump set up would be heat pump operation when temps are above 35 degrees, then switch to gas heat when temps are below the 35 degree. if you have had gas heat before...heat pump heat will be cooler heat temp. older people, or folks like me with thin blood..it's an adjustment. If I had access to natural gas, rather than propane.. I would have chosen ng furnace. @ $2.88 per gallon propane costs...it was a no brainer to go heat pump. (just in case electricity goes out...I left gas heater installed on wall in living room) don't like cold! if you would comment on the duct system advice would be easier. it is a bad thing to have duct system with high static pressure during a/c mode, even though for heating only...the system worked well. having an added cost of duct modification at the last minute....would be upsetting when budgeting for install. best of luck

Sorry, just took a look at this thread again and noticed your question...by the time I got to Miele, I had decided on induction, so I didn't give the Miele an actual test drive. I did give it a pretty thorough inspection at the Miele place, though, and thought it was a very sexy range -- and the performance seemed very similar to the Wolf dual fuel. I say that b/c the Miele also has the stacked burners, which I really liked, but the BTUs are higher than Wolf (which top out at around 16k, I believe -- Miele was closer to 20k or so -- I can't quite remember). The Miele ovens on the 48" range were very nice -- the smaller one is a speed oven, and the bigger one is a regular convection. The speed oven wasn't a big plus for me personally, since I really wanted a steam oven as a second oven, but there are people on this forum who love their speed ovens. One thing I really liked about the Miele oven, which Wolf doesn't have, is the burst of steam option, which is great for baking (you can program up to 3 bursts of steam for up to 6 min. each during cooking). I didn't care that much about the MasterChef options on Miele, but again, others love these. At any rate, the Miele seemed very similar to the Wolf, I liked the steam option on the oven better and liked the Miele burners better (also, if you're interested in a grill, theirs was excellent and seemed very similar to the Wolf, which I think is the best in the business). If I had stuck with a range, I would have been very tempted by the Miele.