Your comments are easing the pain of this long drawn out reno we've been living in. I started the demo in Jan and have been working every day, night and weekend as I've done all the work myself. I've already used up all my vacation time for the year. I can't comment to much on the "actual" cooking experience as DW is the only cook in our house, I just reap the benefits. This kitchen is for her for because she deserves it and has always wanted an AGA and a beautiful kitchen. Our first meal was pancakes of course! The kids love pancakes. quiltgirl Regarding our counters, we have about 36" to the right and about 60" to the left. There is a large island directly across from the AGA. The granite was templated a week ago and should be ready for install in a week or so.

Hello everyone. Thanks for the responses. Live Wire Oak-- I think the Frigidaire is made by Electrolux. It says Electrolux inside it. Also, its the largest all refrigerator/all freezer units that don't cost upwards of $3K each. I love the look of the units side by side when they are built into a cabinet and the trim kit is used. I hope they operate as well as they look. Thanks :) AKChicago- I thought long and hard about the built in microwave, but thought it the lesser of the two evils of either the built in MW or the combo with the wall oven (built together). Those are really the only two options I considered for my kitchen (mostly for the look). I actually picked out all these appliances myself. My builder wasn't involved. Weissman- My thought exactly. The dishwasher performing very well is very important to me, so it was imperative that I find a great one. I think I have in the Asko. It has great reviews. The fridge and freezer just need to cool, freeze, and have spill proof shelves, and hold a lot. I think I have accomplished all I need in the Frigidaire, with a great built in look (built into my cabinetry and with the trim kit). Footballmom- I didn't know about the lowered BTU's. I'll have to ask some questions about that. Thanks :) And also the fan. Its actually a 36" cabinet above but the cabinetmaker says the bigger vent hood will not fit. I would like to double check. hilferty77- I also wonder about the Electrolux/Frigidaire vs the Electrolux Icon.

goodguy2k2k: You might get more and better responses to your questions if you start a separate thread. Your questions are so far down this long thread that they may get missed, especially since you are asking about 30" stoves and this is a thread about 36" stoves.. But, here's what I think I know in answer to your questions. I know next to nothing nothing about Verona stovesexcept that they are very nice looking stoves that can be had in colors and use dual stacked burners on the cooktop. There have been practically no threads here even mentioning this line of stoves, let alone any giving an in-depth discussion of the stove or support. That would give me pause. I personally would not not consider buying a stove that is built by a very low-volume manufacturer that relies on European electronics which may be hard to fix or replace in this country. I also would be reluctant to consider buy on-line which may leave me a 1000 miles form the vendor who may be my only service and support. Also, the Veronas (which I think used be sold under the DeLonghi brand) have small and really shallow ovens (common for Eurpean stoves). BTW, isn't the 36" Verona dual fuel actually $3499 not $2499 (exclusive of any sales tax)?. The 30" DF is, think, about $3k, which is still the most expensive stove in your line-up... The Costco US price for the NXR is still listed as $1999, but maybe your state sales tax would take it to $2199? . If you want the center-grate, you have to order that eleswhere (Dvorson's, Austek, AJ Madison, etc.) which will add about $110. If you need to convert to LP, you likewise would have to order a kit from anohter vendor (the bLue Star comes with the LP conversion kit). Those additions would narrow the price gap with the Canadian Blue Star by about $200 to $250. Both stoves can be had with Island trim if you needed that, but you would have to order that separately for both stoves. From recent postings here, the US price for Blue Star RCS.models seems to be around $3500. Sometimes you find them for less on sites like Craigslist.. Biggest differences between the Blue Star and NXR? Open versus sealed burners; cast iron multi-piece cooktop versus stainless steel cooktop; Depending on what and how you cook and what you cook with, the star-shaped open burners on the Blue Star may give you more even heating than the NXR's sealed burners and the difference may or may not matter to you. The Blue Star has a bigger oven cavity.: Some people think the NXR stainless stovetop and fancy oven coating will be easier to clean than the RCS's stove's cast iron top and standard-grade oven coating. I'll expound and give others something to argue about. :>) NXR has 4 sealed 15k-btu hr. "dual stacked" burners in deep wells on a stainless stovestop. The depth of the wells means spills don't often bake on, so cleaning is often just pulling the grates, sptrizing and wiping with a microfiber cloth..For me, the NXR does a great job with moderate to large size pans on any heat setting and is okay with 5" diameter pans. It does not work well for high-heat on tiny pans (e.g.,4" saucepans, tiny fry pans for searing 3 shrimp, Bialetti "Mokka" pots.) On really low settings, you apparently can slowly melt chocolate on a paper plate. I can tell you that I've never needed a double boiler on my NXR. Blue Star has has three burners at 15k-btu-hr. (which apparently simmer very nicely) and one dedicated "simmer" burner. Apparently, you can do the same paper plate chocolate-melting trick on the simmer burner. Or, if you buy the parts (extra $), you can diy-upgrade it to a full range burner. The star burners mean you can heat the beejesus out of really tiny pans if that is something you need to do.. The star burners also make it easier to use a traditional round bottomed wok. (That said, there are plenty of postings here at GW saying that 15k-btu-hr. is nowhere near enough heat and that you really need to upgrade to at least a 22k burner). he top is a black cast iron. Reactions to the appearance are varied: some like the black top, some do not. The burner bowls and grate dissassemble for cleaning in a dishwasher. Some folks think stove top cleaning is easy, some think it onerous, and some think the matte black never can looks clean once you've had the stove for any length of time. In other Bluestar threads here you can find links to Trevor Lawson's video demonstration on cleaning the stove top. Check it out and make up you own mind..There is another video about the evenness of heating from star burners. Ovens? Both seem to heat evenly, both have potent infra-red broilers, and both use manually-switched convection fans. The NXR switch has an interlock that prevents the fan from operating when the broiler burner is being used. The Blue Star apparently will allow the convection fan to run when the broiler burner is activated but the manual repeatedly tells you not to do this. So, in theory, you may be able to do top-down convection roasting with a Blue Star even though you should not do it. The NXR oven coating is a glossy blue surface --- looks to me that the coating is sourced from the same supplier that Wolf uses. This can be scrubbed or wiped with a sponge and, so far for me, has rarely required resort to anything like Fume free Easy Off. . Blue Star apparently uses a similar coating in the higher end RNB models. However, the RCS models apparently have a coating akin to the standard coatings used by major appliance manufacturers (who can compensate by with a self-cleaning oven function.) There is a recent thread on the subject of the differences between the RCS and RNB oven coatings where there was some discussion of ease of cleaning. Both the Blue Star and NXR ovens will operate at 150F. The NXR can be set lower to maintain an even 135F if that matters to you for dehydrating or sous vide type cooking. Don't know if Blue Stars can do this. The exteriors of both ovens get pretty warm during extended baking and high heat roasting. The Blue star oven is deeper and wider than the NXR oven. The extra depth is an advantage.for large baking projects, say, you wanted to put two half sheet pans side by side on a oven rack. The convection fan housing in the NXR sticks out a little too far to permit you to do this. The other thing that occurs to me is the somewhat intangible and somewhat unclear aspect of service and support. Both companies are small volume operations which means that service and support can sometimes be slow when you have major problems. Prizer-Painter makes its Blue Stars in a Pennsylvania factory, so the company has a theoretical advantage for getting major components to you more quickly. Though, judging from dissappointed posters here, that does not always happen. Also, with domestic manufacturing, you may feel patriotic about buyng American. Duro Corp contracts fabrication of the NXR to a Chinese company, Hyxion, and Duro is newer to the market with a less developed support program. Both stoves are basic and straightforward, mature deisgns. If you are at all handy, you can probably take care of any maintenance yourself (in contrast to the Verona stoves.) Only the structural parts (e.g., oven doors) are proprietary. If you search here on Gardenweb, you will find more complaints about Blue Star than NXR, but that is a reflection of Blue Star having been in the market longer and having a much bigger market share. IIRC, I started seeing discussions of Blue Star stoves here back in 2002. I've only seen NXRs since the latter part of 2009, so far less time for complaints to accumulate on the NXRs... Any production line is going to kick out some lemons. One great thing about buying a stove from Costco is the absolute satsifaction money back no questions asked guarantee. If you wind up with a lemon, you do not have to go through the three-tries-to-fix-each-problem and "we don't know when the parts will arrive" process. Just pack it up and take it back to get a new stove or get your money back and move on to something else. More generally, I'd say that the NXR is very good stove which is worth the $2k price while the Blue Star RCS would be a $3500 stove that is definitely worth the $2400 ($CN) that Costco charges and, according to whole lot of folks here, is worth the $3500 that gets charged on this side of the border. You would be getting it $2700 (an $800 discount). Since you have the budget for it, the question you have to decide is whether the features and trade-offs of the RCS are worth $500 more to you (well, $500 plus the cost of your field trip to Canada and the cost of UPS Store or other drop-off site.) . This post was edited by JWVideo on Sun, Apr 14, 13 at 22:24

Are you going to be using natural gas or LP? I just converted from electric to LP gas a couple of months ago. We don't have natural gas, so we had to have propane installed. Around here, some gas companies only take care of the outside work and a plumber is necessary for the indoor work. I talked to numerous people and got four widely different (in terms of price) quotes from gas companies. I also talked to my plumber in case I needed him to do the indoor work. He recommended a company that was qualified to do the indoor and outdoor work, so I wouldn't need a plumber (very honest of him, I thought!). I ended up going with that company b/c not only did they have the best pricing, but the best customer service. They also handled the permit for me. I only paid somewhere around $650 for the whole install, including a full propane tank, but again, the estimates I got varied greatly. Some were b/w $800-900. Obviously prices are going to vary depending on where you live. BTW, I grew up using electric so this is my first time ever cooking with gas. It's only been two months and I haven't done much cooking (summer - lots of travel as well as grilling), but so far, I'm very happy with my LP range!