We have a 48" with 4 burners, griddle and grill. The grill (with cover) is the landing strip. While we don't use that strip on the top other than as a trivot (about 12") I wouldn't give up the double oven and grill.

I had a "no grilling in the house" rule. We have an outdoor grill steps away from the kitchen and I don't want the smoke and grease in the house.

I have a 36" 4 burner, with griddle in the middle. It works great as a griddle, and also becomes that landing strip when needed. I too have never needed more than 4 burners, in fact, it's not often I even use 3 at once.

Thanks for all of your perspectives! It seems that the 36" just gives more real estate to work with for hot pans, which I can appreciate.

ctycdm:
Doesn't the griddle space / landing strip protrude into the other burner spaces? It seems like if it were on the side, it could hang off the edge over the countertop and be more out of the way.

"Doesn't the griddle space / landing strip protrude into the other burner spaces?" On my Bluestar, the griddle with the cover on it sits pretty much flush with the top of the grates, which allows a large skillet to hang over, or be slid right onto it.

I've got a 30" AG Wolf and have no problem with using larger size pans at the same time. How often would you typically have all 4 burners going at once anyway? For me, extremely rarely. For a landing spot I almost always just move things to a burner I am not using. In the rare event that I can't or don't want to do that, I have soapstone counters that I can set hot pans right on without damaging the countertop. So, for me the 30" does make sense and allowed me to have some more countertop space next to the range.

ctycdm:

but the griddle is in the middle right? if you put a full sheet pan on it, you probably can't have pots on both sides at the same time right? it seems there wouldn't be enough space for a sheet pan and >2 burners working because the sheet pan would be too wide and protrude into the other burner spaces even if flush. does this make sense? If I had 6 burners rather than a griddle there'd be no problem.

needinfo1:

it's good to hear others chose another path. I do often have 3 burners going at once (my 1956 stove does not like me when I do this) but 4 not so much. I've been reluctant to put sheet pans or other items coming from the oven onto burners that I've just used because they are still hot and I don't want to cook the food anymore.

I'll look into soapstone - a heat durable countertop could also work. My kitchen isn't that large and right now I really want more counter space so I'm trying to think it through to optimize functionality. I can see that 36" gives you more heat proof space to work with which I like, but I'm also not that keen on a 36" oven - I want my main oven to heat up fast.

Anyway, thanks for everyone's input!