Hi darboydoughboy, When I first got my GE Cafe in November, the cooling fan would turn on at 350 degrees and it did drive me nuts--it was about as loud as the exhaust fan above the stove. After GE installed a new circuit board in an attempt to correct problems with the covection bake, the fan didn't come on until the oven was hotter than 400 degrees. The loudness was still annoying but that was more acceptable to me since most of my cooking and baking would be under 400 degrees (pizza being a big exception). Although the cooling fan was annoying, it would not have given me reason to return the stove. Hope that answers your question. Unfortunately the convection baking issue never was able to be corrected and two subsequent Cafes had physical damage and were never installed so my experience is limited to that one range. Maybe others will be able to give you more info.

The GE range and microwave were bisque in color and from 2003, but when the magnatron went out last year, we replaced the microwave with a new GE Profile convection microwave in stainless. So we'd like to replace the bisque range for a stainless one sometime by next year so they will match. Since the convection microwave is Ge Profile, we'd first like to stay with GE Profile for the range so the "style" matches. That would be either the free-standing induction PHB925SPSS ($2100 new) or the slide-in (non induction) PS968SPSS ($1400 new). When looking at the installation instructions for GE slide-in (and the Electrolux induction slide-in) is when I saw about having to "shave" the counter top, which got me worried since the granite has been there for 5 years now. I'm not sure if the price of having the granite modified to fit a particular slide-in, and then years later maybe going with another range, and the granite not fitting it is all worth it. But the overall goal would be for the range (GE or another brand) to match the "style" of the GE Profile convection microwave and have the controls in the front, so the full granite backsplash is visible. I know there's the GE Cafe CS980SNSS that is free-standing, but looks like a slide-in, with the controls on the front. But for with a price of $2400, I'd probably just go with the regular free-standing GE Profile Induction for $2100, even though the controls are on the back. The Vikings range $4000-7000 depending on the model.

Hi Kayla - overall I like the dual fuel range. My husband loves the digital meat thermometer that came with it and we've made the best prime rib roasts since we've gotten this oven. The pre-heat does take awhile but we've gotten used to it. I've made cookies and they turn out great. We have also started using the lower oven more if we're baking something in a shallow dish, frozen garlic bread, rolls and etc. because it doesn't take as long to heat up. We've used the griddle to make sandwiches and pancakes and I'm happy with how that works and the easy clean up. I would say the stove top is easy to scratch if you aren't careful when you clean around the burners. Make sure you lift the grates up, off and set aside to clean and not just lift the front of the grates so you can wipe underneath. You'll scratch the little raised lip on the back of the stove top with the burner grates. I'm still not crazy about the overall height of the stove top but that's not really a fault. My husband on the other hand (6'2" tall) LOVES the dual range and all of it's features. He would highly recommend it to everyone. I like it. We also bought the matching over the range microwave. We bought it because you can bake in it and I thought we would really use that feature a lot but have found it takes a really long time to pre-heat the oven feature of the microwave and you have to use this little round raised baking rack which I have very few dishes that will fit, actually none now that I think about it. I thought it would be more like my old toaster/convection oven that sat on my counter top and it's really not at all. For the most part we just use the microwave to re-heat and warm things. I hope this helped

I wanted to contribute my experience- we got the capital culinarian all gas 48" w/ the griddle (so we have 6 burners) within the past year and I have been using it for a few months. I LOVE LOVE LOVE our decision!! I too did a lot of research and did not read many negative reviews about it- and they are very well built, pretty, and simple design-wise (my husband is a contractor and thought they were most similar to the commercial ranges he has worked on, i.e. if something breaks it would be easy to fix). I probably wouldn't need 6 burners just for cooking- but it is nice to have. I also do a lot of canning/preserving, and do use 6 burners at the same time (simmer for warming lids, canning pot, pot for extra hot water, pot w/ stuff to be canned, pot w/ syrup for the stuff to be canned, one pot w/ dinner cooking). My husband loves the griddle- very easy to make breakfasts, hot sandwiches, etc. You could always do 4 burners and a grill/griddle as an option if you don't can/need 6 burners. Also, I really enjoy the big oven on the 48" (not sure how this compares in size to the 36" since the 48" has a large and small oven and the 36" one large oven). It can fit 9x13" pans side by side, and cookie sheets. The roll out racks aren't as smooth as some of the other brands we looked at (we liked the thermador racks the best- very smooth) but they work pretty well. Also, I haven't had any problems w/ the baking heat/evenness, and our oven is gas (which I think is typically worse than electric ovens?). I haven't baked bread yet- but have done a lot of other foods (cookies, casseroles, etc.). So if it were me I would definitely do the 36" over the 30" :-) It sounds like you would use it w/ all the cooking that you do. If you have any questions about mine please let me know :-)