I've had my rangetop for over a year and I love the burners; but there are some problems. The simmer is a joke even after it was adjusted. I can bring water to a boil on simmer! So I just push the pot off to the side. Does anyone know if they made a fix for this? The other problem is the griddle. the sides are cold and the middle hot, so cooking pancakes or anything else on it means waiting till the middle is almost burned before you turn turn the pancake around to cook it evenly. Is there a fix for this or do I just have to deal with a bad design on both the simmer and burners? The simmer should have been designed to only light the center part of the burner. Did they even test this before they put it on the market?? I hope Trevor or someone else who is aware of this has some answers. I know that a year ago there was talk of a fix and never heard back about it. If nothing else they should make an iron plate to put over a burner so you can put something on a true simmer. My old Wolf burners also had a couple of heat rings, and on simmer only the middle ring was employed. For as much as I love the burners on this range top, if I had to do it over again with the problem with the simmer and the griddle (which also sticks by the way which my Wolf didn't), I would buy the Wolf range top. Capital Culinaria has a chance to really fix their product and I hope they do. The materials used are of a high caliber and those burners are to die for if they could get that simmer issue re-designed, and the uneven heating on the griddle fixed.

@jscout - Funny about your heat zone suggestion. I had to cook that way since my old range had various burner sizes and one side got hotter than the other. It's fine to push cooked food over, but when making pancakes and stuff that I want to cook quickly and evenly, it drove me crazy. In fact, it was one of the reasons I opted for all the same size burners and the CC. The 7 gauge griddle will have lots more room to experiment. I ordered the pan on Monday and will have it tomorrow, can't wait. Thanks for the good suggestion about the surface thermometer too! Next up, a new, bigger wok since I am keeping the CC wok grill on the range. Thanks to the good advice of GWers, I am leaning toward a hammered wok form the Wok Shop. Just have to decide on the type of handles, wood/steel, long/spool...

jackster writes: "Tinyhomebuilder -have you had any problems with BS - door, etc? i just read on another post that you had problems out of the box - are you happy now that issues were fixed?" _______________________________________________________________ YES! : ) We couldn't be more pleased with our little stove as well as with BlueStar's excellent customer service people. The initial issue with gas valve was quickly and easily resolved, and since then there have been no other problems Our oven door operates perfectly. It's flush and square. It opens and closes as smoothly as a door on a Rolls Royce and seals like a bank vault. It doesn't get overly hot even when the oven is blazing at max temp. Whatever door issues BS might have had in the past, ours sure has ~none~ of them. We used our wok for the first time last night... and WOW does it work great! Just lift out the grate and plunk the wok into the hole. Don't turn on the heat until everything is completely prepared for cooking because the wok heats instantly over the blowtorch 22k burner. On HIGH it got way too hot. I found that it stir fried best at about half way between LOW and HIGH and only took a couple of minutes to prepare the meal. The veggies came out perfect, and tasted ~exactly~ like they came from a Chinese restaurant. This is what has surprised us the most... how FAST you can cook everything. Our old stove had 8K burners and you could read a novel waiting for water to boil. (lol)

Hi Piglet, If you're not using high heat why are you installing that big boy? Just kidding, if I remember correctly, some if not all of those burners, must simmer down to something like 350btu for you more delicate sauces and so forth. Range hood choice is indeed very overwhelming, and long ago when I was building a kitchen it was the only thing that the contracter said don't worry, just trust me and it didn't work out well. Techically what you're buying is referred to as a hood liner or power pack. The decorative part is the hood itself. I would strongly suggest you consult your custom wood hood fabricator about what they would recommend. I'm assuming this cooktop is against a wall, as opposed to on an island or peninsula. The hoods (to stay with what you're calling them and to avoid confusion)you've selected appear to be the wall type although they may be universal and good for either application. Not to say anything bad about Zephyr but Best is a highly regarded, and very well established product (I am in no way connected to the company). I do like that it is deeper - that is important to avoid what I believe is called enveloping - smoke, steam, etc will fan out and miss or go around the hood and end up on your beautiful custom hood, rather than be drawn into the hood if your hood is insufficiently deep (congratulations on going on a 42 inch hood with a 36 inch cooking surface by the way, good choice). The 430 stainless they use is the best quality, so your hood will stay beautiful for years to come. Baffle filters look cool, are easy to clean (take them out and put them in the dishwasher) but some people say the mesh type filters actually are more effective in trapping grease. You want the grease to be trapped and not get up into the ductwork. Mesh filters can go in the dishwasher too, and if they get too yucky you can always get new ones. A note about the blowers. They're loud. Nothing you can do about it, think of it as having a jet engine in your kitchen. One thing you can do to minimize it is make sure you follow the manufacturs recomendations for duct work, make sure the run is as straight as possible, with no more than 3 elbows (turns) and at least 12 to 24 inches between turns (in other words you don't want it to look like something a hamster might run through). Use hard metal duct work only, never the flexible clothes dryer type. Make sure whomever is installing the duct work is comfortable and extremely familiar with it. You want everything to fit nice and tight so the duct work has no tendency to rattle when the blower is on. If its a poor job it will be noisy and/or ineffective. If its available from the manufacturer and if possible you also might want to look into an external blower which mounts on an external wall or on the roof, thus taking the blower out of your kitchen. If not, I definiely think you'll be better off with Bests 1200 cfm blower, you'll be better able to run it at low - medium setting and cut down on the noise. Ask lots and lots of questions, especially of your installers. Good luck, hope this was helpful.