Thanks for the info. !! unfortunately,was told it was the 'safety shut-off valve' for the oven ( part model specific & would cost over $300 for a new part & the place here said they couldn't even find that model listed any more!) My husband so far can make it ignite by getting down on his back w/a flashlite & hit the spot a few times in back of the oven underneath & it will start/ignite! I didn't know those ranges back then (1986 our sales receipt says) had those type of ignitions?! The top burners & middle top grill come on & ignite just fine yet! Imagine an appliance now days lasting that long?!! Used to be, the brand name meant something but now with so many changes in ownership, etc. it is hard to tell who now makes a certain brand .... like who makes the stoves now for Sears (Kenmore)?, & our old favorite years ago: Maytag! Thank you everyone for your help!

BS vs Thermador It really depends on your cooking style and how you use the oven. I would try to find live models and try them out. Both have a star burner but they are totally different burners. The Thermador has a cap which spreads the heat as you turn up the burners. some people use wide pans and consider it an advantage, especially if you have heat conductive pans, heavy copper or aluminum. Some people find the burners to be too wide. BS, top, is designed to keep the heat toward the middle of the pan. This plus the higher BTUs makes it useful for stirfrying. A big pot of water will boil faster. You mention a simmer burner on BS but Thermador has one of the lowest BTUs for simmer at 375 BTUs. It accomplishes this by cycling the burner on and off. The clicking bothers some people. We can't compare BTUs with BS because they don't make it known. They use a temperature which is pretty meaningless. Anecdotally owners usually say it is adequate but it often needs to be adjusted to be low enough. Consider what you think is easier to clean. BS has the "open" burner tray which means it comes apart to clean. The Thermador has a sealed tray. With BS you can buy a range with 8 burners but with Thermador you at least have to have a griddle or grill. The griddle on Thermador and BS are thermostatically controlled but again they are very different. Thermador is heated electrically and is made of aluminum. They use aluminum because of it's excellent heat transfer properties and the element is pictured below. One disadvantage is that the griddle is coated to be nonstick so I would check out how much a replacement cost. They talk about reviving the nonstick properties in the manual with a salt scrub but I don’t think that works all that well. BS's griddle is made of rolled steel and heated with a gas element. It more of a zoned heating but many people like that. Opaone “A griddle spanning round burners has much less even heat distribution across its surface and across time." The burner is but one aspect that determines heat distribution. The cooking vessel, in this case the griddle also determines heat distribution. One big advantage to an overlay griddle is the ability to use aluminum or steel depending on what you want to accomplish. No one has done any independent temperature mapping to see what is the most even heating but I think with the elements and aluminum griddle, Thermador might beat Wolf and BS. http://www.cookingforengineers.com/article/120/Common-Materials-of-Cookware “If you need dependable reliability and repeatability it will not work nearly as well as a proper thermostatic griddle.” When you add another part like a thermostat, it is additional parts to go wrong. There are unique functions that a built in can have. It is easy to reproduce a temperature with a built in griddle because you can dial it in. Another advantage to a built in might be stability unless you buy a fitted add on. Personally, I don’t find it any more difficult to adjust temperatures with my burner than it is to adjust for a big frying pan but that is just my subjective opinion. An add on has additional functions that a built in does not have, so as many things in cooking, there is not one “proper” way. -Besides being able to change the metals, you have a lot more space, maybe 50% more, if you look at actual cooking area in square inches. -You have the flexibility of the burners being used as burners, which might be very important on a 30” or 36” range and less important on a 48” range. -You can move it to different areas on the range. BS would allow you to customize your layout though, also maybe Capital would, others won’t. -You can have a lot more heat because you have 2 burners with heat up to 25K each on some ranges. The built ins are limited to about 15K over the whole griddle. -You can have really zoned heating because you can adjust each half separately In looking at the ovens, you have the basic differences of gas vs electric heat for cooking/baking. What do you have now? With many electric ovens, you have more control over direction of heat, a third element and possibly fan speed. With the combi oven there is control over humidity. Look at the broiler as the gas infrared broilers are smaller. BS holds a full size baking sheet or two half sheets.

Hello! something strange haooened to me and i wanted to see if anyone had insight. I had worked with an Ilve consultant (out of New Jersey) at the begininng of the year to quote out an Ilve Nostalgie 48inch range. I chose Ilve over Hallman mostly because I had heard bad things about Hallman’s customer service. Well personal stuff came up and we had to post-pone our kitchen renovation to 2022, when i went to contact the Ilve rep to finally complete my order I received an OOO/maternity leave email bounce back. Not a big deal (congrats to her!) but the sales phone number her OOO email provided was answered by someone who answered as ”Hallman.” Are they now the same company? Also the price went up $2,000 from January.. crazy!

@itsourcasa yes we did purchase the Verona Induction. We've been using it for a few months and absolutely love it. Easy to use. And it is even so much faster and powerful than our vintage gas range which was really great. We don't miss the gas "power" at all - there is plenty of power with induction. Plus the clean up is so easy. No burners to clean out the spills.