I have had a Bertazzoni 36" gas range with 5 burners for about 7 years now and I absolutely hate it. It replaced a 5 year old Thermador which kept breaking down. When it worked, the Thermador oven was fantastic and the temperature incredibly accurate. My Bertazzoni is quite the opposite: the oven temperature is not calibrated, unless I have a thermometer in the oven, I have no clue what the temp is, I cannot rely on the outside knob, it's inaccurate. My cakes are often burned on the outside and raw on the inside. The bottom of the oven has been curling up, it seems quite flimsy. The igniter broke twice and now, I cannot use the broil setting because it will not ignite. The top burners are ok, the largest one (2 part) is practical for very large pots (we are a large family, we often utilize larger pasta pots) but it still takes for ever for water to boil. Cleaning the burners is quite challenging, especially if liquids boil over. One of my oven lights burnt 2 years ago and no one was able to help me purchase a new one. Customer service at Bertazzoni suggested I go to a lighting shop for a bulb, they were not able to sell me a replacement one. I did just that and was told by 3 shops that they do not carry this type of light bulb. All in all, I would not recommend this gas range. I am now in the market for a new one, does anyone have any recommendations?

ginnys_2010, Just a thought about why local retailers are telling you bad things about Capital. If I'm not mistaken, Capital was doing it's own distribution in SoCal which alienates local distributors and therefore the dealers they have exclusive contracts with. Your head would spin at how fast that tune will change if Capital signs on with a local distributor. I've taken the top off of my Culinarian for cleaning and the bottom panel off for our floor installation and I do not believe that this range would require any special training to service. I'm positive any competent appliance service company would be able to rebuild the range if necessary. That combined with the fact that they have always returned calls to their support number and emails gives me comfort that any issues can be resolved. Being so close to the factory, they might even send out one of their in house techs. As to SS... I've had SS appliances in a restaurant kitchen and there was certainly no "baby-ing" going on. Yes, it does get scratches and some stains but for the most part, it's pretty durable and easy to clean. Enamel and painted surfaces can chip which can then lead to corrosion. Good SS can be easily buffed to remove scratches and stains. I used a green scouring pad (*not* the ones made for non-stick) and buffed out the inevitable scratches of construction after our remodel was done. Just rub gently along the grain of the SS steel and the scratches disappear like magic. In the restaurant, we used a very fine grit (like a 00 or 000) sanding block to buff large areas. Remember SS was used on commercial appliances first because it was easy to care for and repair. Beware however, not all things sold as SS is bare SS. Many refrigerators and dishwashers for instance use a coated SS (sometimes sold as "SS finish" or "Titanium finish") to resist smudges and finger prints. These should *never* be buffed as I described above. Good Luck.

I used a Harman P68 pellet stove to heat my entire home last year. Its about 2,600 sq ft. It heated the main house and upstairs easily. The family room we added on is 46 feet from the stove and has 11' ceilings. When its cold we use the oil to warm it up at night then turn it off when we go to bed. I used very little oil. I still heat hot water with the boiler. We run are stove 24/7 with no problems. Its designed for that. The harman has a large ash pan and you can burn about a ton before you have to empty it. I would think you could heat your whole house with the stove depending on the layout. I used about 4.5 tons last year. I bought 5 tons this year at $219.00 a ton. I have to pay a delivery charge but don't have the bill yet. Probably end up being around $235 with delivery. My oil dealer said I use about 1,100 gallons a year. some is used for the hot water but not much i have found. I figure it costs me about $1,200 less a year to heat with the pellets pepending on the price of oil. I figure the stove will pay for its self in 2-3 years. There are other benefits. Not using foreign oil, non polluting, burns a waste product etc that I like. the heat is very comfortable and does not seem to dry out the house like a wood stove. I wish the pellets were around 200 a ton but demand has increased them. Hopefully they won't go higher.

I thought I would post an update to my situation... after having thermostat things replaced, things were working better but still not normally. Now I would say we are back to square one. I can't depend on the oven to keep temp. I couldn't dream of getting it to do 450 degrees and stay there. The holidays are coming and I'll plan our cooking around it. People have posted here considering purchasing Big Chill and I would never recommend buying BIg Chill. Their customer service is terrible, nearly non-existent. Something is very wrong with their engineering (Bluestar) since a gas oven isn't exactly rocket science. The cheap tin can GE range that the Big Chill replaced worked a million times better. In our previous house we installed a Viking dual fuel. It was solid as a rock, never had an issue with it. Why did we buy Big Chill? If I'm being honest, it was because they look great. Beautiful colors, great styling. I did a little research but come on, would anyone expect all these troubles from a gas oven range? We are considering buying an induction range. It would be really easy to buy a Big Chill Induction in French Blue to replace our lemon. But I won't be taking that chance. This time around I will maybe have to forego the looks for something that works. I just don't want to take another gamble on Big Chill.