adh673 - I went from gas to induction in a heart-beat! My house dates from 1913. The previous update to the kitchen was done in 1983 (not by me) to a white formica kitchen, which was extremely well designed and very hard to improve on :) Anyway, I really wanted induction for several reasons: I had cooked on gas for 20+ years, and never felt comfortable with the open flames. I worried about pot holders catching fire since I had to hold the pot handles with the pot holder to stir things (as mentioned by others, with gas, pot sides and handles get very hot). I really liked the idea of not heating up the kitchen while cooking. The smooth top also functions as added counter space. And the clean up couldn't be easier. As someone else said higher up in the thread, you can put a silicone mat under pots. You can also spread paper towels to catch oil splatters and just throw them away after cooking, with no risk of fire! The only thing my DD misses is toasting marshmallows over the gas flame :) I've now used my Kenmore induction range since August, and really love it (and my new kitchen, too). I have the Kenmore range, a Frigidaire refrigerator, an Electrolux DW, and GE Profile MW. All are SS/black, so blend in (an added bonus, which I didn't realize when I bought these appliances, is that with the exception of the GE, all are made by Electrolux). My brother gave me a new set of induction-capable pots (from Costco) for a recent big birthday, and I've bought a few more from Home Goods at reasonable prices. I love the speed things heat up at, as well as the really really low simmer for such things as melting chocolate. Here's a photo:

I have a 1990 Cornue Grand Palais series range that I purchased used. I disassembled the unit completely for a thorough cleaning and I have some observations that may be of use to some of you. First the bad. The plating work on the trim (nickel in my case), is pretty bad. I took the pieces to a plating shop to be reworked, and the staff were not impressed. You can see that most of the pieces were finished with a belt sander. Because the base metal of the pieces is steel, over time, the backs of the pieces where they contact the stove enamel will begin to rust because of trapped moisture. This destroys the plating, and eventually works around to the front of the trim. The screws for the backs of the drawer slides were loose or missing, and the right side door slides had the back mounting holes drilled 1/2 inch too high, causing that door to be mis-aligned and to have a tendency to slide open. The body of the drawers is galvanized steel. One of mine had significant rust. There must be condensation issues. The gas piping was not deburred after being cut. Two pieces were cut too short, so the builder wasn't able to adequately tighten the joints. There were a few missing screws in the unit and one missing bolt. The right hand base was 1/8" too short, so they added shims between the base and the oven unit. Unfortunately the shims they added were only 1/16" high. An electrical connection on one of the main electric burner elements was never tightened correctly. There was obvious arcing at that point. There are no gaskets on the oven doors. This means that hot gasses will escape out the front and you will get deposits inside the upper door frame and front of the unit, where they will collect under the drip tray handles. There is no easy way to replace the chrome oven surrounds if they become damaged. You must COMPLETELY disassemble the unit, including removing/dismantling the controls (electric or gas) behind the control doors. This requires that the gas piping be disconnected, the top removed, the ovens separated, the sides removed, and then the inner sheet metal.. you get the idea. The knobs have plastic bushings to adapt to the small control stalks. One of mine distorted from the heat, so the knob doesn't stay square. Like many other "pro" ranges, there are many spots where panels meet in such a way that it is inevitable that fluids will seep in and cause problems. The chrome panels fronting the oven are typical, cleaning products just dribble straight down into an uncleanable gap. The cast aluminum door panels are very cool when perfectly buffed out, but inevitably, they will wither away with use. Sooner or later someone will use a cleaner incompatible with aluminum and wreck the finish. It has taken me several hours on a bench buffer to bring them back. The hinges in the door have a weak point: when you open the door all the way and put any pressure down, there is a small piece of metal in each hinge that is stressed. One of mine has a small crack that I will have to weld if I can't find a replacement. The venting in the back of the unit is poorly done. The vents terminate before the top of the backsplash, so cooking gases sort of spread out and coat the upper third of the unit. Not a major problem, but causes quite a bit of dirt buildup. The brass burner tops look great when polished, but that doesn't last long unless you are a fanatic about cleaning. I didn't even know they were brass until I saw it on a website. I polished mine on the buffer and hey look! brass! Unfortunately, they get pitted, so to really make them look great, you'd have to chuck them in a lathe and remove some metal. This would give them a limited lifetime. The racks are a bit flimsy. The chrome on mine had started to fail. The transformer for the spark ignitors was only grounded to the base of one unit. If you are having a problem with ignitors, make a pigtail to directly attach the ground wire from the transformer to one of the oven's base mounting screws. People are always saying that their high-end stoves are "built like tanks". No they aren't. Sure, with all that metal you need a stiff frame to bolt it all to, but individually, the ovens are pretty conventional. I've seen the same on Wolf commercial. You want heavy duty? Buy an 1895 wood burner. Ok, so now the good: The brass burner hardware is the neatest I have ever seen: a brass tube with a threaded adjuster sets the air flow, much nicer than the stamped metal shutters on Wolf commercial and others. The gas knobs are cast metal, plated. The have a nice heavy feel. The gas control hardware looks quality. All the wiring is sleeved with high temp silicone. Durable and looks nice. Mine was still in great shape. The porcelain held up very well with only a couple hardly visible dings. The electric controls are heavy duty euro style stuff. They must have stiffer regs over there. The electric switches are industrial quality. With some serious cleaning, I was able to take this 18+ year old range back to almost new condition. I paid $2k for the unit, and I am satisfied with it at that price. From what I can see looking at the new units at Williams-Sonoma, there is little visual difference with my unit, so I believe some of my comments would still apply. The bottom line here is, the cooking functions of the unit seem to be just fine, and have held up well over time. However, the range is not as easy to clean and maintain as a modern unit, and the build quality leaves much to be desired. The style fits perfectly with the kitchen of my Victorian, so I am willing to make some compromises in function. To any prospective buyers, I would say that just about any $1000 range from Sears will do a great job of cooking, operate reliably and be easy to clean and cheap (relatively) to service. Cornue makes their ranges "like they used to", but sometimes there's a good reason why they don't make them like that anymore. A purchase like this is about style. If you need a unit with two ovens, and (like mine), four burners, a flat cooktop and grill, the price of entry will probably be at least $5k. How you justify the extra $35k is all about style.

I can speak about an old 1950's O'Keefe and Merritt. We had one for 6 years and loved it so much that we moved it with us when we moved 2 years ago. They are very solid, so fun-looking, and really great to cook on. I honestly considered keeping it for our new construction house, but the things that held me back were the one tiny oven and it only had 4 burners. Tiny oven-- fine for everything I needed size-wise, but I needed more than one pretty often. Burner-wise, I wanted some more BTUs and at least one more burner. Still, the O & M is what sent me on my quest for a different than standard range. I so loved my O & M that I couldn't imagine not having an interesting looking stove, again. Mine also had a cover that you could flip down over the entire stove surface. It was so practical for keeping little fingers away, hiding less-than-perfectly clean burners, etc. It really is a great range.

The short answer is: no. A longer answer (expanding on what hvtech said) is: The largest residential induction range offered in North American was the 36" model from Diva de Provence. THat company's induction line died about five years ago. There are, of course, full-blown commercial induction ranges but: (a) the multi burner units are still only six burners and 36" wide -- see http://www.cooktek.com/product/cooking-heavy-duty-back-house/cooktops/six-burner-hob-commercial-induction-range (b) as Hvtech says, those have huge power requirements. Huge as in 400 Amp 3 phase power. (c) That's just the stove top. There is no oven. That having been said, it might be possible to get a 48" range with some induction and some non-induction burners by special ordering a custom job from the likes of LaCanche or La Cornue. They do sell induction ranges in Europe. You could call Art Culiniare to inquire. If you have sufficient power to your house and space in your electrical panel, you could maybe emulate a huge range by putting a couple of 30" induction ranges side by side. Depending on model, each would require 40 or 50 Amp line which, considering your home's other electrical needs would likely require upgrading your service and panel 400 Amp service panel (though you'd only need single phase). That's about double what many houses have, but it could be do-able.