We went through the same conundrum a couple months back. We had a 36 inch, 6 burner Blue Star range. Taking a 20+ pound bird out the the oven was not easy--and it will get worse as we age. We just sold our apartment and bought a new one with a bigger kitchen, that we are renovating. We went with the similar, somewhat updated BS range and with Miele 24" speed cook and 30" wall ovens. We didn't want to give up the terrific infrared broiler in the gas range, but wanted an oven that didn't require us to stoop down.

The Kitchen Forum is completely toast. They lost about 99% of thier threads. I had a similar trade study but in our case we were updating our kitchen, not doing a full remodel, nor designing a new house. At first I wanted to remove the wall oven and built in micro to make room for a small kitchen organization area. This would have meant removing a base cabinet to install a slide-in range. I even ordered (then later cancelled) the E'Lux induction slide in. The problem with this approach was the microware. The only place to put this was OTR and I wasn't crazy about giving up the vent hood. This also meant a lot of tear out. THEN... I found out about speed ovens and decided I needed one! So the only place to reasonable put a speed oven is in the wall (vice in an upper cabinet, my wife is vertically challenged). So we're back to cooktop, vent hood, and wall mounted ovens. The ovens will likely be the E'Lux Icon Designer wall oven and nearly matching speed oven. In our case the benefits were less cabinet rework, an oven a little higher off the ground thana range, room for a speedoven, keeping (updating) the vent hood and the added vertical space over the cooktop, better venting, hopfully nicer backsplash. If there is just the 2 of you, you might want to look into speedovens. Miele, E'lux, GE make em. Thermador as a 30" wall over that adds microwave. Must be the largest speedoven out there.

I am WAY behind on this conversation but it's relevant to me now so I'm hoping maybe some of you can comment on how this has worked out for you. We purchased the Electrolux ICON microwave a couple years ago for our kitchen remodel. We had planned for it to go under counter. Installation day came and the installer saw the 36" above ground spec and even though could not come up with any reason as to why did not feel comfortable installing. So, we ended up getting a Sharp microwave drawer instead which was fine but I had really wanted the "2nd oven" since we were taking out wall ovens and replacing with a single stand alone range. Anyway, we were unable to return the ICON which was a pretty painful mistake at $1600+ !! I've tried to sell it on OfferUp, NextDoor but no luck. Now we are in a different house and undertaking another complete kitchen remodel. We made plans to install another microwave drawer in the island but we've discussed the situation of the Electrolux to see if there's any way we can use it instead. It's still in the box on the pallet it arrived on. Our kitchen designer and installers could not figure it out either and the designer even called Electrolux and the person he spoke to couldn't figure it out and said they didn't see any problem with it but that it wouldn't be covered under warranty if we installed it there. I'm not thinking this is a big deal because we're already out of the warranty period anyway. I just called Electrolux myself to see if I got the same answer. She didn't say anything about the warranty but said that it was an ergonomic or burn issue. Personally, I don't see how bending down to get something out of the microwave at this height is any different to getting something out of a regular oven (which is actually even lower and deeper!). Any new comments?

Just don't do it with Jenn-Air appliances. I was going to do the exact same thing (36 inch gas cooktop and 30 inch electric oven) until I plugged in the oven and it was very loud. The oven vented out the front and a very loud blower made it sound like a microwave vent was on (nearly the whole time the oven was on bake). The look you wish to accomplish is very clean and custom. I too, had ordered pannels for the sides and it would have made for a very clean, sleak look. It was just not to be for me. I purchased a 40 inch range instead and am pleased with the purchase. I am a DIY and the cooktop/oven option would have taken considerably more time. Do the 30 inch oven and 36 cooktop, it will look great!