I thought about getting a wall oven in addition to my two Cluny ovens and warming cupboard. When we were building out house, I was worried that I wouldn't have enough space with just the Cluny ovens; which are smaller than the Sully ovens. I ended up not doing the wall oven, because I wasn't sure which one I wanted and I became overwhelmed with out decisions related to building a house. Over five years later, the space I left for the wall oven, still holds my microwave and I have no intention of buying another oven in my kitchen. I easily feed my entire family of six and host large parties with the Cluny 1400. I can't speak for everyone, but like me, I believe many people are use to large American sized ovens and worry about downsizing to something smaller. What I've learned is that my old American sized oven was never very practical, I could only cook things at the same temperature and most of the time I was heating up the entire oven space for something like a casserole dish. And for larger events, the oven was mostly taken up with something like a turkey making it almost impossible to cooks sides on the same day.

Wow, we only went a couple of weeks in our new house before our appliances were delivered. I can't imagine months or years! We used a lot of paper plates, cooked on the grill (1 burner) and MW, I also bought a 2-burner (solid burners - nice) buffet thing at Walmart but ended up returning it since we didn't have the counterspace. The problem was having place to put it since we didn't have a countertop on our island, so we were cooking on 3ft of counter b/t the sink (at least we had that) and the hole for the range. The other 27" on other side of hole wasn't much use with no landing place anywhere near it. We ate on a folding "butterfly" table sitting on folding chairs for 3 months. The hardest part was going w/o a fridge - both when we moved, and in 2006 when fridge died in our old house the first day of school. We had to rely on a couple of coolers, lots of ice, and neighbors with space in fridge we could run over every other day to get our groceries from to put in cooler. If it had been longer than a week or two each time to get delivery, I would have bought undercounter fridge.

The difficult to clean bit was promoted by Wolf — according to our local Wolf sales folks. Background: The least expensive manufacturing situation is to make the exact same thing over and over and over. E.G., all sealed or all open for instance. It's more expensive to try to build both as it requires additional design work, more parts to be stocked, increased manufacturing time and machines, double the QA effort, increased effort writing user and technician manuals, more training for CS folks, more marketing effort, etc. Over time Wolf chose to focus on pro-look aesthetics over functionality. They chose to go after the consumers for whom looks was more important than functionality. From a sales revenue standpoint this was a very good choice as the 'Wolf Look' was/is very popular and the number of people who wanted the look is greater than those who want actual functionality to cook on. Offering sealed burners rather than open provided valuable marketing blurbs - 'easier to clean' and 'as easy to clean'. This was pumped out to sales folks all over. What they didn't want is DCS or Thermador telling the people that their ranges were easier to clean than Wolf. In reality, for people who want a spic-and-span-always-looks-brand-new-never-been-used kitchen then sealed burners are better. They are a bit easier to keep new looking. But only a bit, not the huge FUD (Fear, Uncertainty and Doubt) difference that's been promoted. It's similar to FUD spread by Ford about electric cars and how awful they are or the FUD spread by Monster Cable about how much better stuff sounded over their cables. FUD is an extremely powerful marketing tool. Wolf still makes good stuff but as has been discussed, their sealed burners are not a cooks best friend. They waste a lot of heat/gas, they are hotter for the cook to cook on vs an open burner due to much of the heat going around the pan rather than under, often do not heat as evenly, etc. What's interesting is that Blue Star are supposedly going after more serious cooks but then have an inferior (vs Wolf) thermostatic griddle (flat top) on the RNB, only offer their higher BTU burners paired with an even more inferior burner-top griddle, have rack ladders that are too narrow for many pro pans, etc. They got the burner shape right but then miss on so much else and for no good reason. Interestingly, they also missed on their hood offering by putting out the exact same thing with the same problems as is available from every other consumer pro-look option rather than offering a hood with actual better functionality. Their product marketing decisions seem amazingly bad. There's a gob of people who want a really good range, a really good range hood and are willing to pay but BS doesn't want to take advantage but instead wants to try to partially compete with Wolf.

so... I *just* bought a used Lacanche which was being sold because it was all manual ignition (including the oven). It's 20 years old. I haven't had it installed yet (everyone I've called is two weeks out, but one is trying to squeeze me in). I will say however that I have taken the range somewhat apart (undid the top stainless plate and removed some of the covers over the gas and electric element) and I simply CANNOT BELIEVE the condition it's in. It looks like it's 2 years old, not twenty. (I have seriously said "I can't believe this thing is 20 years old about 20 times today, lol) The lines have zero corrosion, the enamel has NO scratches (there is one dull patch where someone touched something corrosive to the surface, and now two more on the side where i mistakenly attempted to use the wrong cleaning agent, barkeepers friend, on the enamel :( but they're thankfully on an invisible side), the gas lines are perfect, the seals look great. The stainless top has some use scratches but it cleans up so nicely. There was who knows how many years of grease splatter on the side of the enamel (between the range and counters) and i cleaned it with a soft sponge and soap and water and THATS IT. I put the stainless vents and oven racks in the dishwasher and they are almost new looking. Not all stainless cleans up the same way I have found. I could check my makeup in the warming cupboard mirrored surface if i wanted to. The quality of the materials used is superb. I am beyond amazed. I fully expect this will last us another 20 years. The continuous stainless top plate was super easy to clean, and when I lifted it up, I was able to get to the rest of it fairly easily. There is some dusty greasy accumulation in crevices and corners, but most of it wipes out fairly easily. The person who bought the range originally was very much a home chef, so it was undoubtedly well used until the second owners got it a few years ago. I can't wait to have it installed and use it, but I can say for sure that they clean up well.