The Chambers have pilot lights - you don't have to use a match everytime you cook. You can and should get a shut off valve for the oven. Kits are available online or a qualified repairman can do it. I have seen very old coal/wood burning cook stoves that had modern day gas guts put inside them, but I wouldn't think it would be an inexpensive venture. The other question is do you have the time to cope with modern electronic igniter or other modern range reliability issues. Reading the forum reveals how challenging it is to just go out and get a stove that reliably does what it is advertised to do. That said, it is definitely a personal decision. Buying a modern or vintage range has its pluses or minuses. You can easily find old electric ranges on craigslist. White ones, blue ones, teal ones, pink, etc. The 40's kind of looked deco, the 50's had the cadillac look and then the 60's had the squared modern edges. Some have deepwells, two ovens or warming ovens. Just search on "craigslist vintage electric stove" and a whole world of possibilities comes up. Would suggest sticking with brands that have good parts availability. If going with gas, would still recommend sticking with a Chambers for the cooking abiity, features, easy parts availability, looks and resale. There are other attractive brands though like Western Holly, O'Keefe and Merritt, etc. Don't know how they cook. And if you pick a vintage fridge from the 50's with a full freezer and no defrost the reliability is terrific and your produce stays fresher longer because of the humidity. In my experience the energy cost has also been lower than a modern energy star fridge. But then you have a slightly smaller freezer and have to defrost once or twice a year. Again, it's all a tradeoff and a personal decision. There are no rights and wrongs.

Folks. This JennAir (and all others) thread totally fascinates me. We have spent over 20k on JennAir appliances in two houses, mainly because we felt that we were getting the best deal for our money (we have the range reviewed at reviewed.com and have loved it, even though it is too powerful for our needs and is being vented by a JennAir microwave situated some 14-16 inches over it (stupid, but the limitations of our second/vacation home). I looked at every appliance under the sun and then some and reviewed hundreds of posts on THS and other resources. I also talked to my installer who is a certified JA, SZ, Thermador, Wolf, pretty much all high end brand installer. He tells it bluntly...ALL, yes ALL manufacturers produce lemons that require one time expensive repairs or multiple expensive repairs. He attributes it to "sick day" or "snow day" syndrome...couple of workers call in sick or fail to show up bc of inclement weather and a whole assembly line of products roll off the assembly line and get packaged after poor assembly by "scrub" workers. He has seen no more failures among JA, SZ, Thermador, etc than among any other manufactures. Now, how a manufacturer deals with a problem is another story. I have yet to call on JA for service and hopefully won't have to. My dealings with GE (and those of my parent's, as well) have been atrocious. 3 delivered dented replacement refrigerator doors (all left for me to dispose of...all had tiny dents, but GE didn't feel it was necessary to recycle any of the stainless steel they left behind for me to deal with). Also had our brand new GE fridge break within days of the 1 year warranty expiring and we had repair men fail to show up and then have to wait several weeks for replacement parts. GE tried to charge us several hundred dollars in repair fees (which we successfully fought), all on a $8-900 fridge!!! My parents have had equally exasperating experiences with GE. We had the compressor die (and I believe get replaced for free...after we sold our home) on a top of the line SZ fridge and we had a Viking 8 burner range that never really worked fantastically and that was a major, major pain to keep clean. We have two local major appliance dealers within 10 miles of us. I am incredulous that when querying both of them independently, they tell me that JA products are flying out of the stores (including complete high end packages like ours), mostly due to aggressive pricing and promotional discounts (installation subsidies and free appliances as part of a package purchase). Yet, I have never, ever, ever met a single person who owns a JA product, let alone is considering JA for their remodel. Several have not even really heard of JA!!! I was initially concerned with the reviews I read online about JA reliability and customer service, but so far, it has not been an issue. We purchased and installed the new Obsidian fridge from JA and the door had a tiny scrape in the corner where the stainless was not "buffed". JA did the right thing and replaced the door with no questions asked. They also called to make sure we received it and had it installed. See my separate post about this fridge. Luv, luv, luv it. And, it's super quiet. And a good $1500-2000 cheaper than similar models from the competition. With respect to the 9600 model of DW built by bosch, I believe it cost us $200 more than receiving the free DW that comes with a range (or cooktop and oven purchase) and it is indeed built by Bosch (for what that is worth). It had no panel, which we desired as we were going with a built in look. Honestly, no complaints here, either with this model which is nearly silent, nor with the free DW that we received with a range purchase in our other home. My wife (who really only opined about the DW and aesthetics of some other appliances) thinks the world of both DWs and is glad we did not go ahead with the FP dish drawers again. Overall, we are very satisfied customers of JA (thus far) and hope to remain as such. We're getting pestered with offers for extended warranties and I am seriously considering these given past experiences with other manufacturers and concerns about reliability. I remain puzzled by the fact that JA is not more in the vernacular when it comes to appliances, even when I hear from salespeople that people are indeed purchasing JA packages. Maybe JA's past reputation is the reason...maybe Thermador, SZ, Wolf, etc just have too much cache. But look at my review on the Obsidian fridge...I thought that internally, the SZ looked like any cheap fridge; people just marvel over the inside of the JA fridge and the layout meets our needs nearly perfectly. I'll try to upload photos when I get a chance.

Try cross posting to the appliance forum...

I agree with a lot of what DrB said, but not about the ovens. A "convection microwave" and a "speed oven" are two separate things, though some makers of speed ovens do it kind of badly so it's little better than a convection microwave. Regular ovens nowadays are very problematic things. That's cooking/baking/roasting/broiling cavities--not ranges including burners (but including the ovens in the ranges). Too much of the engineering goes into energy saving, cost saving, and inventory control, and too little goes into performance. The oven is the kitchen appliance with the strongest correlation between amount spent and quality of performance. It's also the one that's most likely to have problems with performance. There are some notable high end fails, but even for the previous Wolf that had troubles with chipping of the interior, causing shards to be blown into the food--which was a critical fail--the performance of the cooking works of the oven, when not chipped, was exemplary. The chipping issue seems to be fixed with the new model, and it's the last thing I'd consider downgrading. Microwaves, OTOH, are another story. Built-in 240V MWs have a performance edge on the countertop 110V units, but if, like most of us, the MW is mostly used for heating a bowl of cereal, a sandwich or a cup of coffee, melting butter, making popcorn, or defrosting soup, a $100 countertop unit will suffice for most people. All microwaves are made by about three makers, most notably Sharp and Panasonic. The special features (sensors, programed buttons, etc.) and looks may differ according the requirements of the company whose badge is on it, but the works are all the same. Microwaves never seem to get complaints. They work as expected and are generally all of the same high quality.