I just thought I'd post a follow up. I had an email about this (but couldn't reply to it) so I thought I'd update everyone in case someone else finds this and wonders. On the front burner low simmer problems it turned out that I had a problem with 2 burners and another owner on this web site had a problem with only 1. So I knew before I called that it wasn't a consistent design flaw but probably was something that could be fixed. The repairman came and he noticed (that I hadn't) that you could hear the problem too - that on the front burners on simmer it wasn't kicking in and out like on the back (there is a faint hum when it kicks on -- the front was steady hum it wasn't cycling in and out the heat to get the nice low temp). Clearly something broken. They replaced (warranty) both the main control board and temperature sensors for those burners. It works great now - nice low simmer (very low need to turn up to med low to cook rice -- the simmer is even lower a nice barely keep warm). So that was a defect and was solved. However, the repairman did say my fan noise was normal. I might call Viking about it and see what they say. The cooling fans are quite loud (to me) and continue for a while after turning it off. I finally feel relaxed after cleaning up dinner when the sound stops... I'd say 15 minutes to cook french fries and the cooling off fan runs for 30 after I turn it off. My little Miele speed oven is much quieter when the fan runs. I don't know how this oven sound wise would compare to other current full sized ovens. The oven works great -- but it is noisy.

There is an option to get a cooktop, a compact 18" tall oven (or combi oven) and a short warming drawer. Many brands have designed a combi oven stacked up on top of a warming drawer to sit side by side a 24" oven. For white models, some extra money, and a European brand, Miele has a combo white combi oven and white warming drawer in 24" wide. There is even a white induction cook top but not available in the US. Nowadays, a bridge induction unit has two (or four, in case of BSH) rectangular induction plates. Heating is quite even. It is even recommended to put larger pot in the middle of the bridging to get a better heating coverage e.g. 12" pans or pots as each rectangular plate is roughly 7"x8".

Induction would be your fastest boil most likely but there are other pros and cons to it. The term “open burners” has been used in an ambiguous way by manufacturers. It has to do with the burner tray. Before the mid 1980s all burners were open. A sealed tray was developed to keep food from getting down in the works of the stove. All three manufacturers you listed make a version of “open burners“. Some manufacturers say the open burner gets more oxygen, generating more heat. Nope. The oxygen is mixed in the Venturi tube. Open vs sealed is a cleaning preference. Viking d-5 open burner, gap between tray and burner cap This is their oldLet burner but you can see the gap better than the drawing. BlueStar open burner Open around the star American Performer is really a semi open burner in that the tray is all one piece and lifts off. It does still have a pull out tray below. BTUs are the amount of heat given off by the burner, but it also matters how much of the heat gets to your food. This is dependent on the burner configuration, the materials the cookware is made of, the size and shape of the pan and even what you are heating. The d-5 “open burner“ and the BlueStar sealed burner would probably be very close in function. They both have burner caps. This one thing can affect performance more than anything. This can cause the burner to flare on highest heat. The amount of flare varies a lot manufacturer to manufacturer. It all depends on how it is engineered. The AP star burner and BS star burner are uncapped so the flame goes more in a straight up direction. You really have to see the flame in action to see how much flare the BS sealed burner has vs the BS Star And see how it works with your pans. If you have wide pans, you will capture more than with 6” sauce pans, but the number of people using sauce pans on highest heat is probably small. You didn‘t mention anything other than boiling water but the importance of the star vs ring burner also depends on what type of cookware you have and what type of cooking you do.

Jas3150- it’s a 60” hood. We got the range and hood together, it was a floor model deal and it was the last bit of Viking this store was carrying so we got everything deeply discounted (and we talked them down more...) All that to say, we didn’t get a choice on the hood size, like if we wanted to go bigger. This sucker cranks! I’m sure a little bigger than the range would’ve been nice, but I’ve really not had much of any problem with grease going off to the side, and I do a lot of high heat Asian-style cooking where I turn the thing all the way up. It’s loud, but I don’t care, it does the job, and it does it well and that’s all I want from it. So no, I don’t have any regrets on the hood size. It has a baffle system to collect the grease, and that’s the only kind of system I was interested in considering the kind of cooking I do so frequently. Nevertheless, I would not have turned down a hood that was larger than my range if it had been an option with what we were buying. We have just sold this house (we close in just over a week) and we will be building a home on a plot of land we already own. We have just become empty nesters (all 5 of our young adult children moved out this year! They were all close in age) and we are downsizing big time. I’m planning out my next kitchen already, and I will be going with a smaller cooktop (BlueStar this time because I want the wok cooking features it has that I can’t get with other brands) so I’m only going with a 36” cooktop, I do plan to go with a larger hood this time because with the BlueStar I will have more BTU’s than I’ve ever had before, and because it’s only a 36” and I think it will just look better to have a larger hood than that. Ventilation is pretty important to me, LOL!