Rococogurl, Thank you for that info. Really appreciated. Evaperconti, love the way the Aga looks. Could definitely do it, but with my inbuilt yankee thriftiness gene I'd probably be eyeballing it all the time expecting some other greater feat than searing. But I do really love the look. Solarpowered, I like the drop in induction because it would be lower profile, but my significant other just doesn't like the concept of induction. Would have to get him to convert. Still trying. I can get the Thermador for around $1,300 for a floor model (there's that gene again) so that may be preferred, but I am definitely listening to all the great thoughts here. And I'm just going to have to defend my poor little old early 1950s Hotpoint refrigerator. Just like Cpovey says I had always heard they were inefficient. Then I read an alternate view that said because they don't have defrost, water, ice, etc. they are actually more efficient. Again, this goes for the pre-defrost machines. The 1960s ones are supposedly higher energy consumption machines. My experienced appliance repairman confirmed this. But this was not good enough for me. Oh no. I did a test of sorts. The house I am renovating was vacant in June and July. In June I used the energy star refrigerator that I had. In July I plugged in the "new" Hotpoint instead. Because the house was vacant and I was not using power tools at the time, heat or AC I had a pretty good control environment. I was also not opening one fridge more than the other. The only factor was the higher heat in July which is what the Hotpoint was up against. The result - my electricity bill dropped by several dollars a month using the Hotpoint. So there you go, lower electricity consumption and I have a butter warmer. Now if you really want an efficient fridge you might find this interesting. http://www.sunfrost.com/refrigerator_features.html Then again, you all probably know about it all ready. Thanks again everyone. This is all very helpful and insightful. If there are any other ideas I would really appreciate it. Getting close to a decision. Surprised no one came out in favor of the Bluestar.

For stir-frying, burner shape is as important or even more important than burner power. I test drove the Miele and Dacor cooktops as well as the BlueStar rangetop we chose. (Not an apples to apples test but at first I was hesitant to give up the space to a rangetop - then when I found out how much better the BlueStar performed for stir frying I changed my mind.) The 15K BTU burners on our Bluestar that are about the same power as the Miele and Dacor burners stir fry much better because they are much more efficient at delivering heat to the bottom of the wok and they do it very evenly. The 22K BTU burner on our BlueStar is even better. When I tested the Dacor and Miele with a chicken stir fry, I put in half the chicken at a time to sear to not overload it and it still wasn't a perfect sear. When I tested the BlueStar, it was a hot day and my DH had packed the ice chest so carefully that the chicken was mostly frozen when I took it out to start cooking. But if I was going to sacrifice my drawer to the rangetop it better be good so I put in all the chicken at once and the BlueStar immediately had it sizzling and seared perfectly. The food really tasted different cooked on the BlueStar. I highly recommend calling around the appliance stores to see if you can find one with the types of burner you are considering hooked up so you can try a stir fry recipe on the burner. I took the same wok and recipe ingredients to each cooktop/rangetop I was considering and learned a lot by doing that. If Bluestar offered a single burner version of their rangetop, that is what I would recommend to you. If you don't have a chance to do that, what you want to look for is a burner that has a shape to deliver heat efficiently and evenly to the bottom of a wok. An example of a bad type of shape is the sealed burner like on the Dacor and Miele cooktops. These have a flat circular top and flame comes out of the side of the circle. The higher you turn the burner up, the more the flame shoots out to the side; no flame goes up in the center of the burner. An example of a type that works really well for a wok is the BlueStar burner shape where the flame comes straight up out of the burner. The burner shape has a circle of flame at the center of the burner and 8 star rays of flame coming out from that circle. The center grate comes off the burner so that the wok sits right down into the flame and heat is delivered to the whole bottom of the wok. This is very similar to the wok arrangements I saw in China. A friend has the DCS wok burner and that does a very good job. We have the Miele oven. I'm very happy with its cooking performance but I find its controller kind of annoying at times. Its heating is very stable and accurate. It cooks bread well. Things I don't like: Maximum timer setting is 59 minutes and 59 seconds. I'd gladly give up the seconds to have a timer that times longer than an hour. If you put in the time and then forget to hit the button that starts the timer, it waits a bit and then cancels the timer. Too many modes - for example they have a proofing mode that only allows two temps (both higher than I would usually want to proof at) and a defrost mode with a wide range of temps (which is what I use for proofing because I can set it to 80 or 90 degrees). One ends up having to learn little tricks like which baking mode lets you set the temp up to 550 degrees (most of the modes stop at 500). If the BlueStar ovens had been available when we were choosing, I'd have been very tempted to choose them. I'm short and the side opening door would be easier for me. The one downside is that they aren't self-cleaning and I'm rather addicted to not having to clean my oven. How is your breaker box occupancy? Ours is full. If you want to add that other oven at a later date, will you have a 220 V breaker spot open? That might be one reason to choose between gas and electric ovens.

Mains voltage in the UK is 230 Vac (50 Hz). 3200W/230 = 13.9A, rms. There is a bit of ambiguity with respect to the actual volt-amperes of what may be a fairly inductive load and whether this 3200W is the available power for transfer to the pan, or the actual mains load. Given the label I would assume that it is the drawn power. This gets us to the design of UK circuit breakers or even fuses. In the US, they have an actuation time vs. load. Also there is a requirement in our electrical code for not overloading circuits by more than 80%. This leads to my suggestion that the breaker or fuse be 20A, assuming that the wiring is at least 12 AWG between the outlet and the breaker box to allow this size breaker or fuse. (I understand that in the UK, fuses may also be found in the appliance plug, so that should be inspected.) There is also the consideration of in-rush power that the breaker has to tolerate, so operating the unit on a breaker close to its nominal draw risks unnecessary breaker resets. If I lived in the UK, and I didn't have a copy of the necessary code [BSA 666 perhaps? :-) ], I would consult with an electrician.

Thanks Toronto Veternarian. Another advantge of a rounded bottom is that you can quick cook everything with super hot oil on the bottom, thus preserving the flavor. And then you can let the oil drain from the food on the sides. A wok with a small flat bottom can achieve the same thing as a rounded bottom wok,, but one with a flat bootom that exceeds 6 1/2" will necessarily have the sides be so steep that food will slide down. By the way, I would love to have someone who have used a 15,000 BTU butane burner and a 1,800 Watt induction burner compare the two for wok cooikng using a 6" diameter flat bottom carbon steel (or cast iron) wok.