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Post by mach12 on Jun 20, 2015 13:21:00 GMT -5
Consumer Reports has a news article that I thought was pretty interesting. I was reading an article on a news site and there was a link, so thought it might be worth checking out. The part that grabbed my attention was the second paragraph where it says "Not the best ranges in our tests. We’ve seen better, for less. Even the $430 Kenmore 94142 electric coil top range outperformed all of the pro-styles we tested". If anyone doubts whether going with a Chambers is a good plan they need to read this article!
The link to the article is: Pro-Style Range Article
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Post by nana on Jun 21, 2015 7:39:25 GMT -5
So that's what they call bold and stunning looks? Go see any Chambers in good condition and you'll want to go throw rocks at those "pro style" stoves.
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Post by pooka on Jun 21, 2015 13:23:33 GMT -5
The thing is that professional stoves were never meant to be stylish. They were designed to be utilitarian tools for working commercial kitchens. The modern pro style ones were marketed to mimic that look to appeal to people with too much money to spend, but they didn't want to spend the money for real commercial stoves. I think the trend was started by Julia Child & her second hand six burner Garland that she used on her first cooking show. Those pro style ranges were really sold to show off rather than be good stoves. In my opinion they did neither. They're just overpriced junk. Viking was the first to produce pro style ranges for the home & the early ones may have been better than the typical residential ranges at the time, but I don't think they ever measured up to a Chambers. Strangely enough, Fred Carl who developed the Viking did so because he & his wife were building a new home. He asked his wife what kind of stove she wanted. She reply, something similar to the shiny white and chrome porcelain Chambers range she had learned to cook on when she was a child. The old ones weren't made anymore so he set out to design a new one. He was in discussions with Chambers about making his product line for him. At the same time KitchenAid was try to buy them, but Chambers abruptly decided against making his product because the the company was acquired by KitchenAid. That's why he started his own company to build the Viking. The rest is history. The details can be found at this "Cooking Up a Dream" & "In Memory of Liston Durden" page on Viking's website. Cooking Up a DreamIn Memory of Liston Durden
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Post by chipperhiker on Jun 21, 2015 20:04:37 GMT -5
Pretty sad that a cheap electric coil can beat one of those over-priced "dream kitchen" monsters. No insult at all to electric coil stoves; they're basic and do exactly what they're supposed to do - WORK!
Many of the "pro-style" high-end stoves that the article refers to are pretty much just kitchen decor, they get so little use.
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Post by pooka on Jun 22, 2015 8:57:48 GMT -5
chipperhiker, I agree with you. I could live with the sleek modern styling of the pro style ranges if they performed like a real professional one, but they don't. Personally I'm more a fan of old fashion looks, so for me they fail in all aspects. I did a Google search for "pro-style kitchen range", & the pics that i got in the results all look pretty much the same. Except for a few colored ones, they all look pretty much the same. They're flavorless stainless steel boxes. To me, that's not styling. It's the total lack of style.
If you want a pro style range for your home kitchen, get a real one like Julia Child did. Of course you have to deal with the down side, because they aren't insulated as well as ranges designed for the home. You have to allow for more clearances to deal with the more intense heat they put off, & they don't typically have built in broilers like home ranges do. In professional kitchens, broilers are frequently separate units. I know Julia Child big six burner Garland has a griddle next to the burners, but doesn't have a broiler. Garland does make a model that has a broiler bellow the griddle, but how many home kitchens have space for a monster stove like that. With a vintage Chambers, you get the best of both worlds, professional performance & high styling that never fails to impress. In one blog I've read, the owner said people thought her model C was a modern stove made to look like a vintage one.
If you look at the "Retro Stove" model that Big Chill sells, the back-splash is a direct copy of the Chambers 61-C & sells for prices starting at $5,495.00, For that kind of money, you could get a restored Chambers. It will last you the rest of your life & outperform that retro one, & that retro model is just as unreliable as any other modern stove.
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Post by sporko on Jun 22, 2015 11:32:21 GMT -5
Pretty sad that a cheap electric coil can beat one of those over-priced "dream kitchen" monsters. No insult at all to electric coil stoves; they're basic and do exactly what they're supposed to do - WORK! Many of the "pro-style" high-end stoves that the article refers to are pretty much just kitchen decor, they get so little use. Very true. Kari & I have joked before that there seems to be an inverse relationship between amount of money spent on a kitchen vs amount of cooking done in said kitchen.
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Post by chipperhiker on Jun 22, 2015 22:52:46 GMT -5
The first rule of kitchen dynamics???
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Post by wannaredun on Aug 21, 2016 16:41:19 GMT -5
Some of the pro styles have higher-BTU burners, but without the drawbacks of a real commercial stove. My mom (who was cooking for at least nine people most nights) replaced her Chambers with a six-burner, two-oven Viking with a big griddle, and they're really just not designed for cooking single meals at all. Functionally, there are real drawbacks to using a commercial stove at home - besides the clearances, which just catch crap, they're not designed for safety at all. And the griddle on my mom's Viking took half an hour to heat up! She thought it would be a step up from a Chambers and ended up getting rid of it and replacing with another vintage stove.
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Post by pooka on Aug 22, 2016 2:31:38 GMT -5
The kitchen range is one of those vital consumer products that has been over improved to death since the 40s or 50s. They've added new innovation that are of limited use & many are unreliable & pron to fail far too quickly. This usually requires replacement parts that evaporate after a few year. So the next time a senor, motherboard or switch goes bad, you have to throw the stove away because you can't get the parts to fix it.
The old stoves were overbuilt with basic mechanical parts that mostly require cleaning & can be serviced rather than having to replace parts. Back then, they were making the best product they knew how to. Today, they make them as cheaply as they can get away with. It's a numbers game. It's all about the bottom line, not about top quality no matter what any of them will say in an ad. It's a race for the bottom.
I've argued that the Chambers stove was just about perfected in the mid 30s. It was then tweaked a bit more through the models A, B, BZ & C bringing it to such a refinement, I daresay, kitchen range perfection. The D was kind of a let down in styling, but is still virtually unchanged under the skin. I don't know if Rangaire or KitchenAid is responsible for that.
Unfortunately kitchen stove sales are more about hype than high quality these days. To many stoves today are more like fashion accessories than cooking utensils. And it's that old drone, new is better than old right? Most will just be stuck with the new junk. Only the lucky & clever discover the joys of a Chambers. As we've discovered, most people think our stove are fascinating & cool, but wouldn't dare have one in their kitchen.
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