If you’re considering buying a new stove for your kitchen, there are a number of things you’ll need to consider. A quality oven is a vital part of any home and you definitely need to put on your thinking cap before you rush out to make a purchase. After all, a new kitchen is not a cheap item, so you want to make sure you buy the right one.
Part of the problem is that there are so many different brands to choose from. Allowing customers to review and vote on a variety of different appliances, the Ranker website lists no less than 72 brands in kitchens! These include all the familiar names like Miele, Beko, De’Longhi, Bosch, Ariston, Hotpoint, Zanussi, Breville and more, and also some names you may never have heard of like Advance Tabco and Traulsen. Then there are names you know, but perhaps you didn’t know that make kitchens: Black & Decker, for example.
Electric, gas or dual fuel?
You may want an electric stove or a gas stove. You can also buy dual-fuel stoves with a gas hob and an electric oven. You can buy cookers with self-cleaning ovens which is a huge advantage: with some of these you heat the oven up to 480°C which has the effect of turning all the grease into ash and then all you have to do is wipe it with a damp cloth . What a time saver! You can also buy pots that have a higher than average wattage, so they can cook faster.
You can get built-in ovens, ovens that go under the counter, and even smaller ovens that go on top of the counter. Then there are the kitchens that are obviously bigger since they usually incorporate at least two ovens and up to seven different cooking plates. These are ideal for the large family, or someone who entertains a lot, but of course needs a kitchen large enough to accommodate them. They can often be 100 cm wide.
Then there are the different types of plates. There are five types of cooktops: glass ceramic, electric solid cooktop, induction, gas, and gas cooktops on glass.
Ceramic hobs are electric and heat up quickly. However, the heat distribution around the bottom of the pan is not as good as gas.
Solid plate electric cooktops take a while to heat up and cool down, so you can’t change heat as fast as you can with gas. However, they tend to be lower in price than other types of boards.
Induction cooktops work by creating a magnetic field between the cooktop element and the pan. This causes the pan to heat up but not the surface of the hob. These are cheap to run because they only use the precise amount of electricity required and they heat up very quickly. However, you may need to change your pans if they are not suitable for an induction cooktop.
Gas hobs are the easiest to control because you can instantly raise or lower the flame. That is why they are so popular among professional cooks.
Gas-on-glass cooktops have gas burners that are mounted on top of the glass-ceramic cooktop. They are easy to clean and look quite stylish.
Then there is the matter of cost. If you’re like most people, you’ll have a budget that can leave out some of the more expensive kitchens. Beko has a black ceramic oven hob for just £159, while Neff offers an induction hob with five cooking zones, individual timers, a power boost, a keep warm zone and a child lock. However, at £829 it may be beyond your budget.
Hotpoint kitchens are available in a wide variety of styles and colours, and many of them are equipped with self-cleaning ovens, which is always a big plus. They also make very large kitchens with two ovens, warming ovens and several cooktops. These large stoves run on gas and therefore have the ability to alter the heat at the touch of a knob.
