Some thoughts on dual fuel. Consumer Reports says you pay more for DF than they are worth., but many don't agree with CR. Most posts here say that a good gas oven will cook as well as a good electric, but I think there is a consensus that because of the way the vent the gas, a gas oven will put a little more heat in a kitchen than an electric. I have cooked fairly regularly on my Viking DF without power - the manual says to watch the flame, I haven't noticed any difference, though of course the auto reignition won't work in an outage. .If you don't really enjoy cooking on a stove top, you may end up paying a lot of money for a Capital or an American Range, when you could have done fine with an Electrolux. There are some people that really love the idea of multiple burners that can go from a roaring flame to a low simmer, rather than having to use a stovetop with different sized burners, for others, that is no real problem. If all you need is a stovetop that will work in a power outage, I would go with the Electrolux , One final tip - when making something simple in a power outage like mac and cheese, it really helps to have a third hand, one hand to hold the pot, one to stir the ingredients, and the third to hold a flashlight shining into the pot - it turns out a lantern sitting on a counter nearby sheds no light into the pot.

The question about lighting the American ranges with a match has been asked several times, usually buried in another topic. For example, I remember asking this in a thread comparing the AR Performer and NXR but the thread petered out before the on AR owner got around to answering the question.

Basically, the question is whether the User Guide's "no manual lighting" is a "we don't want you to try this at home" kind of thing (i.e., cya weaselwording that our lawyers told us to say) or a physical impossibility. There are numbers of gas and dual fuel ranges where manual lighting is now an impossibility --- notably Maytag and Whirlpool double oven units and some Electroblux dual fuels. Everything is run through the circuit boards and gas simply will not flow through the stove when the power is out.

If no AR owner responds here, I suggest you search to find threads where American Ranges are discussed, find out who owns one, and try e-mailing those whose member pages provides e-mail addresses.

I have an American all gas. Love it. One of the igniters is iffy though and I light it manually almost every day for over a year now. No problem.

Thanks all for weighing in. The appliance salesman called American who said no lighting manually. Salesman said it was probably a CYA addition to the manual. He said all gas stoves can be lit manually except for a Gagganau (sp) this is for the top burners. You cannot lite a gas oven at least with new models.
I'm not opposed to all gas- Do you really save that much vs a DF? I just like the electronic programming ability of the DF ovens. Can you program all gas ovens to start cooking at a certain time when you're not home? I guess I'm uneducated on the all gas ovens.
The store didn't have the Electrolux ICON on the floor. Only a 30" regular Electrolux gas range. It seemed every bit as sturdy and had the roller racks -3- in the oven. Just wasn't a PRO model.
I was disappointed the American did not have the racks.

petestein1 Does your range manual say you can lite the burners? Can you program the oven for delay start?

Does anyone have the ICON range and wish they didn't?

Nope, no ability to program anything. That's one if the things I like about the range -- no electronics to break (I had an older range with a touchpad and the 3 button stopped working. The entire computer/touchpad had to be replaced and the part wasn't even made anymore. It went for $800 on eBay).

Don't know if the manual days I can light it manually but it's a no-brained. I turn the knob, you hear gas hissing out. The igniter doesn't spark. So I light it with a lighter wand. Really, you have the lighter wand lot first then you turn the gas knob... That way you avoid a cloud of gas ignighting.

Petestein1
I do understand about no electronics to break. I am familiar with lighting with a match. Our old gas grill had the "electronic" igniter go bad after a month so for 7 years we lit with a match.
My sister bakes fabulous pies, baked goods, desserts with her old gas oven. I just like throwing a casserole in the oven in the am and coming in for lunch with it browned and bubbly. However I am getting the advantium speed oven that could step up for that.
What model American do you have? How long have you had it?