Carolml, I have gagg double ovens and the side opening door is one of the greatest features! It will open upto 180 degrees and will stay put wherever you place it, no worries about being too close to the door.

As far as stirring veggies/casseroles and basting meats, access is enchanced by the fact that you can stand in front of the oven and stir/baste etc. and not have to pull the racks out, if you prefer.
I never feel this whoosh of heat coming at me, unlike my old oven. It is truly a dream to use and I swoon every time I look at it!
I have landing to the left of the ovens and behind me at the island. I tend to use the island more often, though.

Good luck with your beautiful gagg! It is a very well engineered and designed piece of equipment.

clarygrace - thanks, I am really looking forward to cooking with this oven. One of my options for oven placement is at the end of a run such that the door actually opens into a corridor. If one doesn't often open it to 180, this shouldn't pose a problem but I don't like the idea of it. (By the way, just my husband and I here most of the time.) The other option is to switch the fridge and ovens, only this time, the oven doors, if open to 180 could bump the fridge handles. The fridge will be panelled and I will be choosing my own handles so might be able to find something low profile, but again, something to worry about. What would you do in this situation?

What size Gagg ovens did you both buy? I think they come in 24" and 30" yes? No 27".

I do find myself fawning over Gaggenau products a bit, finding them adding art in the kitchen.

We have 24 inch Gaggenau ovens (a steam oven and a single oven) right by a corridor. Worse, it's the front entry to the house (or maybe not worse: we don't have kids and so we know exactly when someone is going to use the segment of the hall and it is rare while cooking. The person cooking will be nearest the front door and answer it anyway, closing an oven if open).

However, this design decision (which made it possible to have wall ovens) is one of the best decisions we made -- these ovens are the most used appliances in the kitchen now and their placement within the kitchen itself is ideal which makes them easy and natural to use in our cooking flow.

Here are our ovens next to the corridor with front door in background:

We do have the advantage of a wall, which puts a little distance from the corridor.

Also, although we can open ours nearly 180, even with trim sticking out, we almost never do. You just don't need it that wide open. Even just 90 degrees is doable (110 to 145 is more than ample. With it all the way open to 180, especially if you go wider than 24", you'll have quite a reach to the handle to close it).

Here's 90:

Here's 170:

Since there is no door in the way to block your reach in, we don't usually need to pull out a rack.

We briefly considered ordering the doors mounted the other way to avoid them opening into the hall for safety reasons even though it would cut off easy access to one of two landing areas. But after visiting a display at Purcell Murray showroom and seeing double ovens mounted next to a working corridor in a heavily used group cooking class setting I realized the concern was way overblown. It would not have been safer at all. And now we have a soapstone landing counter right next to the ovens, so it is so easy to pull hot pots out and set them right on the counter.

Regarding flipping the ovens and fridge, you should post a layout if you haven't already. Landing space and traffic patterns are important to the placement of both the fridge and ovens.

Also try and mock up the door swing (or take an appliance handle to a showroom and place it next to a display in the position it will be); you may find that the fridge handle won't reduce the swing of the oven door as much as you might imagine. The trim that sticks out next to our ovens knocks off maybe 5 degrees of swing. And we pretty much never open the oven door all the way. About 110 degrees is typical usage for us.

SparklingWater - We have 30" ovens. The 24 and the 30 steam ovens are the same dimensions inside.
Zartemis - thank you so much for your detailed response and photos. That is exactly my situation except that the hallway comes from the bedroom end of the house. Only heavily used when the kids are home for the odd weekend or holiday. If I do put the ovens on the outside edge, I will only have a landing space across the 48" aisle. I will attempt to imbed a photo so you can see my layout. The cabinet maker is booked for June, so final decisions need to be made!

Sorry for the poor quality of my sketch. In this case, the fridge is next to the hall but since it is used the most, I thought of switching the ovens and fridge positions.
Thanks again.

We have 30" ovens, and they are placed in the center of a run, and to the right are glass front cabinets. We were so confident of the build of these ovens, and door functionality, that having glass door cabinet beside was safe.

Zartemis. OT. Will you post a picture of your ovens with the doors closed? I have never seen the inside of the convection Gagg. How pretty!

I have a Gagg combi and I love the side opening door. I have landing space behind mine on the island--none on the sides--and it is fine.

So, no one thinks I need a pull out shelf beneath the ovens?

No Carolml, not at all; as long as you have landing space where you are comfortable, that's all you'll need. Truly, you will be able to maneuver quite easily.

Carolml, with your layout (and given that there are both fridge drawers and a beverage center in addition to main fridge), the oven and fridge order is best as you have them situated (fridge near the hall way).

A landing area directly next to the ovens is ideal, especially when dealing with hot pots and especially with side opening ovens since you stand much closer to them. The landing area for the fridge is behind you or on the other side of the ovens, but that will be fine. In fact, our fridge is on the other side of our kitchen and while it has countertop both immediately beside it as well as behind it, we almost never load and unload groceries from beside it, we use the counter behind it.

I agree with clarygrace: a pull-shelf would likely not get used, since it would push you away from the oven requiring you to pull out an oven shelf more often (and the standard Gagg shelves are not gliding shelves).

Also, one detail to discuss with your cabinet maker (if you haven't already) is whether you want the countertop next to the oven/fridge to die into the side of the cabinet or not. Some folks like to extend the oven/fridge cabinet forward so the countertop doesn't stick out (our choice) and other folks prefer to keep the cabinet fronts continuous and not give up that inch or so of walkway space. Either is fine, but it's good to decide what you want in advance rather than just let one or the other 'happen'.

Here's what our countertop looks like dying into the cabinet side (we also chose to go with a side splash):

red_lover, here is a photo of the doors closed:

zartemis - you are right, I haven't thought about what the transition to the counter would look like. Thank you for the picture - worth a thousand words, as they say. I have always sensed that the ovens should be where they are in the drawing and I think they will be a great site line from the dining room down between the two islands. Thanks for your thoughtful replies.
Carol

clarygrace - thanks for the photo, your kitchen looks beautiful. I agree that the ovens are very well constructed. Any time I opened a door in the showroom, it stayed right where I put it. So, no pull out shelf, I'll have more drawer space instead.

Thanks Carol, we are still working on the final work on the kitchen....a few more weeks (painting mostly) and will do a reveal on the kitchen forum! Can't wait to see yours!!!

Cheers!

From an earlier post here, in Gardenweb, "Said post" claimed that a new model Gagg oven is coming out with at least one "ball bearing rack". I would call Gagg and see if you can find any further info on same.

I can't imagine trying to baste a turkey, or turn it or whatever without a gliding out rack----you would really have to get "creative" at the very least with your baster.

I do believe Blue Star, and possibly American Range also have side swinging doors, alto the Blue Star will be a gas oven--buttttt----both of these companies have a lot more "Respect for the Yankee Dollar", than does Gagg who increased their prices abut 40% 3 years ago,,,,,,,,,,,,,, even in our lousy economy---to me this is inexcusable and a reason to "Boycott Gagg", but it's your money, and if you want our kids to have to take a 2nd mortgage on their houses just to buy an oven---then keep supporting companies that follow Gagg's marketing "Tecnniques"---It will happen sooner than you think!!!

If one reads the comments on some of the Electrolux Appliances, comments like "Tarted up Fridigidaire" or
Jenn-air "Tarted up Whirlpool" could we not deduce (Using that same logic or "Illogic"), that the Gag is merely a "Tarted up Bosch" and you're paying a lot for the side doors?

In fact when I was on a hunt for Gaggenau oven parts, many of the "Same parts" fit the Bosch and also a 3rd brand that I can't recall , just now, but google Oven heating element, Broiler Element etc etc for Gaggenau and you will see, the parts are one and the same Gaggenau & Bosch

Gary

Gary, I believe it the 3rd brand you're referring to for "same parts fit" is Thermador.

American Range side swing oven doors look very nice indeed. What threw me a bit was that unlike their ranges, which are very reasonable in price, their side swing door ovens cost a pretty penny.

Faber also makes a side swing oven.

My "suspicion", Sparkling Water is that American Range took a look at Gagg oven prices, and "Deduced the following":

If Gaggenau can get that, so can we.

To give you an example (closer to home--or at least my home).

I paid $4588 for a 48" built in Jenn-air fridge, back in 2006. One poster (antss) said the list price for it was about $6000.00 back in 2006, but it was not "Price fixed" yet, and Whirlpool had not bought Jenn-air back then.

Whirlpool buys Jenn-air, takes a look at SZ prices for built in fridges, and now that "Almost Identical Fridge" is now over 8 grand---I just don't think that's fair to you folks----hence my disgust for such marketing techniques and my "more than willing" desire to post about same.

I try to think of the other guy, I'm just not the type that thinks, "I got mine at a fair price"---the rest of you succers suffer----Nope Not my style!!!!

Anyway, for those of you that already spent the money , I hope it all works out well for you, and I hope the "Rumour" that Gagg is coming out with better racks turns out to be factual---as I know I could not live without my slide out racks---even with side doors.

Gary

Hey Gary, you are right! I got an email from the salesperson saying they are coming out with gliding racks! I am with you, this would have been a deal breaker for me. I tried them in the store with nothing on them and the noise was horrible. I would not have been able to justify that kind of money to have that noise ever time I used them. My first thought was the same as yours, what would happen if I had a 20 pound turkey on there and had to pull it out. Would it even be possible with the weight on there?

By the way I looked at the icon while I was at the showroom. It looked very nice and the gliding racks were very nice (definitely something gaggenau, Miele and wolf should copy!), but the salespeople said they have had so many problems with them lately that they aren't recommending them, although I liked the price a lot better than anything else I was looking at!

Hi,
I am thinking about putting Gaggenau side door oven in the corner, on the countertop level, facing the countertop that goes along a wide window. This way the oven's door will open towards the window (I will take care that it can be open enough), the rack slides out almost on the counter and I will not have to lift things in and out much. Yes, I won't have a front access to the oven, but if I have full pull-out rack, I will be able to use the whole side at countertop level.

Could you please tell me if my logic holds or there are many flaws and it won't work well? I appreciate any advice!
Thanks,
MTC

Hi,
I am thinking about putting Gaggenau side door oven in the corner, on the countertop level, facing the countertop that goes along a wide window. This way the oven's door will open towards the window (I will take care that it can be open enough), the rack slides out almost on the counter and I will not have to lift things in and out much. Yes, I won't have a front access to the oven, but if I have full pull-out rack, I will be able to use the whole side at countertop level.

Could you please tell me if my logic holds or there are many flaws and it won't work well? I appreciate any advice!
Thanks,
MTC

Sorry for double posting, I perhaps clicked twice on the link, and now do not know how to delete the copy. If anyone who moderates this forum can tell me how to delete the second copy of the post (this one) or do it for me, I will appreciate the help! Sorry again! MTC

This post was edited by MarvinTheCat on Fri, Jan 11, 13 at 12:28