I have called and emailed the company, but other than some vague assurances, I have heard nothing and nobody has gotten back to me at all after I explained the problem and sent images of the rust, after weeks. Anybody else have any issues? The burners are decent, but the stove is ridiculously bad. This is the second problem I have had with this stove-the first one was poor heat control, and I have only had it since November.

I have a 48" self-clean CC installed since October. Other than the small oven being DOA, I've had no issues. I called Capital and after a few minutes on the phone was advised that they would assign a service company who would arrange to do the repair. From the time I placed the call to repair was a span of two weeks. One week for the part to be shipped from the west coast to the east coast and then another week due to my schedule.

I haven't had any problems since.

I had an easier time with Capital fixing the problem with my temp in the oven, but no luck with this much worse problem. The entire edge of the glass in the oven window has about an inch of weird rust in it. The stove itself will burn an item in the back of the stove, while the front of the same thing(bread, pizza, chicken) is barely cooked. That is even with the convection on.

In case you haven't figured it out already, any newcomer whose first post is to complain about a popular product comes under immediate suspicion, so your best route to get a serious answer and not be accused of being a troll is to post some evidence. That's just the way it is around here. If you came to complain about Viking you'd be welcomed with open arms. Anyway, get over that initial hurdle and there are lots of helpful folks here!

Very very strange looking, I for one have no idea how or what this is, or how it could happen.

Nothing out of the norm has spilled on the glass, and everything is always wiped up right away. Something just spilling on the glass should not do that anyway, I just do not know what it is.

Let us know how it goes, and good luck!

Billy

That weirdness aside, I'm more interested in the problem of uneven baking. In your first post you state it is very uneven, but then later you seem to say they were responsive in resolving that issue. Has it been satisfactorily addressed? Is the oven good now? What was the problem?

The burned substance looks like either insulation or the glue that's on one side of a ceramic-fiber gasket.

@trevorlawson: perhaps Joey from Capital's factory can confirm the above statement.

@DCKelly: Can you provide pics of the what you called an "extremely uneven bake?"

I agree: having second thoughts on the cc myself after really feeling like the oven is perhaps sub-standard. Just made a separate post to see if they've released any more details on the new dual-fuel culinarian/connosseurian.

There's a notable absence of posts or comments on this forum regarding the prowess of the Culinarian/Precision's oven.

Also, check out about halfway down the post titled "Capital Culinarian owners, post reviews,photos of your new range!" as the pics posted on there show an obviously uneven bake.

any updates?

I am unable to find, even using Google, a single post by beefstew01 on any subject other than raising doubts or claiming problems with a Capital range. There is no backstory offered, no tale of being an owner in search of a fix or new range, no admission of being a dealer, nothing. Just post after post insinuating problems with Capital. This search included other GW forums as well.

Can anyone else find any counter examples (other than one joke post that was confusing and strange, which I also ran across)?

DCKelly's problem is interesting with what seems to me a unique structural failure. The sort of thing that could happen to any manufactured item. The most interesting feature here is the time it is taking Capital to respond. I agree with jscout that the seal is gone all around the door, which would ruin the insulating properties of the door and cause uneven baking. This door should be replaced by Capital immediately. I hope they request that it be sent back to them so they can investigate the problem.

Regarding the even baking of a CC oven: there was a posting maybe a few weeks ago with photos of five or six loaves of bread baked at one time in a Capital oven. I cannot find it now or I would post a link on Avidchef's current post. I remember that at least one person challenged the OP's pleasure in the evenness of the Capital oven. I thought the bread looked fantastic for so many loaves baked at one time.

Avidchef has, I believe, as I have, selected a CC for purchase, but would appreciate more positive responses to counter the current round of negativity.

I hope more of the satisfied customers I am certain are out there will respond to her post linked below.

Sandra

Capital owners seem less prone that BS owners to organize active and aggressive PR campaigns--both defensive and offensive--to protect their range's reputations. In any case, there have been few negative reports about the Capital ovens that I can recall.

Simply offering some legitimate complaints which should be addressed.

Best,
Arturo Bandini

In the last 4 years capital have had two doors with similar issues one at altitude and on in a desert. Capital actually flew factory staff to the desert location to asses and fix. It is expected that a seal either broke or was not fitted correctly, unfortunate but things happen.

As for uneven baking possible cause could be the air shutter needs simple adjustment, burn tube issue or orifice problem, as stated above all parts have been sent.

Not sure what more the factory can do right now but I am open to suggestions I can relay back to them ?

Maybe the lack of posts about the oven is a reflection of a lack of problems ..... just a crazy idea :)

My wife does most of the baking and she has consistently uneven baking results and oven temps that don't match the settings. Not 5 minutes ago she came into my office complaining that she had to leave cookies in for 15 minutes at 375 degrees just to get them cooked through when it should have taken no more than 8 to 10 (no convection). She just cooked another batch after turning the temp up to 400 deg. with the same results. We haven't noticed an appreciable difference when using convection.

We've had the same problem with the small oven and the larger oven in terms of uneven cooking. The back burns and the front undercooks. When I cook, I compensate by rotating the pan, but as my wife points out, on an $8K+ range this isn't really acceptable. Our inexpensive old all gas GE range baked and roasted just fine and evenly without the need for constant rotation.

We seem to have 2 issues: 1. Temp control seems to under-heat (esp in the main oven).
2. Cooking is uneven in both ovens and takes longer than it should esp. in the main oven.

I don't know if we have a seal issue (seems unlikely given the issue in both ovens, but possible) or a thermostat issue (wouldn't explain the uneven baking).

On the "up" side we do get good heat for pizza when cranking the ovens to "MAX", but it requires rotating the pizzas in order to get an even bake which does result in heat loss just opening and closing the ovens. With the extra effort we are still able to produce pizzas that impress. Same is true of other savory dishes, but can't say the same for confections.

Below are photos of some popovers baked in the little oven (still had 14 minutes of baking to go) and an "unturned" lasagne baked in the main oven.

Don't get me wrong here, the burners and grill are excellent. We've produced tremendous cuisine out of this range (even the oven..but with alot of fiddling). I truly hope there IS a malfunction with our oven, otherwise it would be difficult to recommend this range and I'd advocate for just buying a CC rangetop with a separate professional calibur oven.

You can't beat that.

Capital has sent out a new, re-engineered door, it just needs to be installed. It is rust, and it was caused by a problem with the structure of the door. I am hoping to hear from the company this week on when it will be put in. I have the same uneven heating problems as BrightFutureFoods, the same extreme variation in the cooking. I have not photographed the variation. I think if I were to do it again, I would just get the range-top and get a separate stove.

I'm glad to hear things may be fixed now. Please keep us posted - this is fascinating! (Because it's not mine. I would be so freaked out if that were in my kitchen!)

NELadybug - I think I've come to the same conclusion about preheating. I've complained before about the uneven bake in my CC 36" oven. But I have learned to overcome that by preheating a lot more than I'm comfortable with. It feels like a waste of energy to me, but for a more even bake, it does really seem to want to preheat for 10-15 minutes.

I have a hard time figuring out what temperature is really inside the interior of my oven. The metal rack-hanging thermometer I use is not very good at its job. I wish there were an internal thermometer. I didn't think I needed it or would miss it, but given this preheating-issue I really rue its absence.

That said, I still don't regret the purchase. But there has been a learning curve! Whether that amounts to protesting too much to protect one's foolish investment, I cannot say, by definition. But by and large the range does what I ask it to, so that's some metric of importance I think.

I hope that rust stays gone!

Thanks to Trevor for contacting Capital on my behalf. I received a personal phone call from one of Capital's engineer/designers who was genuinely concerned with my issue and took the time to explain to me what he felt was causing the problem. There's an orifice where the gas flows to the burner that he indicated they had concerns with and sent an area technician a part to replace mine with a smaller orifice.

You'll see in this picture the carbonization only on the back 3/4 of my burner pre-repair indicating that the front of the burner wasn't igniting properly and the back likely had too much air. This is why the back was burning and the front was undercooking:

Following the orifice replacement and air-shutter adjustment, you can see a nice, uniform blue flame across the entire burner:

Although it wasn't part of the repair order, the technician went through adjustment of both ovens' air-shutters, all six burners and the grill to ensure that they were all properly adjusted.

I'm not the "baker" in the house (so these aren't pretty), but I threw together some quick popovers to test the oven and got a much more even bake:

I can confidently say that I am now very pleased with the performance of the main oven. The small one is o.k. but hey...it's a tiny oven and does work better after the air shudder adjustment.

The technician provided a tremendous amount of quality information about the technical operation of the machine. As a prior poster indicated, he recommended pre-heating for far longer than the light indicator would suggest noting that the oven cycles through a heat range such and such degrees below and above the set temp in order to reach that "average temp." He noted that letting it cycle through up to 5 times will allow everything to heat up to a degree such that the swing in temp will be less severe, and opening the oven to check/adjust/baste, whatever will have less impact on the avg. temp.

I'm not sure I got all of this exactly correct, but that's the gist of it.

Anyway I am in love with my CC range and Capital's customer service response. They really seemed to care about the performance of their machine. If someone from Capital reads this, apart from my gratitude, I want you to know how impressed we were with the technician you sent, "Louis Pregent" who traveled 1 hour to our home. This guy really knows what he's doing, seems to appreciate and understand the engineering of the equipment and takes the time to help his customer understand the problem and solution.

Again, thanks Trevor for intervening on our behalf. I highly recommend anyone in the market toward purchasing your CC through Eurostoves!

Happy to address any questions anyone on the board might have. Sorry it took me so long to follow-up. It's been fixed for a while, I just didn't find the time to get on here.

Cheers,

BFF

I really liked reading your repair-tale as well. Are you the OP, DCKelly too? ... wait, sorry; I see yours is a second set of problems.

I appreciate the tidbit about letting the oven cycle through +/- 5 light changes. That explanation makes a lot of sense regarding something I've really puzzled about; it helps to have some sense of why you should need to keep that stupid oven on so long with nothing in it! I hate preheating; just seems so wasteful. I'm trying to get over it.

�1 1/2 tablespoons unsalted butter, melted, plus softened butter for greasing pans
�1 1/2 cups flour
�3/4 teaspoon kosher salt
�3 extra-large eggs, at room temperature
�1 1/2 cups milk, at room temperature

Preheat the oven to 425 degrees F.
Generously grease aluminum popover pans or Pyrex custard cups with softened butter. You'll need enough pans to make 12 popovers [or 6 in a larger popover/muffin pan].
Place the pans in the oven for exactly 2 minutes to preheat. Meanwhile, whisk together the flour, salt, eggs, milk, and melted butter until smooth. The batter will be thin. Fill the popover pans less than half full and bake for exactly 30 minutes. Do not peek.

I can understand your frustration. I'd be very unhappy in your circumstances. I decided to pay a little more to buy from Eurostoves because I know how well Trevor takes care of his customers and because he has such a close relationship with Capital. He intervened on our behalf. That said, I recommend you post your history in detail on here. Some have had luck going that route as folks from Capital apparently monitor these boards. What you're now describing is a serious safety issue and they should send a service person immediately! If the the Rep they're sending isn't competent, you should ask for another.

We just got lucky. They mostly use independent appliance repair guys and ours turned out to be highly intelligent and skilled.

Good luck and post everything that goes on on Gardenweb to keep it all in the open for all Capital customers to see! Hopefully they'll want to show their customers the kind of great service they provide on their very expensive equipment! ;)

In our case they shined and we really love our Culinarian.

Independent service companies doing work for Capital (and every other appliance manufacturer out there) are hit and miss. If you're not happy or haven't gotten resolution with whomever they've sent, call Bob immediately afterwards and tell him what you've experienced.

My advice is to deal directly with Bob at Capital, not a independent repair company. In my very limited experience and in my readings here, I would also recommend not going through your appliance store either. I would deal directly with Capital so your voice can be heard, not that of an appliance store. I would recommend this route to almost anyone, except if you get the rare outstanding customer service like those customers of Trevor at Euostoves receive. Companies like his are few and far between it seems these days.

They sent out new burner parts with a metal plate soldered on which helped achieve a lower flame, but not the low simmer seen on the videos. The independent technician they sent was very conscientious, but had never worked on a culinarian before. He also adjusted the oven temperature, but this adjustment didn't improve the uneven baking issue.
In the last six months the oven door locks regularly.

After replacing the burners, I did not do a good job following through to resolve the uneven heat and low simmer clicking- I just tried to work around it. However with this new issue (door locking) I need to get this resolved.

I lurked on GW for months prior to remodeling the kitchen and learned so much from so many knowledgeable folks. However this purchase is my one regret. Trevor has been great, but I would not recommend this range until the kinks are worked out.