Not sure if you would consider this approach, but I was able to get my appliances for $15k by buying from eBay and outlets. You can get great deals on out of box or display models, essentially new and with full warranty if you shop around.

For my $ I got a 36" Thermador induction cooktop, 30" Thermador integrated fridge, 18" Thermador integrated freezer, two Fisher & Paykel double dish drawers, and a Gaggenau double oven. All but the freezer are brand new. I would have paid $10k more getting them retail.

I love my Elux double wall oven with wave touch. I think it's either $3K or $3300 now.

I'm assuming your design allows for 12" of clearance (before you hit something combustible) under the induction cooktop? When I was looking, that's what GE required. Some other brands let you have a utensil drawer closer to the cooktop.

Thanks for the comments.

Soibean, I had considered that approach but with the rebates and promotions, I could not find a better deal then retail with the promotions.

Ginny20, I do have to check that. Thanks for the reminder!

Hi, I'm curious if you went through with ordering the ZET958SMSS, as I'm looking at it, but have only found sub par reviews online (but not sure if they're genuine). Would love your opinion Karen! (or anyone with experience with GE Monogram double oven)

-adam

My experience with GE Monogram double ovens is that we are replacing ours after more than 30 repairs in five years. It is almost always the convection fan, or the convection element. We've also had electric board failures due to overheating, even with very normal use.

This may be isolated--though I had two ovens (original and a replacement) with the same problems--so I can't say I'd recommend.

Hopefully you and the OP will have better luck, but I'd also strongly suggest an extended warranty. Just my two cents.

PS: I wanted to add to the above that despite the problems being very frustrating, GE service has been very, very good. I always felt I was dealt with extremely fairly and that they really care about their customers. Unfortunately, despite great, almost heroic, efforts, they don't seem able to get our oven to stay fixed.

Wow applnut, that's truly a pain, sorry to hear about your experience. It's good to know that GE at least is trying to stand behind their product. I was planning on getting the 4yr extended warranty with it (not sure if it's on top of the 1yr it comes with), but hopefully we'll never have to use it.

This may be a small sample set, but when yours was/is working, do you enjoy the way it operates?

I think it worked relatively well. It wasn't an outstanding oven oh-my-god-I-love-it-so-much oven, but I'd rate it good, to very good, when it wasn't in need of service.

For what it's worth, GE has told me they have a 1% failure rate on their Monogram line, so I could just be extremely unlucky.

I think we narrowed it down to some issues with the way the units vent and needing more airflow than the installation, even though ours was by the book (and verified as such many, many times), allowed. Again, I'm someone who uses my oven a lot and the problem I experienced--the one they couldn't fix--was something their engineers could reproduce, but only when airflow was insufficient and the oven ran for long periods of time (three hours-plus) or at very high heat (450+).

The extended warranty will protect you. I never used to believe in them, but after buying high-end appliances and needing to use the extended warranty many times, I'm now an advocate.

wow that's interesting. I'm about to place the order for my kitchen cabinets (tomorrow!) and we have this going in a standard 30" cabinet. Is there something the techs recommended to increase airflow? I could order a 2" filler piece or something...

Ours was a custom-made cabinet, and our cutout was about 1" deeper than the installation specs required. We have a cabinet above, but nothing below, though there is a solid bottom on the cutout to support the oven. Cutout width was to spec, but there was extra air space on either side in the cabinet interior, which you'd think would help but, apparently, not so much. (I was told the oven is so self contained that it can't access the air on the sides, only above and below.)

One repairperson suggested putting a series of 3" holes in our bottom panel, which was over dead space, in order to give the unit more air to pull in, but that was just a theory, so I was reluctant to damage our cabinet to try it out. They did some air "routing" by forcing the airflow directly into the fans with a makeshift electric tape and box thing, and that worked the best of anything, but would still come loose (tape wore off), after six months or so.

My repairmen were awesome to even come up with an implement this idea, which is the only thing that made my ovens usable. GE is one of the very few companies that still has their own service force, which is a plus.

Honestly, I think it's a problem with the way they designed the ovens, but that's not something they are going to admit. I think this because the vent trim cover doesn't allow much air to get in there.

One engineer did tell me they had "experimented" with different venting in the various models because of "similar issues," but everyone else always insisted that was untrue and that my problems were unique, so I'm not sure where the truth actually lies.

By the way, the ZET2SMSS you mentioned looking at is the one we had first. I don't know if they've tweaked the model at all since we got it five years ago, but the model number has stayed the same.

The electric failures we had were all after self-cleans, and that's a known potential issue with just about every electric oven out there. All happened within the original warranty.

The ovens are large and quiet. I loved that every rack was a glide and the fact you could leave the racks in during self-clean. (I always did and never had an issue with them in five years of use.) I did have a problem with my probes failing every few uses, but they always replaced those, no questions asked. In general, though, the probe cooking was wonky enough--always losing communication and resetting itself--that I used it only rarely.

This post was edited by applnut on Mon, Apr 29, 13 at 9:20

thanks so much for that in depth response. I was having problems finding pictures of the racks of the ZET958SMSS, but doing a search on ZET2SMSS brought up a few. I hope they have the same # of glide racks. If you did a kitchen reveal on GW or had some i'd be envious to see yours :) GE's site is surprisingly lacking for pictures on the 958 model...

I'm sorry I misspoke about the model number, thinking you were talking about the ZET2SMSS. I don't know about the 948 designation, but I can attest that, other than cosmetically, the ZET2SMSS and the ZET2PMSS are absolutely identical in function and interior.

They do vent slightly differently (look a little different in rear), so the problems with the S model occurred mostly in the top oven and the P mostly in the bottom oven.

PS: Triple check your cabinets. It was nagging at me that you said you had a 30" cabinet. Most 30" ovens require a 33" cabinet to install into.

ooh thanks for the heads up on that. I checked the link below to the 958 (and I checked the ZET2SMSS as well), both say they fit in a standard 30" wall cabinet.

Here is a link that might be useful: ZET958SMSS planning guide

Good. I guess most say "recommend" 33" but if you don't want/need any trim to show on either side, I guess it's not essential.

By the way, I don't have pictures, but I checked and if you do a search for "monogram double oven" on the Finished Kitchen Blog lots of kitchens come up that might have them.

Here is a link that might be useful: Finished Kitchen Blog