1. It's very sleek, all gleaming SS and black mirror-finish ceran glass.

2. Its newness and cleanness is intimidating. The surface is smooth. One wants to clean it, as opposed to wanting to avoid cleaning it, as with my open grates on the old gas stove. I feel compelled to clean and shine it after every use. What does this mean to my quality of life? :)

3. The controls are extremely sensitive. These capaciters respond to the most delicate touch, including the lightest attempt to simply clean up. One swipe with a Windexed paper towel started the warming drawer and a timer. Dry paper towel does not have this effect. I've used the control lockout feature more than once already in order to clean the surfaces without activating everything. This seems to me to be a part of my learning curve, not a flaw in the product.

4. The hobs are sized nicely and allow for a reasonable variety of pans. A hefty 10" Farberware nonstick frying pan came with the unit. Half my old cookware works fine; donated the rest. I bought the Ikea 365 cookware set for induction on Ebay. It's crisply designed, reasonably heavy, solid, DW friendly, and inexpensive. (Only the handle rivets look cheap.)

5. The "Low" setting allows for very gentle cooking. It calmly simmered a split pea soup and melted chocolate chips beautifully. The individual hob settings are numerous and probably sufficient for me.

6. The Power Boost feature boosts heat dependably and quickly, as all induction cooking reports have reported on all the various units.

7. Yes, the hobs themselves remain hot (not blisteringly hot though, and not hot enough to set fire to a sleeve) after something's been cooked, but the hob display warns "HE" during the time it's still hot. The rest of the surface stays quite cool. This is why I bought this stove! No open flames! Honestly, I really do feel safer.

8. The indicators are all a nice blue color – exactly the same blue as a gas flame. Several times, out of the corner of my eye, I thought I saw a little gas flame because of it. Obviously this is my problem, not Kenmore's. It was funny, though.

9. We did add a 50-amp breaker for this range.

10. The oven is capacious and was beautifully, screamingly clean until I made pizza and some mozzarella hit the floor of the oven. O what a mess. I'm leaving it for a few days until I make more messes. Tonight: stir fry. Tomorrow: roast chicken. I think I should provide sufficient grunge for the self-clean feature to work on. (After learning here about flaking on the racks and interior walls, I decided not to run the self-clean until there was something for it to clean.)

11. The operating instructions are comprehensible. The learning curve seems quite manageable.

12. The oven settings will require lots of experimentation until the differences between bake, convection bake, and convection roast can be tested. I baked a tray of my cranberry energy bars and used convection bake. Same time, 25 degrees cooler. The top was less browned than usual but otherwise they came out fine. This is my first convection oven, so I have tons to learn and nothing useful yet to contribute on the convection baking aspect of the product.

So far, so good!

rc
in
VT

#1. Agree!
#2. You will get over this and let it get dirty.
#3. You most definitely have to lock both the cooktop and the oven before wiping the display panel (or else it'll beep like crazy and turn everything on).
#4. I also love the hob layout. I can put a 10" and a 12" frying pan in the front at the same time (could not do this on my old stove).

#7. I am surprised by how hot the hobs get. I was under the impression that induction burners may get warm but not hot. If you boiled something on a burner, you have to wait for it to cool down before wiping down the cooktop.

#9. We did not add the 50 amp breaker (yet). It seems to work just fine with the 40 amp. An electrician told as long as the circuit is not tripping (not likely unless all features are being used at the same time), to go ahead and use the stove.

#12. I baked peanut butter cookies on Convection Bake. They came out PERFECT but they did tend to take the max cooking time.

On another note:

Do you find your warming drawer difficult to slide in and out? Mine is rather "tight" and appears to be slightly cock-eyed. I don't know if I need a service call to fix it. I am going to stop in Sears this week and ask.

Stir fryi, the warming drawer is fine, especially compared with my totally cockeyed old GE Profile drawer which never did fit its tracks. (I probably should have requested a service call on it right away.) Is your range perfectly level? Let us know how Sears responds to your question. Good luck!

rc
in
VT

If you were to fill a pot with boiling water, both the pot and the underlying cooktop would become warm, purely as a result of the radiant heat from the water.

It isn't difficult to clean if you let it cool a bit.

If you've just boiled a pot of hot water on a gas stove or an electric coil, and you touch the grate or the coil, you'll immediately get an extremely serious burn. If you touch the ceran glass on an induction stove after boiling a pot of water, the hob will feel too hot to leave your hand on it, but it won't come close to searing off your skin. "Too hot to be comfortable" might be a better term for a hob you've just cooked on than "Cool to the touch."

So, the induction hobs are not exactly cool to the touch after they've been used, because they will pick up heat and hold it for a while from whatever was cooking. The rest of the surface of the stove actually does stay cool or just warm. "Cool to the touch" is advertising hype. But the hobs do stay WAY WAY cooler than coils or grates. And they can't set your sleeves or your hair on fire.

Spills on the ceran surface can't bake on because the surface can't bake anything. I found tonight that a warm, slightly soapy microfiber cloth cleaned the surface in a few swipes and streaked much less than yesterday's Windex.

I wiped the oven walls with the microfiber after convection-roasting a chicken (and after the oven had cooled -- very important to wait for it to cool). Grease had spattered everywhere and came off extremely easily.

My mozzarella plasma from Saturday night, however, really did stay on the hot oven floor too long, and though some of it came up tonight, the rest of it may be there forever. Or maybe the self-clean with get it off. We'll have to see.

I feel much safer with induction, and so far, cleanup is easier than anything I've ever cooked on.

Hope this helps. Maybe the induction experts on this forum can explain it better or differently so that you will feel more secure about choosing induction. I'm still very new to it!

rc
in
VT

I do have one ? for you -- the electrician for my new build asked if our slide in uses a regular stove plug (50amp) or if it needs to be hard wired. While I have learned many terms from this site (including that the thingamajigs are called "hobs") I cannot claim to know the answer to this one.

"Pre-disclaimer: I am just a handy homeowner and may make assumptions that aren't necessarily true. Some settling of information may occur during reading.

"I think any stove/range can be hard-wired or plug-in. The back of most any electric stove has an electrical panel that houses the electrical connection terminals. These are just screwposts where wires can be connected. The most common installation will use a "pigtail" wire with prongs on one end and copper loop terminals on the other. The copper loops connect to the screwposts and then the plug is inserted into a receptacle on the wall.

"I can't think of a reason why hard-wired would be better. What if you spilled a whole bottle of extra virgin olive oil down the back wall and you want to just slide-out your slide-in to catch it before it soaks into the drywall? I think one should be able to unplug/unhook an appliance in a hurry.

"However, if the installation instructions specify a permanent connection is required, you better go with that of course.

"Tip: If this is a new build, check your range installation manual where you'll see a shaded area where the electrical outlet should live."

(Hope this helps! Now you see why I married him.)

rc
in
VT

The timer doesn't stop a hob or the oven. It just beeps three healthy beeps, stops for a second, then continues to emit beeps in groups of three. It repeated the groups of three beeps three or four times before I began not to enjoy the beeping, so I can't report whether the beep-groups will continue forever without cease.

They are not quiet beeps. They are not klaxons either. The amount of ambient noise in your surroundings would determine whether you will hear the beeps or not from another room. On the beep scale, I give them a 7.5 out of ten.

There are other options that I haven't yet had reason to test: start-delay, stop but keep warm, and that sort of thing. I don't run appliances when I'm not home so those options won't see much -- if any -- use at our house.

I hope this helps. It's fun to be able to answer questions finally, after three years of asking them!

rc
in
VT

Bummer.

I've never had convection broil. Or if I did, didn't know it.

eachlily -- I did notice that the time you start the oven does not display like it did on my Kitchenaid. Although it would be nicer to display the time the oven actually finished pre-heating (which is probably when you put the food in the oven).

Last night I made roasted potatoes and Shake and Bake chicken (gourmet, I know!) in the oven on Convection Bake 350. Both turned out excellent. You could cut the chicken with a butter knife and the potatoes were nicely browned.

Is anyone making a turkey in the oven this year? Trying the temp probe? We are going to my brothers so no turkey here -- I am making a pumpkin pie though. I hope it turns out well. I have only baked in the oven once (cookies) -- they were great. But I don't have a good feeling yet if the oven is 100% accurate as far as temperature.

I'm looking forward to the Slow Cook--soups, maybe chicken cacciatore. Never have had a slow cooker so don't have those types of recipes. I might grab one off the cooking forum to try. Not this week!

This lack of plug use is annoying because appliances require disconnection means within the view of the repairman, or else a means of securing the breaker so it can't be changed while repairs are being made (lock-out/tag-out). A pigtail cord and connector is much easier to use for this purpose.

Also, the units use "undersized" copper conductors with insulation capable of running hotter than usual. Most electrical plugs and receptacles are rated just a bit too low in temperature to meet code attached to the end of the conduit using these conductors.

kas

You shouldn't shake the pan on the stove top or it might scratch the surface. But here's a cool trick! Remember that this is induction. It's the pan that gets hot, not the burner. And the pan gets less hot than a conventional burner does because induction is much more efficient at transferring heat to the food. Put paper towels or a dish towel under the pan. Paper burns at 451 degrees, so unless you are searing, you should be able to do this without worrying about the paper catching fire. You can then wiggle the pan back and forth without scratching the surface.

rcvt is absolutely right. The surface does get very warm, but it's not warm enough to cook food to the surface. You can wipe up spills while you cook. I can touch the surface without getting burned, although it can be uncomfortable. This is because it's the PAN that gets hot and some heat is transferred from the pan to the surface. It's unavoidable. This will be the easiest stove to clean that you've ever had. (The oven may be a different issue.)

You don't need a 50 amp breaker. Early specs listed a 50 amp circuit but the unit actually only requires a 40 amp circuit.

According to the materials that come with the range, it can be hard-wired or plug in. It doesn't come with a wire. The recommend that you don't reuse your existing wire. I had my electrician put in a socket and a plug on the stove so that I can pull it out if I need to when I decide to redo the backsplash and the hood.

The timer also has an add a minute feature, which I like. When the alarm goes off, you can check your food and just add a few minutes if needed. The alarm is good, but I do wish the repeats would space themselves out. For example: Three beeps, wait 20 seconds, three beeps wait 30 seconds, three beeps another 30 seconds. Sometimes I'm cooking something that isn't to the minute precise and I'm in the middle of folding a shirt and need a minute. I don't need constant beeping. But it is reasonably loud and effective.

Stir Fryi I've never heard of a home range that was "100% accurate". They all have variance in temperature by their design. The range does have an adjustment feature that lets you calibrate the oven to your liking. Every unit probably has it's own set point. But the stuff you are sticking in the oven varies too much to worry about minor variances. Just cook it until it's done.

I'm tired and cranky, please excuse this.

Just when the roast was done -- beep, beep, beep! Error code 21 again. Press Stop. Try to turn cooktop back on and Error Code 21 again!

Finally stopped after 45 minutes. Never did get to thicken my gravy on the stovetop.

They are just lucky we are going somewhere for Thanksgiving and not having 20 people over in two days.

PS: beachlilly -- do you lock the cooktop and oven before cleaning or do you just let it beep at you and reset it when you are done???

I've had my oven problem, now you have this error code. Hope it is easy to solve!

Went up to Sears and told my saleman -- he said no problem. I tried hard to get them to throw in installation ($149) -- it took us about two hours connect and level the range. The most they would do is split it with us so we said no thanks.

I really think it is a hassle to get a new range at this point but I don't want to start off with one that is defective.

beachlilly -- actually, I meant do you lockout the cooktop and oven when you are cleaning the control panel? If you don't it beeps at you and tries to start the oven because the controls are so sensitive.

I'm glad you are getting a new range. Please don't give up on this--induction is awesome and at some point we will both learn the ins-and-outs on this machine!

Good Luck and have a great Thanksgiving. Can you get your new range tomorrow?????????????????????

Just because the oven control lights, doesn't mean that the oven will come on--you need to set a temp. I don't find it annoying because the old Kitchen Aid was a pain in the ying-ying.

Their obligation under warranty is to get you a working range. This means repairs to a non-working range. YOU choose not to cooperate with dealing with repair service so they, under no obligation, agree to replace the range to accommodate you. And even agree to pay half of the install charge. I have no idea what Sear's policy is on lemons, but the places that I know of require THREE repairs for the EXACT same problem before they replace the appliance. (And good luck working around that clause.) You have not had a single repair. Yet they're willing to replace the entire range. For $75. Go for it.