I have cooked on all three and the TEK IR is the only gas grill that cooks as well as charcoal. It's advantages over charcoal are that it is quick to set up, easy to clean up and does an excellent job of creating the charcoal taste. As many here know, the flavor is created by the smoke from the fat striking the hot surface be it charcoal or something else. The higher the IR energy (from gas or charcoal) and the less the flame, the more smoke generated rather than being turned into additional flame. The TEK creates a great deal of smoke because the IR glass sits between the flame and the dripping grease. On older style IR burners there is still an open flame to ignite the grease drippings reducing the amount of smoke to add flavor. With charcoal, once the embers are glowing red, it is emitting a lot of IR and much less to no flame and hence produces a lot of smoke and flavor. I have owned the FireMagic and I would not purchase another. The burners are cast SS but they still do rust over time and the flavor grills wear out too. They are very hard to clean and the heat was not anywhere near as good as the advertisements. If you are the type that never clean a grill and don't mind a gritty looking grill it may not matter. I am the type that wants it to look clean and inviting each time and the self cleaning feature along with the dishwasher removal panels makes the TEK a breeze to clean and keep looking nice. For me that was worth a lot. The more conventional grills like the Firemagic, even with their ceramic infrared burner are not even a close match.

Well, it was this, I was talking about: The biggest difference is the speed feature. That uses a combination of heated air convection, halogen, and microwaves to cook things fast, and still have them be "normally" cooked. That is, browned, heated from the outside, etc. To do toast, I do not use the Speed Function, instead I select the grill function, I wait for the speed oven to preheat, then pop the bread slices in, set for about 2 minutes, as I recall, flip the bread after about 1 min. It comes out pretty good, albeit not as fast as a regular toaster but we just don't eat enough toast to buy a regular toaster. One would think the Advantium could be used the same way for toast and perhaps even the Miele, just don't try to "Speed cook it" per say. Gary

Installer recommended by friend is fired. I texted him my schedule last Thursday (the day he no showed) and it is Tuesday,and I have not heard back. I found another guy who actually has a company installing doors. He comes tomorrow (Wednesday) I did not buy through the Pella store. The lady there was more interested in making a sale, pushing things I was not interested in, and thought it unreasonable to actually have a few squares of the different decorative glass options Pella offers. She kept repeating, "But we offer examples and place orders through our catalog". Small sample pieces of each grain type (mahogany, oak, craftsman, etc)with the different stain colors was foreign language. It blew her mind. She kept thinking door size samples and I was asking about a 6x6 sample or something. She seemed to be missing a few cards from the deck, as it interrupted her trained sales pitch. Lowes actually had a lot of samples in actual doors. We visited 4-5 times before making the commitment to buy. They also were having a 20% off sale in April. We worked with two guys. One not so helpful and the other, very knowledgable and helpful. We obviously did not go with Pella installation people (you have to buy through them to get it) nor Lowes installation. I am eager to see how it looks tomorrow. And hope that we do not have to deal with Pella customer service. I hear there is none.

See the link below. I spent a little more time and money on interior trim of the windows and get a "wow" from everyone who has seen them. I saved some money by selecting the grills you see versus going with true transom's. As well as I remember this was a few thousand dollar savings. I think the style I ended up with would fit your design well. I truly love both the stained and painted interiors. I am in north Georgia if you'd like to see them in person. Here is a link that might be useful: Link to windows in craftsman style house