CMK, I remember reading you have drainage issues. We had a little bit of that ‘wet without draining’ in early spring, a couple of times when it rained and the ground was still frozen. I thought I was going to have trouble and I don’t know why I didn’t. I normally have good drainage though, so that must make the difference. I’m sorry you don’t. :-( That must be a particularly aggravating problem. I wonder if you’ve ever considered raised beds? I had plants very slow to show up this spring, so I was considering that I might have lost them, and at the time, I was thinking maybe I should add more conifers, until I visited the Conifer forum in the spring and they were posting long lists of plants they lost! So, if you are thinking about it, I’d read some of their posts on which ones they lost. :-) Mnwsgal, sorry to hear of your losses too. I have never had much luck wintering over in the garage. And the snowplow frequently digs into some edge of the front yard. We have a bed that borders the street, but it has a rock edge to it, which I suppose must help. Of course, they don't actually see the rocks under the snow, and once they did plow into those. Wow, what a noise that made! And 12ft of rock edge had to be reset, but I didn't lose any plants. [g] I wish we had sidewalks.

We bought our Bluestar RNB less than a year ago and have had it installed since Feb'12. Ours is the 36" with 4 burners and griddle. So far, my experience has been mostly positive. To address some of the issues you've mentioned: I have never seemed to need more than 1 simmer burner at a time, so that has never been an issue. Aside from major holiday cooking, I seem to use that burner most often (almost daily) for cooking rice and reheating... Love being able to walk away and not worry about things boiling over or burning. I suppose number of simmer burners will come down to cooking style and preferences. I LOVE the ease of clean-up with my Bluestar! The cast iron is a cinch to clean... a little scrub while still slightly warm and it's done. Often, I will let a few days pass before cleaning and I suppose part of the reason i can do that is because, even when dirty, it doesn't look that bad! Clean-up was a huge factor for me. My last oven had black porcelain top and I was NEVER able to keep it clean or smudge-free, especially with as much heavy use as I put my ranges thru. I also love the size of the oven AND the full extension rack. It has made baking, basting, roasting, etc so much more efficient! Now, to address the oven heat issue... I, too, did a lot of research prior to buying our Bluestar. I believe the door locking problems due to high heat has been resolved. We have not had this problem and I use our oven several times each week, some weeks being daily. That said, the door does get pretty hot during use. While the oven door handle always stays completely cool, the oven door, oven window, and oftentimes, the knobs and front portion of the range (in front of the burners, where you stand right up against) do get pretty hot. It's never hot to the point of burning where it would be dangerous to touch, but it definitely is uncomfortable and even I avoid touching or leaning against it during those times. It appears door insulation is pretty much nil. I would like to point out, however, that I do have 2 small children (20mos and 3yo) who are often in the vicinity when I'm cooking. They know they are not supposed to come near the range while I am cooking and definitely not to touch the oven door when it is on. On plenty of occasions, their curiosity would cause them to wander close and touch it, despite our warnings. Never once have they screamed or gotten hurt. Usually, they touch it, draw their hands back and walk away. I am not in any way trying to defend Bluestar's heat issues, nor am I suggesting you let your kids touch things that are potentially hazardous, just telling it like it is in our experience. Does the heat bother me? Yes, sometimes it really does and makes me wish BS would address this issue and fix it for residential use. If I could get the same exact range/oven without the heat problems, would I? Without hesitation. Does it make me regret my decision? Not yet! Lastly, I do appreciate that the Bluestar has no bells & whistles. Little to no electronic means less break-down in my book at least. I've met 2 people who have Wolf ranges and both have had problems with the electric portions of their units, requiring lengthy service calls and repair/replacement. Though, since time keeping is important to me, I have had to put a clock in my kitchen when I used to rely on the digital ones on the range. Also, no electronics mean no built-in timers, which hasn't been a problem b/c I have one within reach. Also, despite having a manual oven control knob, the temperature settings have been pretty accurate, confirmed by my oven thermometer. One final comment about my Bluestar experience... I've been waiting for years to cook with a wok and now that I have the range (and, more importantly, the vent hood), it has been a dream! I absolutely appreciate being able to remove the grate and just fit my wok into the bowl-like space above the burner. The quality of certain dishes have definitely improved just due to the availability of high heat alone. For someone who loves cooking and experimenting, this has added to the fun in my new kitchen. Hope this helps!

Annie, I am fairly familiar with the case. British law on such things is different than American law, and I won't enter into all that except to say that under the British system, the burden of truth regarding public accusations against another is on the accuser. Like it or not, that is their law. I also am not even going to try and defend the actions of a howmanybillion dollar company, or pretend to know the truth behind the allegations of both sides. However, it was enlightening to me to know that the defendants were members of a fringe environmentalist organization that didn't want to affiliate itself with Greenpeace because it was "too mainstream" (Jeepers!) Also, that the fliers they were distributing made the claims that: McDonald's: * is complicit in Third World starvation; * buys from greedy rulers and elites and practices economic imperialism; * wastes vast quantities of grain and water; * destroys rainforests with poisons and colonial invasions; * sells unhealthy, addictive junk food; * alters its food with artificial chemistry; * exploits children with its advertising; * is responsible for torture and murder of animals; * poisons customers with contaminated meat; * exploits its workers and bans unions; * destroys rainforests; * hides its malfeasance.* Now. Did McDonalds overreact? React too harshly? Was McDonalds mean? I don't know. But here we are, 20 years after the fact, hearing from people who were influenced against the company by the case to the point of boycotting their products. I've never owned or had any significant financial interest in a company as big as McDonalds. But if I found out that someone here in town was distributing fliers that accused me of committing horrendous and possibly criminal practices in the course of my daily business, I would fight it. That someone not particularly educated in either law or experienced in any field related to the case made a film, apparently portraying the defendants as puny, helpless victims bullied by an Evil Mega Corp does not impress me. Biased, slanted "documentaries" are produced every day. As for being partially correct in the allegations, I suppose I could be accused of some of those things with equal accuracy. I could well be accused of being, "complicit in Third World starvation" because I eat beef on a regular basis...if I ate lentils instead, I could feed any number of starving people by sending them the money I would save. I expect that I buy from what some would consider "greedy rulers and elites" as well. I would have no defense to the charge that I waste grain and water, depending on the accuser's perspective. I water my roses...frivolous things, and shower far more often than absolutely needed. I don't know how poisons, "colonial invasions" and rainforests could be attributed to me, but then, I don't know how they could be attributed to McDonald's either. Are my contributions to church bake sales selling "unhealthy, addictive junk food?" Okay, okay, I'll quit...but you get my point, right? Likely, I'm far too sensitive on these subjects. I get itchy over attacks on "Big Evil Corporate America" because so often, we jump on the band wagon before we look into it, and so very often, the attacks have less to do with actual facts and more to do with the agendas of the attackers. This is funny, really. Here I am, speaking up for a restaurant I don't even frequent! Once every couple of years or so I drive through to grab something because I'm in a huge rush, on a road trip, whatever...and I ALWAYS regret it! The first two bites taste good because I'm hungry and after that I'm increasingly grossed out. Inevitably, I end up throwing out half my food and wonder what the heck I was thinking!

I only heard about Speed Queen two days ago and I'm already an owner of a TL one. We've had a Frigidaire for about 7 years, we never had any repair issues with it but every now and then my wife and I would see little holes in our clothes. At first we never really questioned it, then we figured well maybe it's bugs, maybe zippers from other clothes, maybe the seatbelt in our car, etc.. etc... Then the problem seemed to go away only to re-appear, maybe there's a loose screw in the washing machine, nope. Again, we kind of forgot about the issue and/or holes were not occurring anymore. Fast forward to present time and we have a newborn in the picture, most of her outfits have holes in them after washing them. That was the last straw, my wife (and I wish we would have done this many years ago) started looking online for "holes in clothes" only to find out that these stupid FL machines have a knack the world over to putting holes into everyone's clothes when thin materials get into the holes of the tub. So we decided we're going TL, I went to the appliance store where we recently bought all our kitchen appliances from and who for the most part only carry European and American solid made appliances (lots of help also over in the appliance forum of GW) and told them we're looking for a TL washer. He showed me the Speed Queen and said you won't be disappointed, I said let me look into it. We looked at a ton of reviews two nights ago and were immediately sold, I purchased it yesterday and we'll have it on Monday. I can't wait for "no more holes". I wish we would have cut our losses years ago as my wife has probably thrown away a decent amount of her work clothes over the years. I'm looking forward to the Speed Queen and hoping that it comes as advertised by all these reviews on here and other sites. These FL washers are BS.