7 out of 12 people found this review helpful.
Pretty, flexible, heavy.
Date of Review: Dec 27, 2005
The Bottom Line: Ignore the numeric ratings, just got it. Review is preliminary.
Just arrived. HEAVY!
A snap to set up, although you should make sure to buy a gas hose and a double-male adapter since the stove does not necessarily come with a hose and it has a female plug on the gas inlet. Hoses from the hardware store come with double female ends and will not just screw on to the new stove unless you have a double male adapter. The delivery guys from GE gave me one because my wife flirted with them a bit ;^) Also handy is some teflon tape to lube and seal the threads and a large crescent wrench for the gas line.
I leveled the range using the edge of the cooktop as a guide and found it did not match with the "box" structure of the oven. The cooktop angles up slightly in the front. I re-did it using the box as a guide and it was obvious when pushed back into the counter tha the cooktop was slanted forward. I re-did it again using the cooktop and it is fine.
This stove comes with several boxes of parts all wrapped up inside the ovens. Be sure to remove all the parts before you fire up the thing to avoid feeling stupid when the fire department comes to extinguish your new stove.
One peeve here, GE puts this blue plastic wrap on all stainless appiances to prevent scratching the surface before it gets to you. Thumbs up. BUT, the install the handles OVER the plastic to when you take it off you have all these ragged edges of blue plastic sticking out from the edges of the handles. Thumbs down. TO get it all off you have to remove the handles. Bummer.
We fired up the lower oven first, just to check it out. On this one the lower oven is electric. It took a few minutes to get up to 350 degreen and smoked A LOT. I figure its just new parts and oily coating, I am not alarmed at all, but the smoke detectors in your house might go off on your first use of your oven so I recommend good ventilation for your trial runs.
Same thing happened with the main oven: smoke. The main oven literally jumped up to temperature. What a nice surprise. THis thing heats up FAST. The convection fan doesn't come on until the temperature is at the set point, and the fan indicator twinkles when its spinning. Turn on the oven light and watch it. It's fun.
The temperature probe sticks out into the oven on the top left rear corner. If you use the rack in the top position it MAY be possible to hit the probe, which would be bad (I can't even imagine the cost of getting THAT fixed). I am thinking that if you get the proble covered with grease and other cooking mung it will lose its accuracy, so that is to be avoided. I plan to avoid using the top position.
The top burners are cool. Little circular stones sit on top of the gas jets, guiding the gas into a nice round flame. Nice. I bet these puppies are gonna get HOT! And don't lose or break one. Probably not available at Home Depot, and not going to be cheap, for sure.
Don't try to lift the cook top, it doesn't come up.
The center grill is nice, but the little channels and collector for grease is sort of ...optimistic. Cook a few slices of bacon on this thing and grease is going to be running out the sides. I am thinking small pancakes or quesadillas (yeah, quesadillas with sharp cheddar and chicken and green salsa!).
The front right burner is HUGE, and will boil water in a flash. It could get waaaaaay out of hand if not watched carefully though.
The electronic controls are fun to mess with, and intuitive. Hit broil or bake (or their convection cousins) and them hit the temperature you want and then the time you want and that's it. Simple.
Can't wait to use the temp probe on a roast! Again, simple, intuitive.
Will write a follow up when I have used this thing for a while. We also have the Profile refrigerator (HUGE and no problems afetr 6 months) and the wall mounted microwave (the popcorn setting works PERFECT).
