48" Thermador Duel Fuel with Steamer; Should I Buy It?

Question

My wife and I are having an excruciating time choosing home appliances starting with a great range. My wife all the time cooks for our 4-person family (which often becomes a 6-person family when the in-laws visit for a couple months at a time) and it seems like a freestanding range with a larger and smaller oven would work great. We ran into the fact that Thermador has a 48" range that even includes a steamer that is supposed to be quite good for healthy cooking.

Does anyone have experience with the 48" Thermador Duel Fuel with Steamer (Model PRD48JDSGU) ?

I wanted to know any pros or cons that anyone had with this freestanding range.

If you didn't have experience with it, is there an alternative that you would suggest we buy?

Thanks in advance,
cino345

Answer

I would strongly suggest visiting appliance stores and putting hands on as many different ranges as possible. Before we settled on a Blue Star, we looked at a lot of ranges and checked out comments on garden web. Admittedly, the BS is not for everyone be it for the spartan appearance, lack of features such as clocks, timers, self clean oven, etc. Also, there were numerous negative comments regarding their service as well as fit and finish. 

In visiting several stores specializing is "pro-sumer" ranges, I saw plenty of minor issues with all the brands we looked at. True, they were minor and could be easily fixed. Bottom line, nothing is going to be perfect. We looked at Wolf (with the motorized control panel), Viking, Five Star, Thermador with its bronze star shaped burners, and a couple of others whose names escape me at the moment. The bottom line is that you will read comments of praise and condemnation on just about any range you are looking at. Recently Capital has been getting good reviews from it's powerful burners to its rotisserie. I did not look at Capital; did not even know it existed. But I can tell you that it does get good reviews. The rotisseries, if I were in the market for a new range, would be a negative from the standpoint of it being something that could go wrong and be expensive to repair if out of warranty. I had the same general thought regarding the Wolf and the control panel. 

May manufacturers will answer your question over the telephone and should confirm any problems their product has had and how it was remedied. Just make sure you have a list of those problems handy to discuss. You are going to have this range for a good long time so it behooves you to do your research. For us, we spent several months and narrowed it down to the Five Star and the BS and chose BS primarily because of it's burner design.

Good luck.

Answer

We have a big Thermador with the grill in the middle at my office. I always wanted one, now I would never buy one. There are inherent design flaws. Not the least of which is the drip area on the grill. It has two levels - towards the front, it sits well less than an inch below the grill burner. Know what that means? Flare ups. All the time. Unless your meat is fat free, count on fire after fire. Ugh.

Answer

Hello Cino 345
Did you end up getting the 48" thermador duel fuel with steamer combo? How is it working out? I have a small kitchen and love the concept of the steamer and oven combo, but very weary with the reviews. 
Thanks

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48" Thermador Duel Fuel with Steamer; Should I Buy It?

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