Cohousing-L Mailing List: Re: Common House Kitchen Stove

[Joani Blank (jeblank]

David (and anyone else who is thinking about the choice of a common house
stove).

We have just completed our common kitchen planning with Katie so these
thoughts include her wisdom about stoves, the results of the design
committee's deliberations, and my personal experience with the stove at
Doyle St. 

You can (and should ) get residential  or what are sometimes called
commercial/residential stoves  with 15,000 BTU burners (big enough to heat
up a big kettle quite fast). A real commercial stove will cost you twice as
much as a residential stove. More important, it requires a mondo and very
expensive hood and venting system.  I think that even without an extra
fancy hood, you may be able to even get one wok burner that is 20,000 or
even 25,000 BTUs.

At Doyle St. we have a Viking commercial residential stove with six
burners. It is very adequate to our needs, but we have had problems with
the one we got. Hopefully, it is just this one that is a quasi-lemon.  ( I
guess on all these stoves, the ignition systems and the thermostats are the
parts most likely to go out, but on the one we have, these two items have
given us more than the expected amount of grief. I'd also recommend
stainless steel top (area around the burners). The heat of these burners
has quite permanently damaged the surface enamel or burned on food so
solidly that we  can't get it off. It is hard to tell.