Does anyone have experience using a solid-burner (sealed element, European
type) stove or range-top?  The companies say there were unpopular because they
tended to rust and cooled off too quickly, but I never noticed these problems
when in Europe.  Are there any real disadvantages?

22 responses total.

Electric?

Yes, the black cast iron type.  We have one that someone threw out, and wonder
if it is worth fixing the oven.  You have to turn it up all the way to get
something to boil in a reasonable amount of time, which probably means that
there is a lot of fine control on the lower settings.

I'm not sure of the type of element you're asking about but
we have a Jenn-Air solid element stovetop and I like it
a lot.  It heats up quickly but unless the bottom of your
pot is very flat it does take a while to bring a pot of
water to boil.  There isn't any rust problem.  It's a
snap to keep the stove clean.  The burners take a bit
to cool down after being turned off.  

One of Jan's German relatives visited the US a few months ago.  She seemed
to think that the stoves she saw in the US were positively barbaric.  My guess
is that these things wouldn't be so popular in Europe if they didn't basically
work okay.  But I really don't know much about the topic.

I have noticed that on my coil-type Frigidaire stove (which has particularly
wide rigid coil) if your pot does not contact every single bit of the coil,
the uncontacted part glows, meaning the heat is just going into the air.  This
is particularly bad with my pressure cooker, which has a raised part in the
middle.  Is this problem worse with the European type element?  I was hoping
the solid burner would transmit more of the heat to the pot, not less.  And
that perhaps it would be more efficient because there is insulation under the
element instead of just air, and no convection currents.
We have a collection of used stoves that we are experimenting with, including
a smooth-top (which is awful to clean, needs paper towels and a special
cleaner instead of a soapy sponge), a push-button type (fun), and two
different styles of coil type.  Are the magnetic induction types still around
and are they worth the price?  I am concerned about low frequency
electromagnetic radiation from them.  (ELFS, said to cause cancer).  Any
experience, anybody, with halogen types?  We also tested an old oven against
a self-cleaning oven.  Once they get warmed up to temperature, in about 20
minutes, the self-cleaning (better insulated, with a gasket) only comes on
half as often, for about 30% energy savings.  But the newer self-cleaning
ovens don't appear to be insulated.  I was told the government had changed
the rules to just requiring that the door stay cool, so they are ventilating
instead of insulating.

  You might want to call The Appliance Doctor's radio show about this.
He is on WJR (760) on Saturday and Sunday's around noon. I have been listening
to his show for about a year and he appears to know what he's talking about.

Well, if the red-glowing part of the coil is under the pot, the heat isn't
really wasted (where does it go, if not into the pot?) that much.  

The pushbutton stoves are clever (2 coils, the buttons select various
combinations of 120/240 volt,s coils in series, parallel, or individual.  The
trouble is getting an exact heat setting.  When I lived in a house with one
of these, some types of cooking would require switching back and forth between
2 buttons to get a setting "in between".

The red glowing part of the coil is not under the pot, but next to it.
Have not listened to WJR, I will tune in tomorrow around noon.
I heard that the solid-element burners have some way of maintaining
temperature that is different from the coil types, that there is a sensor in
the burner not just in the switch.  Is that right?  We also have one burner
in which we can see a sensor in the middle, for more precise control.  I don't
understand the different between the two, does anyone?  Maybe one has a sensor
of the element temperature, and the other of the pot temperature?

There are (have been?) electric stoves with a "sensor burner", where a temp
sensor is located in the middle of the coils, spring-loaded  to contact the
pan.  The knob for that burner has a thermostat with temp settings, so you
could have precise control.  The reality was that the sensor went bad quickly,
and reading pot content temp through the heated bottom isn't very accurate
at all.  I don't know if these have been improved recently, though.

One thing that would worry me about the flat-top stoves is that it seems that
it would be hard to tell if a burner was on.  I'd expect those to be prone
to being left on accidentally, or to the thing where you turn on a back burner
by mistake when you thought you were turning on a front burner and it takes
a while to notice.  I guess you get used to being careful about these things.

Sindi -- Why does the sealed-burner stove require special cleaning stuff
instead of a soapy sponge?

Our burner sensor seems to have joined the ranks of the ones that went bad.
It got pushed down too far and needs readjusting.  My mother's old push-button
stove also had one of these devices, but we never figured out how to use it.

On our smooth-top stove, the elements glow somewhat, and there is a light that
warns you of a hot stovetop, but I don't like it either.  If you use a soapy
sponge, any food from the sponge will be smeared on the smooth top and turns
brown when heated and any acid also etches the glass, as does sugar.  I was
always trying to scrub off the brown layer with baking soda, a mild abrasive,
rather than buy the expensive (aned smelly, I think) commercial cream.  You
can't use a strong abrasive on the glass like you can on metal.  I think
people only buy them because of their looks.  They used to heat up very slowly
but supposedly that has been corrected.  We have one of the older type (glass
instead of ceramic) that I hope my rommate will someday agree to sell (once
a diode gest replaced in it).  It also has electronic controls which are not
very intuitive.

I found the Appliance Doctor on WJR, 760 AM, Sunday at 1-2, broadcasting from
Cobol Hall.  The Doctor told the first caller that his refrigerator problem
was definitely due to the fan being stuck.  The caller replied that he could
see it moving.  (Strike 1).  The second caller, whose washing machine made
noises, was told to call a specific appliance repair place in Warren (Strike
2).  I bet our do-it-yourselfers at Grex (see the new DIY conference, this
is a plug) could do better than this!  By accident, something to do with the
radio dial not being calibrated right, I tuned into the Canadian station at
79about 795, on cooking, and this was much better.  A nice discussion of
rolled versus forged knives.  Would anyone like to start a knife item here?
I have a favoriate Thai knife from the Thai-Lao store, cost about $5,
stainless, does everything well, like a narrower version of a Chinese knife.

An unexpected problem with our solid-element electric range is the little
button in the middle-sized burner, which is supposed to maintain a very stable
temperature, but when we turn it to the highest setting it goes on and off,
and is on only half the time, therefore is practically useless for bringing
anything to the boil, and since it is the only element that size, we had to
put the pressure cooker on the smaller burner, where is also took twice as
long to heat up as on an open-coil stove's large burner.  Also, the black
glass door does not let you see through the window well enough to tell if
bread is browned, it is practically useless as well.  So we expect to use one
of the old-fashioned types with a porcelain-enamel oven door that has a clear
window in it (and an aluminum guard that you can close it off with if wanted)
and coils that heat up faster.

Those sensor buttons are very unreliable.

Our stove has one of those sensors, & I've basically given up on that burner.
Pity, since like yours ours is the largest burner.  (Ours is a coil,
though.)  I've often wondered if replacing the thing would make it work
better.

I am afraid it is working as designed, it is not broken.  Well, two strikes
against that stove, plus it needs flat pots to work properly.  But it is a
bit easier to keep clean with the solid elements.  I have yet to see any
advantage of black or white glass oven doors, unless for some reason the look
of a glass window offends you.  Jim actually repaired the sensor button
(which was pushed out of place) before we used the burner, it is just designed
to cycle on and off to avoid burning things.  Wish they had used one of the
small burners for that instead, as there are two of them.  We also have an
old coil-type stove with a sensor element, they go in and out of style.

I wonder if there's some way you can wire around that sensor or insert 
some kind of resistor so that you can still use the burner with the 
regular control knob.

If you think of one, let us know.  We could get controls out of some other
stove to replace the controls with, but have no cheap access to any other
burners of this type.  Besides it does not work well if the pot bottom is not
flat, and I don't like the poorly insulated oven door that I cannot see
through the window of.  The old-fashioned stove works better.
        Davel, I think it was, had a similar burner.  Was it the regular coil
type?  If so, we have extra controls if you want to experiment, or we
can tell you where to find your own.

In my new place of residence, there is one of the 'smooth-top' type 
stoves. I've used it a few times and so far, I think I like it better 
than the traditional electric stove.  I'm not sure yet how it compares 
with a gas stove, though, since its been so long since I've cooked with 
a gas one...

I had a smooth top and grew to hate it.  I couldn't get the elements
hot enough for, say, a good stir-fry.  Too, if the bottom of the pan
wasn't exactly, EXACTLY flat, it would take friggin' forever to bring
a big pot of water to a boil.  

I disliked the surface so much that I replaced it with traditional 
coil elements eventually.  

Jim still has his sealed-element stove.  I cook on a hotplate at his house.
The stove is ridiculously slow to warm up and cool down and I forget about
it and burn things ten minutes later.  He likes the stove because it is easy
to clean.  

My impression is that good newer smoothtops are a lot better than the
older ones.

They are not as difficult to clean as the older ones, I think.  What happened
to induction cooking, that was supposed to heat your iron-based pot?

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