My feed
Premium

Please
or
to access all these features

Join our Property forum for renovation, DIY, and house selling advice.

Property/DIY

Rangemaster with induction hob - worth it?

63 replies

PorkyandBess · 19/05/2012 15:00

We are getting the Rangemaster Professional range.

We have no gas, so have to get all electric.

My dh is insisting that we get the induction hob rather than ceramic.

I am baulking at the considerable extra price.

Has anyone got an induction hob? Are they as fabulous as he insists they are?

OP posts:
Report
DaisySteiner · 19/05/2012 15:04

Afraid I can't offer any help about the induction hob - we aren't on mains gas, but balked at the cost of an induction hob and the need to make sure every saucepan is 'induction-friendly' - we would have had to buy some new saucepans.

In the end we had calor gas tanks fitted - it didn't cost much at all (less than the price difference between the two types) and we could keep our pans.

Report
PacificDogwood · 19/05/2012 15:04

No idea about Rangemaster, but I would only ever part with my induction hob over my dead body Grin.
I went from ceramic to induction (same ceramic plate on top) and it is fab. Faster than gas (I also have 1 gas wok flame which I sometimes use for pans that don't work on induction) with all the benefits of ceramic.
I love, love, LOVE that the plate is not that hot once you remove the pot.
Also, that there is no energy wasted/nothing gets hot when somebody DS4 inadvertently switches something on by playing with knobs.

Go for it.

Report
PorkyandBess · 19/05/2012 15:11

Thanks for comments.

No to Calor Gas as we already have a mahoosive oil tank blighting the garden.

PacificDogwood, my dh loves you! I will probably agree. He fancies himself as a chef and does all the cooking, so this is a huge deal to him.

OP posts:
Report
PacificDogwood · 19/05/2012 15:21

Have you seen a demonstration of an induction hob?

We did before we bought (in vair fancy kitchen shop) and even though I had heard lots of good things about induction hobs, I was totally blown away.
Cold water from tap brought to the boil in the blink of an eye etc.

The piece de resistance was the small frying pan they had which had been cut in half: raw egg in so half of it spilt over on to the actual plate. Hey presto, fried egg in pan, stone cold raw egg on plate Grin.

I have also left plastic milk carton on hob which DS4 then switched on (don't ask, he is 2 and a liability: knows how to push chair to cooker so he can reach over knob guard Hmm) and I thanked my lucky stars that I had not 6pts of milk leaking all over my kitchen from a molten bottle!

You could of course remain violently opposed to the induction thing and insist that if your DH goes ahead he will HAVE to do all the cooking all of the time for ever Grin!!

Report
PorkyandBess · 19/05/2012 15:46

You see, he already does all the cooking, so I don't really have grounds for argument.

He saw demo at Good Food Show, like you described, so has been evangelical ever since. I do like to sound of cold water boiling really quickly though.

I had budgeted £1200 for range, this will take it up to £2000! In addition, we'll have to buy new saucepans..

This is after a week in which I discovered new floor will be £1500.

OP posts:
Report
PacificDogwood · 19/05/2012 15:50

We baught a ridiculously expensive kitchen (5 years later I am still in denial about how much it was Shock) and EVERYTHING else in our entire house is from Ikea/B+Q Grin.

This is our forever-house and to date I do not regret those priorities.

Report
annalouiseh · 19/05/2012 15:51

what range you looking at?
the Toledo 900 or 1100?

Report
PorkyandBess · 19/05/2012 15:57

It's the Rangemaster Professional 900

£1800 on this site that I have just discovered!

OP posts:
Report
APipkinOfPepper · 19/05/2012 16:02

Watching this thread as we are considering getting an induction hob when we do our kitchen. DH is very enthusiastic, but I've heard they can make a buzzing noise which put me off (does this depend on the pans you have?).

Report
pippop1 · 19/05/2012 16:02

I have an induction hob and love it. Switched from gas when had new kitchen installed 2 years ago. I love that you can tell it to cook something and then it turns itself off. e.g. simmer soup for 30 mins and then turn off. I can go and do something else like have a shower.

Also v easy to clean (compared to gas). My parents have a ceramic hob which looks virtually identical but is sooooo slooooow. Have to heave big pans around if something is about to boil over. Which mine I just turn it off/down and the crisis is averted.

Report
annalouiseh · 19/05/2012 16:08

the buz on our de De Dietrich only starts on hob control number 14 out of 15.
Just the power I think.
Pan choice wont make a difference as works on magnets

Report
TalkinPeace2 · 19/05/2012 16:29

LOVE my induction hob.
Just love it.

And as a really silly point : a commercial kitchen I know of upped their budget to get induction hobs instead of gas.
Saved a FORTUNE on extractor fans - as the "heating" elements generate no heat AND when not in use - like three minutes after the pans have come off - the hobs are work surfaces

ALSO
the up front cost of a hob is a bit eyewatering (ours is Neff) BUT the running costs are almost the cheapest there are - so you'll save it back in a year or two

Buzzing noise : I have tinnitus and yes, you can hear when the magnets are on BUT its quieter than the sound of the bubbling pasta - and the patterns when making gravy are groovy

Report
PacificDogwood · 19/05/2012 16:33

The buzzing here (Gaggenau) is really quiet ie you'd really have to listen out for it and it only buzzes on the highest setting. Really not an issue IME.

Report
greyvix · 19/05/2012 23:32

I also love my Neff induction hob. 5 years on it looks like new (unless you look too close). It is very quiet.

Report
Flatbread · 20/05/2012 07:51

We got portable induction hobs. A single and a double one. We put the single in the breakfast area in the kitchen, great for making coffee or eggs. The two burner one is in the main cooking area. We are looking for a seriously powerful gas wok burner and with that we will have all the cooking requirements taken care of. We also have a built in steam oven and are on the lookout for a commercial/ professional oven.

I love freestanding/ portable kitchen stuff because I can reorganise and change without having to think about the counter cuts etc.

Our induction plates are Quigg, a German make from Aldi. The single cost 35 euros or so and the double one was twice that. Absolutely fantastic quality, and like the other poster, I use the timer function all the time.

Report
Flatbread · 20/05/2012 07:58

To add, when we moved into our house there was a built in four burner induction hob. It was my first time with induction and I totally fell in love with it! But over time, one of the burners stopped working, and it was a pain to change the whole thing. So when I redid the kitchen, I went for portable/ freestanding equipment.

Report
IvanaHumpalot · 20/05/2012 10:21

Love my induction hob. I've had Miele, currently got Gorenji (I wanted a white hob!). Both hum, but only noticeable when all 4 plates in action at same time or on high power. 3 years on it still looks like new (Method Tub Scrub).

Report
larrygrylls · 20/05/2012 10:33

Spent a lot on induction hob when had kitchen redone, despite wanting gas (apparently the pipes are not big enough for decent gas hob). It has pros and cons but I personally do not love it and find it hard to believe that any professional kitchen would use it.

The pros are it heats up (and cools down) very quickly and it is v safe for children.

The cons are having to buy a lot of new cookware (it has to be magnetic) and that it only heats directly above the ring, so a large steak pan will only be hot in the area above the ring and you can get well done steak in the middle and raw and cold on the outside. Most importantly, it deals very badly with water spillage. If water boils over, it just turns itself off and gives a whole load of error messages until it is wiped dry and turned on again. That is a big drawback for any serious cook.

Report
larrygrylls · 20/05/2012 10:34

And it is a Siemens hob costing well in excess of £1,000, so not a cheap and cheerful one.

Report
peggyblackett · 20/05/2012 10:39

We have a Rangemaster with induction hob. We bought it about 6 months ago and love it. It really is super quick to heat up (and cool down).

Report
PorkyandBess · 20/05/2012 10:39

Thanks all. I didn't know they hummed. Mind you, dh has tinnitus and reduced hearing in one ear, so I can't see it bothering him too much.

Larrygryls - interesting re some cons at last.

OP posts:
Report
Flatbread · 20/05/2012 10:46

Gosh Larry, my cheap and cheerful one is ok with waterspills. The pasta water always boils over (so does the rice water) and never had an issue. Maybe the Seimens one is too high-tech Grin

The induction plate coverage area is big, it easily covers a large saucepan, so we don't have the hot and cold effect. Otherwise agree that would be a pain.

Most of our pots and pans were le cruset in any case, so we did't have to buy new ones. The only one which was a pain to change was my beloved omelette pan, which is not induction friendly. I cannot get myself to give it up, so still make omelettes on the gas burner, although scrambled ones are done on the induction.

Report

Don’t want to miss threads like this?

Weekly

Sign up to our weekly round up and get all the best threads sent straight to your inbox!

Log in to update your newsletter preferences.

You've subscribed!

larrygrylls · 20/05/2012 10:48

Porky,

I am interested to know what the general experience is with pans boiling over? Is it just my unit that has problems or is it generic to induction? Or is everyone else such a careful cook (or non cook) that they never spill a drop of water on them?

FWIW, ours does hum a bit on a high setting but it is really hardly noticeable and definitely not irritating.

Report
claudedebussy · 20/05/2012 10:52

i have a miele induction hob and it's great.

i don't have that problem with water boiling over, which i'm ashamed to admit it does, because i'm impatient.

i will never go back to gas. it would be like going back to the stone age.

and i notice that dear old heston has them in his kitchen. so i think professionals indeed do use it.

it's got much greater control than gas, and is much more powerful.

Report
claudedebussy · 20/05/2012 10:55

larry, i've only ever had my hob switch off automatically once in the 3.5 years i've had it. and that was when it got completely and utterly drenched in boiling water.

my hob gets quite a battering. my dh is fond of frying at a very high heat with lots of oil that splatters all over and gets underneath the pan. it still hasn't marked although i do admit that i clean it after almost every use. it's so easy to clean that it's not a problem. nowhere near as problematic as a gas hob.

Report
Please create an account

To comment on this thread you need to create a Mumsnet account.