What's your experience cooking with a freestanding oven?

Crikey · Aug 16, 2016 2:16 am

Howdy ho

so we're building and are about to head into prestart

One of the million overwhelming decisions we have to make are in the kitchen
my wife and I really like the free standing upright oven - 900 wide

She was a little concerned when a friend mentioned that the upright ovens don't cook very well - take a long time to heat up, variable in heating compared to the built-in ovens

Just wanted to ask you genteel folks about your cooking experience, consistency. variability, reliability, challenges, joys of using one before we make the investment

If you could please also indicate your oven brand/type/age - that'll be really appreciated giving everyone some context

Thank you for sharing!

Ponzu · Aug 16, 2016 7:32 am

Those factors are all typically relative to the quality of the oven, not the type of oven.

The biggest drawback to a freestanding one is that overtime food scraps end up down the side between the cabinetry and the oven. I love the freestanding variety too, but the next one will have built in ovens and a stove top in the bench.

Crikey · Aug 16, 2016 1:02 pm

Quote:

Those factors are all typically relative to the quality of the oven

Thanks Ponzu - good point

so another question would be, how do we tell what is a good quality oven? :th:

Here's a link I came across from Choice on a quick search but it's more of a general buying guide rather than - how to see if it's a good quality oven or not

https://www.choice.com.au/home-and-living/kitchen/ovens/buying-guides/ovens

Ponzu · Aug 16, 2016 10:50 pm

Perhaps you want to establish what your budget is and what your builder is offering as options. Do some research on those options in your range and if they appeal to you, choose one. If they don't, get the provisions installed and have stuff installed after hand over (note this is tricky because you sort of need to know what's going in before the kitchen is ordered by your builder so that the cabinetmaker knows how to fit everything off).

But seriously there is no single answer to your question of what is best. The guide you linked explains all the options available, and you need to decide which of those functions you need vs want and then shop from there.

Eg I keep birds, so I will never have a self cleaning oven. Or any oven coated in Teflon for that matter.

Ponzu · Aug 16, 2016 11:03 pm

As to quality, as long as it's not a bottom of the barrel home brand (ie "chef" "blanco" "technika" etc) it will be fine

Crikey · Aug 17, 2016 3:30 pm

Thanks Ponzu

We've been getting conflicting information from different salespeople
HN says to stay away from Westinghouse
GG says it's their best selling range

wife is now checking out Westinghouse after looking at reviews and apparently the european italian brands aren't that reliable...

Ponzu · Aug 18, 2016 11:00 pm

Don't bother with sales people opinions. Their job is to extract as much money as you can afford to pay for whatever it is they're selling.

Pick what you like, read up about it. If it's overwhelmingly positive, buy it.

Ponzu · Sep 23, 2016 6:03 am

You don't move oven around like an armchair... Moving it anywhere would still required gas plumbing/electrical a to be accounted for also. I don't see moving it as any more flexible, because ovens generally don't get moved.