2 GORGEOUS SS Chambers wall ovens

[michaelh]

From FB marketplace in Lemont, IL at a healthy sale price of $2600.

I absolutely love the look of these. And I saw a matching SS cooking station also posted that would look pretty awesome together (similar to what you can partially see on the right in the first pic).

https://www.facebook.com/marketplace/item/713654670696110/?ref=search

 

[michaelh]

In addition

Here’s the matching cook top

 

[combo52]

Chambers, built-in, gas, wall, ovens, and cooktop

Not quite sure how old these are I would say late 50s possible early 60s.

They sure are cool looking and they certainly weren’t used much. They would never be in that condition. Cooking equipment deteriorate so much faster than electric.

Would be great for a museum, those ovens were very slow to heat up and stayed hot forever because of the retained principal they used they weren’t great for normal cooking that we are used to today. The ovens because of the very thick oven floor took a very long time to heat up and then they didn’t brown worth a Darn they weren’t good for baking, probably did very well with a roast or something like that.

I guess they’re getting ready to remodel, the kitchen.

John

 

[bajaespuma]

Chambers, another great, extinct American Brand

I live near the Thimble Islands on the Connecticut shoreline. One of these islands that is now owned by the State Parks department has a house on it that was built by a Yale architect in the very early Sixties.

The kitchen had the same Chambers ovens and cooktop as in this post but they had the copper finish. Island houses all had gas refrigerators so that was long gone. The stoves were not is as good condition as the ones here but, to be fair, being in a kitchen exposed to salty sea air couldn't have helped.

 

I knew a lot of families in the Sixties who owned gorgeous varieties of Chambers stoves and they were very happy with their performance. The common thread was, "once you get used to they way it cooks, it's wonderful'. The cooktops alone were distinctive for those "daisy" burners; users I knew thought the griddle/broiler was used so successfully and often that they also said they were hard to clean. Granted, the Sixties were a much different era than now in the world of home cooks. To me, Chambers stoves were the Jaguars of the appliance industry--classy, beautifully hand crafted, finicky and an expensive bitches to repair.

 

This sale looks like some sort of model home and somebody went to a lot of trouble to polish these things up and paid for a professional photographer to fetch the high price. I'm guessing a professional Stager was at work here. That said, they shouldn't have posted shots of the ovens' interiors...they tell a completely different story. I wonder if those "Cook with the Gas off" ovens hold in enough hot steam to do a number on the oven walls and racks over time.

 

[tomturbomatic]

Chambers was bought by KitchenAid, I don't know whether KA was still owned by Hobart of if it had become part of Whirlpool, but it was around the early 80s, I believe. Anyway, KitchenAid wanted a complete appliance line for their dealers. There was an electric Chambers wall oven in a place where I worked to earn money for some work on my house. It was small inside, like other Chambers ovens. I saw an unused Chambers gas oven in a resale store and it still had the broiler griddle in it. Because of the gas oven's construction, there was no broiler compartment so there was this heavy cast iron plate that was heated over the oven burner in the place of the heavy baking plate and then it was like pan broiling in a cast iron skillet, good, but then you had the whole oven cavity splattered with grease.

 

[qsd-dan]

Quality stainless steel. Not the junk today where one lightly drags a fingernail across and a permanent scratch is staring at you for eternity. It's amazing something that's 60+ years old looks like it was installed the previous day.

 

[michaelh]

Chambers KitchenAid

Tom,

I just saw the “chambers” name on the KitchenAid by Hobart manufacturing dates list that is floating around this site a few days ago. Interesting to know!

 

[electronicontrl]

Chambers was bought by KitchenAid, I don't know whether KA was still owned by Hobart of if it had become part of Whirlpool, but it was around the early 80s, I believe. Anyway, KitchenAid wanted a complete appliance line for their dealers. There was an electric Chambers wall oven in a place where I worked to earn money for some work on my house. It was small inside, like other Chambers ovens. I saw an unused Chambers gas oven in a resale store and it still had the broiler griddle in it. Because of the gas oven's construction, there was no broiler compartment so there was this heavy cast iron plate that was heated over the oven burner in the place of the heavy baking plate and then it was like pan broiling in a cast iron skillet, good, but then you had the whole oven cavity splattered with grease.

When KitchenAid acquired Chambers, they were owned by Dart & Kraft. The first KitchenAid cooking products brochures were from around 1984 iirc. Whirlpool bought KA in 1986. The KA cooktops and wall ovens looked classy next to the KA dishwasher!