Location of stove/cooker knobs.

[toggleswitch]

Here are spin-off questions inspired by Nate's (in Tucson, AZ) stove/cooker thread. [I just love that Classic GE!]

Electric stoves/cookers in the USA usually have a "front-rear-rear-front" knob configuration [one-piece free-standing units]. Cooktops/hobs are another story. Is this the configuration elsewhere, if not what is it? Also the controls are mounted high on the backsplash to keep them away from children.

Gas surface burners on a cooker (here) normally, for safety, turn "OFF" with the normal motion of the right hand [clock-wise]. Ditto elsewhere? On a gas stove (push-to-turn for safety) they MAY NOT be located on the backsplash to keep sleeves out of flames.

What about in your piece of real-estate?

 

[maytagbear]

And that is one reason

why I HATE electric stoves! (other reasons, as well, but this is a big reason.)

Electric built-in cooktops are different, because the controls are on the cooktop, and you don't have to reach over them.

I hate to reach over an active cooktop, even if the elements are covered with a pan.

Lawrence/Maytagbear

 

[tomturbomatic]

Old Maytag gas stoves had the burner controls on the backsplash. We have seen the dials, but has anyone seen the one with "airplane" type controls? Instead of dials, there were chrome levers with a rounded grip at the end that traveled up and down in chrome slots to control the burners. Very radical. Then the first Roper or Modern Maid gas self-cleaning oven ranges had the burner dials in a cluster in the center of the backsplash. They must have been afraid of the heat melting the knobs and valves if they were located on the front of the stove, or maybe just making them too hot to touch.

Last week one of the big apt. houses in Wheaton, MD had a fire alarm go off when a man set his sleeve on fire while cooking on his gas cooktop. He panicked and ran into the hall where a neighbor extinguished the flames.

 

[rp2813]

Agreed that knobs on the front make much more sense. I had an 80's GE electric range in the house I bought 16 years ago and it had knobs on the backsplash. I hated it and replaced it with a Jenn-Air "dual fuel" range with gas burners and knobs up front when I remodeled the kitchen soon after moving in. Don't buy Jenn-Air gas stoves, by the way. They are flimsy rattletraps weak on BTU's and don't age well IMHO, although I have no complaints about the electric oven with convection option.

My mom still has her '49 Westinghouse electric range as the "daily driver" in her kitchen. Knobs are on the backsplash but this is a wider than average stove with burners on the right side and work surface on the left side above the oven. The knobs are behind that work surface so you're never reaching over the burners to get at them. This design I can understand but on modern stoves I don't get why designers think putting the knobs on the backsplash isn't unsafe. Kind of amazing that some consumer protection group hasn't pushed for idiot-proofing regulations around knob placement already.

 

[dalangdon]

My Tappan Fabulous 400 GAS stove has eye-level controls, so you can't set yourself on fire unless you are wearing trailing veils or something like that.

Not that I ever wear trailing veils, especially when cooking.

 

[toggleswitch]

HMMM based on my previous gas stove, a "Caloric" brand with horizontal knobs on a "shelf", that F$%^&*ing shelf was a grease-trap. Forever dirty. It was like a child's @$$. Forever in need of a wiping. Hated it.

I much prefer knobs in the back, away from the grease and dirt.