The GE and Hotpoint at the cottage are there by circumstance. When the compulsion came over me to start rescuing all these old stoves, those were the first two that I came across. One was $10 at a yard sale and the other was given to me. I actually built my kitchen shed at the cottage as a place to put and use the old Hotpoint (an idea I wish I had long before - it sure is nice on the hot summer days to have the stove outside the house!). They both do a very good job. All the burners work properly and the GE has one speed Calrod burner (right front) that heats water almost instantly - it really works great.
I grew up with electric stoves and learned how to cook on them. I can do fine with a gas range, but it always takes some getting used to. I do a lot of cooking for an old Polish church in Detroit and cook on a big SouthBend 8-burner, double oven with a griddle range. It is gas, of course, and I can cook on it without any trouble. That said, I take a real comfort in an electric range - I guess it's just what I'm used to. It's a bummer when the power goes out, however!!
My mom and grandmother both had Frigidaire ranges (although my mom's first stove was a '55 Norge). My daily driver at home is a Frigidaire glass-top (purchased new in 2000) and it has never let me down. It bakes fairly evenly and maintains tempurature beautifully. I'm still not sure how I feel about the glass top, but it is easy to clean and serves as extra counter space when I'm not using it.
So, do you prefer your controls on the back dash rather than in front? Interesting. I never thought much about it, but I always thought they moved the controls so kids wouldn't set the house on fire. I always thought that gas stoves would be better to have the knobs on the front, so when you turned a burner on you wouldn't burn your arm or set your shirt a blazin'....that polyester can go up like a matchstick ;-)
The thing I like about the older Frigidaires is the wide radiantube elements. I think they provide more surface-to-surface contact and so maybe they would transfer the heat better and be more efficient. This Westinghouse I picked up over the weekend also has wider coils - not as wide as the Frigidaire, but wider than GE. They are Corax units.
My Detroit kitchen doesn't have room for a 40, only a 30. One of these stoves is a 38 (that may be the Norge). For this reason, I tried to limit myself to only picking up 30's, but alas, I'm a sucker for a pretty face.
