Push Button GE Cutie!

[dalangdon]

My partner and I are attempting to buy a house together, so our respective houses are for sale. I didn't want to sell either my beloved Flair or O'Keefe & Merritt, so I dug up a cute little GE Push Button range on craigslist for free, and it is now sitting in my kitchen.

It is an interesting stove: there are no lights in the backsplash, but the oven has a window, and the fonts on the backsplash are definitely 60's-ish. Does anyone know when they stopped offering the push button burner option in favor of "infinite heat"?

I hope this house sells quickly, as I am starting to get attached to this stove ;-)

 

[maytagbear]

As far as I am concerned,

GE didn't stop selling the Keyboard control cooktops soon enough!

I do remember seeing new ones as late as 1967-68, but someone truly knowlegeable will know for sure

My second apartment had a BOL GE Keyboard range, and by the time I got my mitts on it, it was not only BOL, but a POS.

Electric ovens, particularly if they are self-cleaning can be good, but I am no fan of electric cooktops, and the Keyboard is even more annoying.

Good luck with the house project!

Lawrence/Maytagbear

 

[toggleswitch]

IDA KNOW-

I did just fine with the GE set heats when visiting Florida.
Cooked meals in my rented-for-the-week efficiency mini-apt. every day for Dad and brought them to him to freeze for future use.

The 20" compact GE stove had one large (8") and two small (6") surface elements. The larger was so abused (before me) and bent, that by the end of my stay it became pierced and the electicity was visibly and audibly arcing out to the metal reflector bowls underneath.

PS I was there in January, so a little heat was OK.
(For our international friends, Florida is a state very far south and nearest the equator on the eastern seaboard of the "lower 48" contiguous states) It went down to 40 F degrees one day and all of south Florida was a ghost town. Not a soul anywhere. I had my jacket open because it was 15 F degrees (IIRC, 10 F = 10C) here the week before I had gone down.

 

[pulltostart]

The 5-heat pushbuttons still existed into the early 70's on BOL ranges. I think in general the switchover to infinite heat rotary controls was accomplished between 1973 and 1975.
Lawrence

 

[tomturbomatic]

In 1974 Underwriters Laboratories or the Consumer Product Safety Commission mandated that all electric ranges have push to turn knobs for surface uints. They also were responsible for removing the appliance outlets on ranges because the range was grounded and if an appliance shorted it could make the range surface live. Funny how nothing is said about the touch pad controls.

Once you knew what each surface unit was going to do at each heat, the 5 heats were a snap. If the directions called for medium heat, you used 3, medium-high,2. You could always tell recipes were tested on gas stoves when they said to brown something in a skillet on HIGH. You just don't do that with electric cooking. We made great use of the 6 inch high speed Calrod on both of our GEs. On 2 and LO, only the inner portion heated so it was great for certain pans, especially for the small pans my parents used to warm leftover coffee all of those years before the Radar Range. It was also good for little 2 to 4 cup vacuum coffee makers and the percolator.

 

[westie2]

Push buttom GE's

We purchased a home that was built in 1969 and had the TOL GE builtin stainless cooktop with the pushbuttons in the venthood had the double oven P7 self cleaning. Was a great oven with meat probe and rotessire in upper oven and regular oven below. Cooktop had two large and two smaller burners.

 

[petek]

Removing the appliance outlets? Every range I've ever owned or used has and still does have them, two if it's deluxe

 

[dalangdon]

The back story...

I forgot to mention that the reason I was jonesing for a 50's-esque range was that the realtor had mentioned in the listing that the kitchen had a "cute 1950's-era range". Not that I would describe my 1960 Coppertone O'Keefe & Merritt "cute" - I think Handsome would be a better word - but there's no accounting for taste, is there?

 

[appnut]

Pete, ranges sold in Canada aren't "victims" of our Consumer Product Safety Commission. Wouldn't surprise me if you still can get new ranges in Canada with the "outlet".

 

[kenwashesmonday]

I believe it was the timed outlets that were removed. They sure were great for the coffee pot. Do newer ranges still have time-bake?

As for pushbuttons, I like them. Making rice? Just push low, put the cover on, and walk away. No bending over to see the flame size while you fiddle with the knob to try and get a nice low flame (oops it went out!).

Ken

 

[kenmore1978]

push buttons

My Grandmother's Frigidaire range didn't have push buttons, but it DID have the fixed heats. Maytagbear, you just LEARN how to deal with it. First rule, virtually NOTHING is ever cooked on HIGH on an electric range. It's just to get you going. You learn what each button does, and use appropriately.

 

[user 12105]

One type of cooktop heating can be good without the other being bad. It is really personal preference i think and what you cooked on for most of your life.

I personally prefer the instant response of gas as that is what i have been used to all my life, having said that though, i do like smoothtop cooktops as they do not seem to heat up the air like a gas flame does.

I was cooking at a friends house over the past weekend and this couple has a BOL Frigidaire 30" gas stove. Trying to adjust the flame to a low simmer without it either going out or increasing once you walked away was a real PIA.

I like the arrangement on my gas range : Off-Lite-High-medium-low-warm. Better than having low right after Lite.

Just my couple cents worth.

Pat

 

[tomturbomatic]

Agiflow Pat, the reason the gas burner heats up the air is because so much of the heat travels up the side of the pan instead of going in. You will notice a big difference between gas and electric surface units if you have the proper sized unit that is covered by the pan. You can hold your hand parallel to the side of the pan with the burner on High with an electric stove and not feel heat. You try it with a gas burner on High and you won't hold it there long. Electric surface units have efficiencies of 80% or better and gas burners are 60% or less, especially on some of these commercial stoves where the burners are positioned way below the burner grate which makes a higher flame necessary and those heavy grates will pull the heat out of the flame and send it quite a ways away from the pan. The other plus for electric stoves is that you can use a surface unit on the High setting under a pan that covers it or a small pan on the surface units that allow you to select a size and still get high heat going into the bottom of the pan, where with a gas flame, if you reduce the flame size so that it is just under a small pan, you are reducing the amount of heat going into the pan.

 

[DADoES]

My grandmother cannot handle an electric cooktop. She has to see a flame to get the feedback that something is happening. I grew up with electric and have always peferred it.

 

[petek]

Only once did I live in a place with a gas stove and that was in Vancouvers West End, old 5 storey apt building. No heat control in the suites which were all heated with central hot water so if it ever got chilly in there I'd fire up the stove, and place a fan blowing out of the kitchen down the hall. That way I didn't get hit with a higher power bill.. the gas was included in the rent.. not the electricity.

 

[kenmore1978]

gas vs electric

One thing for sure, the newer gas ranges are inferior to the older ones. The big complaint I have about my 80's vintage Montgomery Ward (WCI) range is that I can't the flame low enough. I have a set of Corning "Visions" cookware that it's virtually impossible not to scorch things in, no matter how low I make the flame. I've often thought "these would work much better on an eletric range". I finally bought one of those heat diffusers one puts under pans. The older gas ranges had things like 2 piece burners and grates with built-in diffuser plates. I like Toggleswitch's idea, have both kinds of ranges so you can use the advantages of each type

 

[toggleswitch]

 

[toggleswitch]

My father-in-law INSISTS gas is better, and that food is tastier when cooked on gas.

[His ex-wife had electric and his new wife (partner's mother) has gas... HMMMMMMM. Let's not EVEN go there. LOL]

I don't have the heart to tell him he is smelling the food because the convection current air-flow on top of the stove (from the gas flames) is pushing the smells into the room quicker, or that stuff in the oven has it's magnificent odors being pushed out of the oven vent, also by convection air-currents.

After all, taste is highly tied to smell. Look where the nose's "intake vents" are!

You don't argue with him. Only HE knows what's going on in the world, see! Moral of the story? Be nice to your children, they pick your nursing home and change your diaper.

 

[southernmdgeguy]

My experience

I love electric cooking, it is how I learned, and the little snick sound of pushing the buttons on the stove I just picked up brought that all rushing back.. I have a gas stove in my camper, and have found you have to have good cookware for better heat distribution, whereas, on electrics the heat is evenly distributed and your grilled cheese comes out nice and evenly brown My friend Brenda who cooks a lot, does her surface cooking on a gas stove, and all her baking in an old Montgomery Wards electric range in the basement, because she says electric bakes better. I asked her why she does not get one of those new hybrid ranges set up that way, she just likes her old stoves, she "knows" them. No wonder we are friends..
Scott

 

[toggleswitch]

IMHO those Amercian hybrids are WAY overpriced.
Many European stoves have --let's say

3 gas burners
1 electric surface element

and an electric oven/broiler.

The prices seem to be near the price of a one-fuel model.

 

[foraloysius]

LOL!!

So your father-in-law gives the gas range credit for the better food? Not your mother-in-law? You'd better watch that man! LOL

Hybrids are the standard overhere in the Netherlands. We have huge resources of natural gas so everybody cooks on gas. The first ones had gas ovens too, but nobody liked the gas ovens so the hybrids came into fashion.

The ones with 3 gas burners and 1 electric element are mainly or only sold in France I think. I never saw them in Holland or in Germany.

 

[toggleswitch]

What was the popular gripe/sentiment against gas ovens? For what reasons...

 

[foraloysius]

Actually I'm not sure about it, the change to electric ovens started in the late 70's and early 80's I think. I remember my brother and my SIL bought an all gas range in 1978 and I wondered why they didn't buy a range with an electric oven. I actually think this may have started as a marketing thing, almost everybody had a full gas range by then. Reasons in the marketing campaigns were better control over the oven temperature and a more even heat in the oven.

 

[maytagbear]

Some people feel

that gas, with its moisture from combustion is better for roasting, and that electricity's dry heat is better for flour baking. I have found no great difference in results either way. (Your results, may of course, vary) I do prefer a self-cleaning electric to a non-self cleaning electric, however. For now, gas is still cheaper here, however.

The real performance key is the thermostat.

An easy way of doing an approximate thermostat test is to get a tube of Pillsbury (or other) refrigerated dough product, and following the time/temperature on the label. Allow the oven to fully heat, and allow another 15 minutes to stabilize. Then, bake the product as labeled. If it burns in the "10-13" minutes, the oven runs waaaay hot. If underdone....

Easy as storebought buttermilk biscuits!

Lawrence/Maytagbear