Triple Double Dinner Dials!

[moparguy]

Three GE Dinner Dial double wall ovens that are posted on marketplace... in three different colors (stainless, pink, and coppertone)!

https://www.facebook.com/marketplace/item/741711977492881/?ref=saved&referral_code=null

https://www.facebook.com/marketplace/item/125666387135551/?ref=saved&referral_code=null

https://www.facebook.com/marketplace/item/1291369521433528/?ref=saved&referral_code=null
https://www.facebook.com/marketplace/item/741711977492881/?ref=saved&referral_code=null

 

[repairguy]

Those are neat. I have one in turquoise. I like the cook tops with the controls on the range vent. I have a copper tone hood with controls but no cook top. Thanks for posting.

 

[tomturbomatic]

Make sure it works before you buy it. Dinner Dial components have not been available for decades.

 

[luxflairguy]

Grew up with dinner dials both on oven and cooktop! Still miss 'em! Greg

 

[circlew]

Dinner Dials on cooktop?

Any GE built-in cooktop I've seen from that time period has had push buttons. I've seen them mounted on the cooktop itself, a panel on the wall or cabinet front, or on the vent hood. Later (after early 70's) versions had knobs, but the settings were marked on the knobs themselves. Was it a regular GE, or maybe a fancy Hotpoint cooktop?

 

[luxflairguy]

Tom! Let me clarify. My family had a dinner dial oven mid range, with the deluxe cooktop with exhaust hood with push buttons for all burner including the SensiTemp. But the dinner dial was only for the ST!. You had buttons for the size, 4,6,8 and griddle. The dial was for the temp only. This was all in a house built in 1962. We lived there from 1965 'til 1994 ish. Greg

 

[circlew]

Thanks for the explanation, Greg. One of my neighbors had a cooktop with SensiTemp and hood mounted controls, but the temperature markings were printed on the knob. Theirs had a little knob to select element size desired. GE must have discontinued Dinner Dial controls for SensiTemp units by the time they got it.

 

[bajaespuma]

The life and times of the much-maligned Sensi Temp

We had a GE cooktop with hood-mounted controls for 16 years when they sold the house. The bottom RH side bank of buttons controlled the front 8" Sensi-Temp burner. That burner's temperature control was a "Dinner Dial" that was mounted next to the buttons on the black (or turquoise, or yellow, or pink, or woodtone brown) glass front surface of that hood. Burner size (4", 6", 8", GRIDDLE) was controlled by the buttons; burner heat (150^o-500^o, SIMMER, LOW BOIL, MED BOIL, HIGH BOIL) was controlled by the Dinner Dial. Lemme see if I have a picture.

 

Sadly, nobody in the family except me bothered to figure out how that wonderful Sensi-Temp burner (and similar burners made by other manufacturers) worked. They even threw out the griddle at some point very early in the game. It was an idea that died because the same people who would later spend money on Slow Cookers, never realized its potential. My parents hated it because they used the cooktop mostly for boiling water in a Revere Ware tea kettle for making instant coffee and they never understood that the burner would bring the kettle to a full boil, then lower the heat automatically to maintain the heat. It was my family's mishegoss to let the kettle screech on the 8" LH back burner for a long time before they believed the water was hot enough to make a decent cup of shitty instant coffee. In hindsight, they would have been happier with the next model down which, I guess, is the one we're discussing.

 

[luxflairguy]

That's the hood!

Thanks Ken for the pic! The exact hood we had even though our hood was GE's Coppertone! Thanks for the memory! Greg

 

[circlew]

Thanks for posting the pics of the hoods with controls. After seeing them, that may be like the model my friends the Forste's had, which would be from around 1965. The buttons were laid out like that, but I guess I thought the knob controlled the fan. Their kitchen was Canary Yellow.

The neighbors mentioned previously had a later version, as their appliances were Avocado. Their oven was also self clean. I think they did their kitchen sometime between '70 and Spring of '72.

 

[combo52]

Early 60s GE dinner dial wall ovens

Quite an assortment of these ovens, they were very good quality, ovens, and quite reliable, but GE dropped them quickly. Once the self cleaning ovens came out, which were so much more desirable and more efficient to boot.

I always love the GE range hoods with the controls built-in, but first picture that Ken posted in reply number seven is my kitchen in the Weeknd house, it’s always been an easy cooktop to cook on and very logical.

These dinner dial ovens are not hard to keep running. They use the same parts that the regular GE wall oven issues. It’s true you can’t get thermostats and switches for them easily but they can be found , about the only thing you can still get for GE ovens of this age or the heating elements.

John.