Video tour of 1963 Westinghouse Terrace Top

[petek]

For coil tops as well.

Those covers have been around since, well before me I think, and they still are.  Usually you would see them for sale by those mail order companies like Gift Craft  or Regal.  

 

[ea56]

You can still buy those kind of burner covers at Walmart and Target. I've had a couple of sets over the years, but I finally gave up on them beacause I would eventually turn the wrong burner on, and with the cover on it doesn't take long for it to be ruined by the heat. If you can pay better attention than I they do help keep the stove cleaner. I always opted for the Stainless Steel covers and they looked pretty nice until I fried them.
Eddie

 

[crevicetool]

Wonderful video as usual Kevin and Ralph...

Your Cavalcade of Food videos are just great you guys.....luv 'em.

"The convenience outlet"....

I can't find the source for this right now, as my research material is in disarray, however - When electric ranges first hit the markets in the early 1900's they were charged a lower rate on the electric bill as cooking was considered a necessity whereas other appliances, radios, etc. even lighting was considered "luxury". Now, I don't know at all if a user had two meters on the side of the house, or how otherwise one was charged a lower "cooking" rate...but that's why the outlet was initially installed on ranges. Percolators, hot plates, toasters, anything that "cooked" could be plugged into the convenience outlet, as long as it was used for the cooking of food.

Electric companies hired swarms of "Rate Stealer" police officers, who were given the authority to break into your home unannounced to see if you were using that outlet for anything other than cooking. Plugging a vacuum cleaner in, for instance - was a fine plus a two year jail sentence.

Ok - I'm lying about the Rate Police, but that's the truth about the outlet. Later, I think the outlet really did become just a convenience outlet once no electric rate differences were realized throughout the home.

I don't know if an outlet on a gas range would be charged a different gas rate or not.......

Rick

 

[gorenje]

Louis

I really didn't know that also in UK were on sale electic ranges with "radiant rings" as the one used in the USA.

Very interesting! Thanks

Yes also here in Slovenia and previously in Yugoslavia electric ranges were very popular because the electricity isn't very expensive. But only with the solid hot plates.

And yes I remember also the covers for the burners )

Now electricity is still the # 1 for cooking here, but almost only induction or highlight hobs...

... but I took a look online and apparently electic ranges with solid hot plates are still in production.

 

[earthling177]

Alright, I'll put my ignorance on display, and ask:

1) I was under the impression that Calrod-style burners were very common in Europe too, were they that rare?

2) Another thing I've never paid attention to, so never learned -- some of the solid plate burners have the "red dot" in the center, what does it mean?

3) People say the solid burners were slow to respond, I have always thought it was because the old construction was so low tech: the resistors were embedded in a thick ceramic spiral holder just like the very first electric burners (exposed nichrome wire) another ceramic and metal disk on top to insulate the user from the electricity -- have the solid burners built in the last 10 years, for example, gotten any faster? It would be easy to build a Calrod-style resistor, which is inherently electrically insulated and cover it with a metal disk, or some other even better technology. I guess I'm wondering if people got so used to the solid disk that they'd refuse anything that didn't store the heat as much, just like after decades of selling ketchup, when the industry *finally* found a way to produce a thick tomato sauce that doesn't have the "burnt" flavor, it wasn't popular because "it's not ketchup"?

Thanks in advance,
   -- Paulo.

 

[foraloysius]

Paulo

1. Calrod burners were common in the UK, not on the European mainland. All electric ranges I saw in my youth had solid burners. My mother's 1975 Siemens built in range had them too. That was the range I learned to cook on.

2. The burners with a red dot are the fast burners (Schnellkochplatte in German). They had more power than the normal burners of the same size. A small normal burner would for instance have 1000 Watts, the fast burner 1500 Watts. Larger burners were 1500 vs 2000 Watts. There are also burners with a silver center, those are the burners with heatminder.

3. My mother was used to the slow response of the solid burners. I have often turned on a burner for her while she was still peeling potatoes. She also knew when to shut off the burner and use the residual heat. When she moved to an apartment, it came with a gas cooktop. She had difficulties adjusting to it. She found it too fast.

I don't know if the newer burners are faster, haven't used one of those. Perhaps they are a bit thinner. I do know that the burners on the Siemens range heated up quicker than the burners made just after WWII.

 

[vacbear58]

Paulo

The spiral burners at one time were very popular, and even universal at one time in the UK, I do not believe they were very popular in mainland Europe at all.

They can be traced back to the 1930s or so, when there might have been a single "radiant" ring (as we called them) along with a solid plate, this was often an extra cost option, over having all solid plates.

Very often the broiler would be combined with a larger rectangular solid plate with the spiral element open at the bottom (for broil). A deflector plate was slid in to direct the heat upwards if you were not using the broiler - not very effective. I believe that this may have been the reason why the UK adopted the styling trend for have a compartment for the broiler above the main oven, which eventually was often equipped as a second, smaller oven. This continued after the solid plates had disappeared, and indeed you see that style now in your US ranges with a second, smaller oven above the larger.

Both the "Frigidaire style" (thick spiral) and "GE style" (thinner spiral) have been seen back in the 1950s, but by around 1963 the GE style became pretty much universal and the solid plates disappeared entirely. This carried on for about 20 years or so - with Simmerstats being added and dual control spirals so that for smaller pans only the inner spirals operated.

It was around 1983/84 that the trend particularly changed with the large scale import of European (particularly German) ovens and (separate) hobs which brought solid plates back to the UK. It seems to me that we can trace the start of decline of the UK cooker industry back to that time - although radiant rings continued in use for the next 15-20 years but their use very quickly declined, confined to freestanding ranges, and generally to satisfy a traditional, "replace what I have with what I know ", market.

The red dot usually indicates the burner will heat up faster. Some solid plates also had Simmerstats, how useful these were is debatable given the slowness of response - can you tell I hate them? LOL

Al

 

[polkanut]

My great aunt Alice had a Westy Terrace Top that I remember very well.  That range was a real workhorse for her, and she loved it.  The "built-in" look is what really stands out in my memory.