I dream of 36" gas ranges—and chucking our electric stove to the curb

Why are there no good AND affordable options out there?

The Finger Lakes kitchen, HotPoint stove looking better than usual. Picture by Eliza Maher

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For as much as my partner John and I entertain at our house in the Finger Lakes—we frequently host dinner for a group that ends up being 10+/-2 people—our kitchen is surprisingly bad.

A cramped footprint. Cabinets from the 1940s with insufficient storage. Minimal (formica) counters. And at the center of it all, a chintzy HotPoint electric stove that will scorch food set on even the lowest possible setting. It’s really a testament to John’s culinary chops that the food routinely comes out so beautifully.

We’ve wanted to fully redo the room since buying the house, but we’ve been busy tackling higher-priority projects that have popped up. That said, we’ve still spent hours discussing every detail of what we’d eventually like. It’s decidedly more fun to talk about farmhouse sinks and soapstone countertops than crumbling masonry.

The first order of business would be to swap out the stove for a high-quality 36” range. Which range, though, is a different, and slightly more complicated, story, because the market for 36” models is equal parts fascinating and frustrating, filled with just as many four-figure clunkers as investment-worthy appliances.

After a lot of thorough research, here’s what I’ve learned—and which models are at the top of our wishlist.

Why 36”?

Upgrading from a 30” stove to a 36” range is the culinary equivalent of switching from a full to a queen-sized bed. They’re both just 6” wider, but that difference is the line between cramped and roomy.

The extra space means going from four to six burners (or four burners + a grill!) and extra oven space for more sheet pans or a larger roast during the holidays. If you constantly find yourself juggling pans on the stovetop and jockeying for space in the oven, you’ll quickly appreciate a 36” range.

There are no good and affordable 36” ranges!

It’s easy to find a solid 30” option that’s a reasonable splurge. I love the Kitchen Aid slide-in with 5 burners ($1,799), which has been used by friends and cousins at their own homes in NYC and Boston. It’s dependable and powerful with a polished slide-in design.

The Kitchen-Aid option. Honestly, you can always find this on sale. It’s good!

The 36” category shifts into a specialized market for more avid home cooks, and I guess we have to pay a premium for our love of cooking! It’s at least $1,000 more for the most underwhelming options.

The 36” customer is presented with a false choice: Either make a big investment with a brand like Wolf ($7,000+) or try out one of the contemporary brands trying to offer the look and experience of a professional range at a fraction of the cost.

But heres the thing: The options from Thor, Kucht, and Z-Line may look nice with an equally attractive price tag ($2,500-$3,500, sometimes cheaper on sale) to match. But a quick search on Reddit will yield tales of shoddy construction, bad customer service, and calls to avoid them like the plague. It seems like it would be better to go with a solid 30” option than an entry level 36” range.

It quickly becomes clear that if you’re serious about the 36” plunge, you need to turn to the more established (and expensive) brands. Here are the ones that are on our vision board¹.

The Range Wish List

BlueStar ($7,995) - My personal favorite

The BlueStar.

Consider BlueStar the closest thing to a professional-grade restaurant stove you can get in a home kitchen. BlueStar ranges are made in Pennsylvania, and they are the insider favorite for serious home cooks and professional chefs because they offer powerful “bowl” burners, even heating, and solid construction.

The bowl burners.

I confess that I didn’t learn about BlueStar until a few years ago, when I was at my best friend’s in-laws’ house in Connecticut. Her mother-in-law is a very skilled baker, and I noticed that they had a 48” BlueStar range with dual ovens. “BlueStar is the only brand where the side oven is large enough to accommodate a half sheet pan,” she told me.

After that weekend, I started to notice BlueStar ranges in the homes of those I knew who cared about quality as much as they do about cooking. They also come in almost any color and be completely customized, as Kate Rheinstein Brodsky told me after I noticed a BlueStar in her Upper East Side kitchen.

AGA Elise ($7,135) - The designer choice

The AGA Elise.

I know what you might be thinking: AGA? Isn’t that the brand known for cast-iron ranges with eternally hot ovens and burners? Yes! They have a few lines in addition to the classic AGA which we’re all thinking about right now. One of those lines is the Elise, and it’s a beautiful stove that I, coincidentally, also learned about during a weekend spent in Connecticut, this time visiting the home of the architectural designer Jason VanWarren, principal at Ellsworth Home.

Jason swears by them (as does another designer friend of mine, Julie Wallach) having used Aga Elises in both his projects and personal homes. While it does come in stainless steel, there’s no denying the statement that a jewel-toned range like this would make in a kitchen.

WOLF ($9,130) - An all-around winner

Fewer screens, the better.

In the Viking vs Wolf war, Wolf seems to win hands down as the brand worth the money. The scuttlebutt is that Viking used to be very good until they were acquired in 2012, at which point quality took a nosedive. Seems like not even fancy ranges are immune to the perils of private equity! Supposedly it’s gotten better in recent years, but who knows.

Wolf, which is operated out of Wisconsin, has built a solid reputation not only for its quality construction but, like BlueStar, for also being a favorite of serious home cooks and pros alike. A few years ago, I was invited to the Wolf/Sub-Zero showroom in NYC for a cooking demonstration, and I left positively charmed. I’d go for a model that has no frills—whenever I see a digital screen, I just think that it’s just one more thing that can break. Give me the low-tech version anyday.

A note about Facebook Marketplace

If you want a “legacy brand,” so to speak, for less money, you could always try sourcing from Facebook Marketplace. There are a few things to consider when making a second-hand purchase:

• How will you move it? This is probably the biggest limiting factor, since these ranges weigh hundreds of pounds, and often a FB Marketplace purchase will require that you figure the logistics out yourself. Sure, you could hire someone, but that will likely double the cost of the item.

• Are you able to test it? So many of the ranges are already de-installed and waiting in someone’s garage or basement. If you’re not able to test it, you’re buying a wildcard with no active warranty.

• Do you have all of the information? Make sure, if you do buy on FBM, that you have the serial number and full information so you can look up the age of the item and what will happen if/when something breaks. Sure, that 15-year old steal of a Wolf oven is in great shape now, but are the parts still made if it goes belly up soon?

Friends of mine have had varying degrees of success on Facebook—and I have come dangerously close to impulse buying a 48-inch Wolf range sitting in someone’s garage in the Finger Lakes. We even got John’s brother to secure a fork lift (?) before deciding that not only was this ridiculous, but the floor likely couldn’t support the 400lbs+ of weight. All for the best.

1. You may notice that there are a few brand that are absent from this line-up. That’s not an oversight. I personally do not like the look of Bertazzoni ranges, and clients of mine have had them break only to wait months for replacement parts from Italy. I also find La Cornue and Lacanche ranges to be more about their look than anything else. Last summer, we stayed at a house in Provence with a La Cornue range, and it was so finicky. Onwards.