<p>Since we are updating our kitchen, we are going to replace our cooktop. It is a 40 year old harvest gold 45" electric coil unit. It still works fine, but obviously is dated. They don’t make many 45" cooktops anymore, so we will move to a 36". I am intrigued by the induction cooktops I have read about. I might prefer that to the regular smooth glass tops. I don’t have any hands on experience with either kind, so I am kind of flying blindly. </p>
<p>Looking for opinions on either kind. Or I could go with the coils again, but that would probably be option 3.</p>
<p>I would not go with coils…those are very dated. I have a friend who loves to cook. She got an induction cooktop and loves it. I have a flat top and love it (not induction). If you are really into your cooking, have you considered gas for your new cooktop?</p>
<p>Thanks Thumper. We live in the sticks. No natural gas here and we don’t have propane nor do we want to install it just for the stove. So electric is our only option. </p>
<p>Yes, I know the coils are dated, but of course, it’s what I am used to, lol. I like what I have read about the induction cooktops, but would love to hear real life experiences. The cleaning of the smooth tops worries me a bit. Most people say it’s no big deal, but enough people I have talked to found them tough to clean without scratching.</p>
<p>I have had a smooth top stove for 20 years…and in fact just purchased the replacement for the 20 year old one. I love it. It is FAR easier to clean the surface of a smooth top stove than to clean the pans beneath those coils on an electric coil stove. The controls on the smooth top I have are almost as graded as adjusting a gas stove…no more numbers…just a dial that adjusts higher and lower.</p>
<p>The new smooth top stoves are easily cleaned…not like those old Corning white smooth tops from years ago that were stained the second time you used them. You use a dime dab of stovetop cleaner (looks like soft scrub) and just rub clean. Easy peasy. You never need to soak anything. </p>
<p>I did have to buy flat bottom cookware. My old Farberware worked, but it was ever so slightly bowed on the bottom. Truly flat cookware heats so much more quickly and uniformly.</p>
<p>Honestly, I can’t imagine in a million years that I would EVER go back to the coil models.</p>
<p>In my recent shopping for ranges (not just cooktop), the BOTTOM end ranges were electric coils. No good features on those electric coil stoves at all…they were the rock bottom cheapest stoves in the stores. Not sure if this applies to cooktops only.</p>
<p>I don’t know anyone who has gone electric in the last ten years who has chosen a coil range. .</p>
<p>I love my smooth, glass Thermador cooktop. I love the ability to adjust the heat incrementally, almost as easily as with gas, and cleaning is a snap.</p>
<p>I had a smooth glass cooktop (not induction) in my old house for around 13 years. I actually liked to clean it – very satisfying, little work for a great reward. As thumper said, you use some soft scrub-like stuff sold specifically for glass cooktops. I also occasionally used a razor blade to scrape off really cooked-on stuff. Nothing made the kitchen look clean and shiny like cleaning the cooktop!!</p>
<p>I have a gas stove and a small, 1-pot induction cooker that’s become a permanent fixture on my counter. To me, induction has the responsiveness of gas with the ease of cleanup of an electric. The induction top also doesn’t generate any excess heat, which is great if you have a kitchen that tends to get hot. Whenever I boil a big pot of water to cook pasta, I use the induction cooker since it only heats up the pan. Because the surface of the cooker stays cool, if you boil over you can wipe it up with a sponge with no problem (because the liquid touches a cool surface, it doesn’t evaporate quickly). I love this for when I make oatmeal in the morning.</p>
<p>There are two main downsides I’ve found with induction cooking. One, they tend to have an electric noise. It’s hard to explain, but it’s kinda like this whining/clicking. I’d totally recommend seeing if you can see the unit you’d like to purchase in action since, from what I’ve heard, they all sound somewhat different. They all usually have a fan to help keep the electronics cool, as well.</p>
<p>The other main issue is most induction cookers have a safety mechanism where they automatically shut off if it doesn’t detect a pan on the surface. So, if you’re someone that does a bit of tossing by flipping the pan while you’re cooking, it’s possible your stovetop will shut off in the middle of sauteeing. For my unit this is particularly aggravating since it doesn’t simply shut off, but it goes into a shut-down procedure that takes about 20 seconds to get through.</p>
<p>You will also need pots and pans that work with induction. The easiest way to test for this is to hold up a magnet to the bottom of your pan. If it sticks, you’re fine. Basically, it won’t work on aluminum or ones with a really thick layer of copper. Stainless, cast iron, enameled cast iron, and carbon steel all work beautifully.</p>
<p>If you’re seriously considering induction, I recommend buying a little cooktop off of Amazon or Newegg (they can be gotten for as little as $50) and trying it out for a bit. You may also need to check the electric service for your house, since I believe many of them require an upgraded electrical outlet.</p>
<p>This has always confused me. Isn’t all cookware flat bottomed? I also had Farberware that I believe was flat bottomed when I purchased it 30 years ago, but has become warped. But I think all cookware is flat bottomed when you purchase it, isn’t it?</p>
<p>I loved our cooktop stove. Before buying, carefully study the different models. Some require special pots and pans to be used. If you don’t want to purchase new cookware just for your new cooktop, I’d avoid this type. We bought a smooth cooktop some years back and LOVE it. It is black with an abstract lightly textured design on it, which hides spills and makes it continue to look new even though I can’t even remember when we bought it any more. Others who have glossy surfaced units show spills and burns and need to be polished and cared for much more often than ours, regardless of whether it is black or white.</p>
<p>Some cookware has ridges on the bottom or is otherwise not perfectly flat on the bottom. These don’t work well on stovetops that are require full contact to heat the cookware and food.</p>
<p>Again, the “special” cookware is likely what you’ve always been using. Pots and pans are branding themselves as “for induction” now so they can convince you your old stuff won’t work. In all of my pots and pans, only one doesn’t work. It’s a nonstick I use mostly for omelettes. I think I bought it for $10 at Ross. The body is made out of aluminum.</p>
<p>If you’re going to drop $1500-$2000 on a range, I don’t think maybe replacing $50 of pots/pans is really that big of a deal. Heck, even if you need to buy a whole set, there are some pretty nice stainless with heavy copper cladding ones you can get for <$150 on sale pretty regularly.</p>
<p>Dunno–H and I think the cookware we have now (which is about 30+ years old) is superior to nearly all the cookware we’ve seen on the market these days and having to replace them because we purchase some schmantzy stove that actually requires special cookware would definitely be a deal breaker for us. I did take him through the entire cookware section at Macy’s and he could NOT find anything he liked at any price that is as good as the older Revereware and Farberware that we have. (We are partial to cooking with regular stainless steel and don’t like non-stick surfaces.)</p>
<p>Weve had our electric coil cooktop for decades, but now that H has taken over alot of the cooking, even to when he went camping with D last week- he thinks we need something new because it is s l o w.
I liked a smooth cooktop I used at a Marriott residence inn. I dont think it was magnetic. It was very fast.
But I also love my cast iron pans- Lodge cast iron, not ceramic coated. Probably make a nice big scratch.
I don’t use non stick surfaces either, except for the ceramic coated stainless & cast iron pots.
Don’t have anything that is warped either- that seems to be a characteristic of the less expensive non stick cookware.</p>
<p>What I really want is an indicator light that will tell me which burner is on, not just that * a burner is on*.
Three or four times in the last ** week!**, Ive turned on the wrong burner and not realized it for at least ten minutes.:o</p>
<p>Im cheap though. We just spent $800 for a refrigerator & I dont want to spend much more than that for a stove/cooktop.
No Energy Star?</p>
<p>HImom, plain stainless steel (like your Revereware and Farberware) should work fine on an induction cooktop. You don’t need to buy anything fancy. The reason non-stick pans tend to say they’re induction safe is because a lot of the cheaper nonstick pans are made with alumnium. </p>
<p>(My mom still uses the Farberware she’s had for ages, so I can understand wanting to stick with it. There’s a pan she knows I have dibs on because it’s the only one that can make a certain recipe perfectly. ;))</p>
<p>RacinReaver ~ you have hit on several of the issues that I was wondering about. I have read about an electric humming sound and I’m not sure how annoying that would be. I also read about the cookware issues. I have Farberware from 30+ years ago and really like it. I will try the magnet test. One of the pots has a warp bubble in the bottom from hubby using it, but the rest should be ok. And if I needed a new set, that would not be the end of the world. I like the fact that only the area in contact with the pan or pot actually gets hot. If food splashes out or boils over, it doesn’t get cooked onto the surface. And yes, I read that once the pot is not in contact, it shuts off, but in some models, if the contact resumes in a certain time period, it will turn back on. There is also a lock mechanism so that if something inadvertently comes in contact with the stove, it will not turn on. I also read about an upgrade to the electric for this stove. Not sure what that would cost and if we want to do that. Will have to investigate that further.</p>
<p>emeraldkity ~ my current coil stove has the indicator light by each control, so I know which burner is on. I like that feature too! We have one cast iron pan and that would be a concern about scratching. Maybe I just have to be more careful.</p>
<p>The induction cooktop would probably be about $700-1000 more than a smooth top so I need to determine if it is worth it.</p>
<p>Ugh, so many people LOVE updating their kitchen. Not me, too many choices and decisions, lol!!</p>
<p>Induction seems to be the latest and greatest. Some people are even switching from gas to induction. I have the old coil type electric stove. We just renovated the kitchen but I haven’t updated the stove because like you I can’t decide. I like to can jams and salsas so my fear of the smooth top stoves is that I will drop a hot jar and break the glass cooktop. </p>
<p>I do know that I’d do induction over the regular smooth top electric. I’ve seen it in action and it’s really nice and fast and even heat. One cool thing was that you could put parchment paper between the induction top and the pot/pan, so if you are using cast iron or other items you think could scratch the surface it protects the stove surface.</p>
<p>We have a dual-fuel range that needs replacing soon.
I’ve tried to persuade DW that induction is the way to go.
It’s as responsive as gas but safer and cleaner. It does not pollute the indoor air. We could loose our ugly propane tank (which ONLY services the stovetop). It’s much more energy efficient.</p>
<p>She’s not budging. Gotta have gas.
(“It’s a primal thing. I need to see that flame.”)</p>
<p>To me, having to replace a few pots and pans is no big deal.<br>
The only thing that gives me pause is wok cooking. Dunno if an induction element would effectively heat the small contact area of a round-bottomed wok.</p>
<p>I have an induction cooktop and I love it. We did buy new pots and pans, but we needed them anyway so it wasn’t a big deal and we caught a great sale on Amazon. We use Circulon Infinite. You can, of course, also use cast iron. We also kept a few old pans that passed the magnet test.</p>
<p>The cooktop does make a buzzing noise at the highest settings, but it doesn’t bother me. It heats quickly too. As far as lifting a pan to saute, mine doesn’t turn off immediately so I have time to flip stuff around and set it back on the burner no problem. </p>
<p>I love that when I cook bacon, I can line the whole cooktop with newspaper (including under the pan) to catch the grease spatters–makes cleanup really easy!</p>
<p>One thing that was a learning curve was figuring out how the numbered controls (1-10) related to instructions like “low” or “medium-high”. It didn’t take long though.</p>
<p>I did find my induction cooktop didn’t work as well with my flat-bottom wok that has developed a bit of a curve to it. I use it probably 2-3 nights a week, so getting a gas stove with a pretty strong output was important to me. If I had the money to have gone induction from the start, I think the best choice might have been to get an induction range and a portable gas wok burner. Those can give a higher output than a typical stove, and it would let you have the convenience of induction for everything else. Either way it was still a huge improvement over the coils I had in my previous apartment.</p>
<p>I know induction’s been around in Europe for quite a while, and it’s slowly starting to catch on as a desirable item here. Induction heating has been around for ages in industry (that’s how they seal those plastic bottles with the little metallic foils on top to keep them fresh/safe). I use it in my lab to melt metals like zirconium and titanium, so I guess you could say I’m a little biased. :)</p>
<p>Switched from coils to glasstop when we moved- house came with upscale GE stove. No matter which type you choose you need to know that the energy per burner can vary vastly. With coils it was easy to tell that one with 4 coils wouldn’t heat as well as one with 6 (GE). With other surfaces you need to research the watts/btu’s, whatever.</p>
<p>Glad to be done with coils and cleaning the drip pans. Not so fond of needing to polish instead of just wiping with a sponge to get a truly clean surface. Love the red dot that tells me which burners are still hot.</p>
<p>Induction- old warped pans may not work. You need to figure out if the small step to a glass cooktop or the leap to induction is best for you. You won’t find good quality coil top stoves anymore- only the cheap ones.</p>
<p>I just replaced my flat top electric with another one. I got a double oven, not an induction. The top is clearly marked with size of pot, and front left is fast heat.</p>
