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Moved into our house 2 yrs ago.Had an electric glass hob thingy.Hated..hated....hated with a vengeance.Swapped to gas within a few months

cyclop wrote:Moved into our house 2 yrs ago.Had an electric glass hob thingy.Hated..hated....hated with a vengeance.Swapped to gas within a few months

Did it glow?

mjr wrote:

cyclop wrote:Moved into our house 2 yrs ago.Had an electric glass hob thingy.Hated..hated....hated with a vengeance.Swapped to gas within a few months

Did it glow?

Were you radiant sir?

I bought a SIA model IND901BL with 5 rings about 2 years ago and it's Bloomin great. Works perfect, better than gas for control and very easy to clean especially since the hob surface only gets hot because the bottom of the pot/pan gets hot but the heat doesn't travel by conduction so the surface of the hob is relatively cool and so food doesn't get baked on to the glass like an ordinary electric hob.

One thing to bear in mind though -- there is a warning about having an electronic implants like a heart pacemaker. The electromagnetic waves that cause the eddy currents can upset sensitive electronic equipment although you'd have to get very close for that to happen. There is the safety feature that non ferrous pots / pans will cause the ring to shut off.

The best thing about mine was the price -- it was £250 with free delivery from Tesco -- at first I tried to order it direct from the supplier but they wanted £150 delivery costs as well! I ordered it from Tesco then a strange thing happened -- an annoyed voice from the supplier rang me back to tell me they'd be delivering the hob but that it would only be a drop off delivery ??? I asked what that meant ? They said oh we will only be leaving it off and not installing it.??? I said I didn't expect to have it installed -- I wasn't ready for it to be installed -- I wanted to install it myself. They were quite shirty about it and abruptly finished the conversation.

Wouldn't ever have a regular electric or gas hob again. Gas is dirty and leaves a scum all over your kitchen.

It was "ship it appliances" who supplied it -- if you select - 'go to supplier' on the Tesco site you get put through to them that's where they sink the arm for the carriage charge. However if you just stay on the Tesco site and order it there it's FREE carriage.

Had our for about 10 years, Cannot fault it in any way, Minimum cleaning and still looks as good as new,
Had to buy compatible saucepans, etc when we bought it but worth it. One thing we have found that, the cheaper saucepans take much longer to heat the contents, luckily apart from one or two odd ones we bought ok ones. Cast iron ones are best but a little on the heavy side for my wife.
Anyone considering a new cooker, buy one, you will be not regret it.

Thats a great point about the saucepans. I bought a new small saucepan from John Lewis. I noticed it took ages to boil. So, I put 1 pint of water in it and timed it to boil, then tried the same thing with an existing saucepan. The JL one took three times as long as the existing one to boil! I took it back with a complaint which was ignored.

Be careful what you buy, it can make a huge difference

Al

Occasionally Lidl have stainless pans on offer much cheaper then the main brands. Most of these pans are induction compatable. I've bought a couple and not had any problems on our induction hob. Worth keeping a lookout.

On the pans front - we bought a couple of Salter Diamond Tech pans, on offer at Sainsburys at the time. Nice big softgrip handles.

Didn't notice the shape though - until we tried to use them. They taper towards the bottom - the result is the 20cm pan is all but useless even on the smallest of the inducion "rings", the hob thinks it hasn't got a pan on it. The next size up only works on the smallest "ring". My older, cheapo Sainsburys 20cm pan however is no problem - straight sides and sits on the ring quite happily.

mjr wrote:

cyclop wrote:Moved into our house 2 yrs ago.Had an electric glass hob thingy.Hated..hated....hated with a vengeance.Swapped to gas within a few months

Did it glow?

Good question, the ceramic electric hobs (which obviously are not induction) are indeed terrible.

wirral_cyclist wrote:

georgew wrote:<SNIP> It is possible to buy an induction plate that can allow you to use your present equipment but in my case, I preferred to buy proper stuff made for induction hobs. <SNIP>

I've got a 'Which' magazine with induction hob tests, the best buy for induction plates is a "Paderno World Cuisine A1200121 Induction hob converter £17" Not a full test so can't see second best etc, but only a quid to sign up for a month to see all the results, mine's lapsed so can't look.

Best Hob: AEG IKE84441FB (87% score) £679.
Range cooker: Rangemaster Professional PROP90EI (69%) £1,853
Freestanding: Zanussi ZCI66250BA (72%) £670

I have one.....expensive for what it is. Any cast-iron type plate does the job as well. If your coffee-pot or small pot (even if induction) is much smaller than the hob....then it might not work. For my tiniest coffee-pot, I use a small cast iron pan 4" diameter and a fiver, as an induction plate.

I got a complete set of Judge pots an pans for about £50 so not expensive but when I tried most of my heavy bottomed pots worked anyway.

rmurphy195 wrote:[The pans] taper towards the bottom - the result is the 20cm pan is all but useless even on the smallest of the inducion "rings", the hob thinks it hasn't got a pan on it. The next size up only works on the smallest "ring". My older, cheapo Sainsburys 20cm pan however is no problem - straight sides and sits on the ring quite happily.

Unless the pan is very thin, that sounds like the hob has some sort of fault or design flaw to me. I can put my little (induction-compatible) moka pot on my gorenje's largest pad and it knows it's there and works fine.