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Belling G707SS
by sammy00
When myself and my boyfriend purchased our first house togther the only appliances we had between us could of fit in boot of the car. So once we purchased the house we knew we had quite a bit to spend in kitting out the kitchen. No washing machine, no fridge and no cooker. We hunted around for a while for a cooker as it was only a small ... space so we wanted something compact. Our must have list was for it to be free standing, black, gas hob and gas oven and if possible to oven compartments.
After a look around a few showrooms the Belling G707SS ticked every box. It was available in stainless steel, black or white and unlike others we had found the black was the same price as the white. So the cheapest price we found was £425 from Comet. They would deliver and install so even better.
It was a little cheaper than some of the other cookers but not that cheap that you thought you was getting a basic cooker.
For the first year everything was fine, it fit nicely in our small kitchen with it just being 60 cm. It had the double gas oven (top can be used as a grill), 4 goodsized gas hobs and it looked fab. The hob dials were a little out, so you never quite got the same gas mark more than once and we couldn't set the clock which stayed flashing for the whole of its 2 year stint at our house but as novice homeowners we thought, hey its cheap and it looks ok, we'll stick with it!
Then came the problems.:-
Just as the warrenty ran out, the top oven started turning itself off. Several times I would go to check on the dinner and everything was still frozen let alone cooked. So we got into the habit of just using the top oven as a grill, but soon after this started switching off too.
The belling cooker has a glass lid which can be pulled down over the hob when the cooker isnt in use. The hob has a safety feature whereby the gas will switch off if the lid is down. As you lift the lid up it pushes down a button that allows the gas to work. But what happens when the lid breaks. This broke after a year and a half as the catches are cheap. Now our lid was left open 90% of the time so this breaking definatly wasn't from overuse! We had to prop the lid up to depress the botton by holding it in place with a nail and wedging it behind our microwave. As you can imagine that didn't look great!
Other problems included:-
+ both oven door catches breaking so you had to wedge the doors shut.
+ bottom oven flame started going out leaving gas coming out
+ 2 of the knobs for the hob broke
+ the oven temperature know gave no difference in heat no matter where it was
+the grill stopped working alltogther
All of these problems emerged after 1 year of use and slowely got worse till it was just 3 years old. When the flame started going out leaving gas pumping out we immediatly took it to the tip and got another cooker, but I will never be buying a Belling product again.
In fact as we were shopping for our replacement cooker we saw a couple mulling over the Belling G707SS and advised them not to get that one. I hope they took our advise!!!
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Belling XOU90FP
by SoadFan
The Belling XOU90FP was part of an oven and hob set that we bought when having a new kitchen fitted. At the time we also bought a matching Belling Hob and as part of the deal we paid around £400 for the two items.
We used this oven for around 2 1/2 years with no fuss or worry at all and it proved to be a very affective and ... efficient product. The idea of the oven being built in to the work top meant that crumbs and spills couldn't fall down behind the oven, as they would sometimes with our older free standing cooker.
This made the Belling built under or built in oven so much easier to look after, as you don't have to pull it out to clean behind it every now and then as you do with free standing types. We found the oven was reliable to use and so went on to purchase a similar Belling oven when we moved.
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The oven is very handy as it is not one but two ovens in one housing. The main oven is of course bigger and seemed to cook much faster too. It can easily handle a nice juicy roast in a flash but can and does cook faster than the previous gas type of oven we had prior to this one, which took time to get used to.
Getting used to a new electric style oven does take a bit of time and this oven does cook up to 20% faster than a conventional gas oven can, so at first we did have a few slightly well done meals at first. Once we got the hang of the oven it cut down the cooking times considerably, which meant less power used and meals in a flash.
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The finish of the oven is a soft and brushed effect stainless steel type. There are two good sized glass doors and we never had any cracks or problems with the doors during use. The panels of glass were made of a heat reflective material, so although they did get hot on the outside you could still touch the outer glass panel without burning your hand.
The doors opened downwards and were easy to open and close and didn't feel to heavy or cumbersome at all. The main oven which was the bigger one had around 64 litres of cooking space and the smaller oven had just over half of that. Both ovens were A rated, so used less power than many of the ovens we compared these too prior to purchasing.
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The top oven had two handy features as it could be used as a grill and as an oven. This allows for grilling and toasting and also general oven based cooking at the flick of a switch. The grill heated quickly and easily and the top oven was very handy to switch on when we just wanted to heat some thing small, or for using when cooking for more people in conjunction with the main oven.
The larger main oven was fan assisted and cooked really fast. We often had to put a meat joint in just before the potatoes when making a sunday roast, as the potatoes in particular seemed to cook almost as the speed of light. We found that we could use the oven to cook a variety of foods in much less time than in our previous gas oven.
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The construction of the oven seemed well made and sturdy, the stainless steel panels looked good and easily cleaned. The glass was fine on our oven and suffered no damage at all. The programmer was something that we didn't use all that much, but was handy to have if we needed to use it.
In terms of rating the oven, I feel that 4 stars is a good rate. We bought a slightly different Belling model when we moved and liked that a little more than this one. I think thats in part of its slightly sleeker and more up to date look and not due to any problems with using the oven to cook with.
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Belling 630SS
by hilarya
My parents bought a Belling cooker because they thought it was a quality make and would last forever. Admittedly the fan oven does cook everything well, and quickly, but the top oven is nothing like as good, and only really gets used for keeping things warm, unless it's Christmas time and we absolutely need two ovens. It takes much ... longer for things to cook in it. The grill has different levels, and you can choose to only turn half of it on, which is an excellent feature.
The hob is electric, with four different size rings, and they are effective, and very easy to clean because they are flat. Much easier than a gas hob and looks nice. We have had problems with one of the rings though, which would always be on maximum heat, and we have had to completely replace another ring which stopped working altogether, so that was a little disappointing considering we bought the product because we thought that Belling was a quality make. The replacement parts are also quite expensive.
Other downsides are that the design makes it very difficult to clean the oven door. Grease can get in between the two glass panels, but you can't clean inside, so it pretty much always looks dirty. The knobs on the front also get grease all around them and are difficult to clean.
The oven has a digital clock and the usual timers, which are easy to use and useful, but if you're not careful and you press the wrong combination of buttons the machine goes into 'auto' mode and won't work unless you can figure out the right combination of buttons to get it back into manual mode - just something to try and avoid.
In general the oven has performed very well and cooking the food, but we have been a little disappointed that we have had to replace parts, and it is difficult to clean. Belling may have addressed some of these issues on newer models, and I would advise checking this before you make any purchase.
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