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Rangemaster 60S
by dropsofjupiter81
i love the style of this oven it looks like it belongs in a country home or cottage , at first
its easily installed and fitted perfectly into the space that was already there , best to measure up before you purchase ovens , i found the controls a bit flimsy to say the least , its a good oven when you are on a budget or buying your ... first home , it cooks well and its easy to slid the grills in and out , ( but it is best to keep them cleaned as dirt and grime does build up on them ) , its great if you have small kitchen and looks very nice on the inside and the outside , it has convection to air the oven ,
the only problem that i did find with this is just simply the controls are flimsy so just watch you haven't got any little ones running around grabbing them because i think they will fall off eventually .
this is a great oven otherwise , its easy to clean with a good oven cleaner ( bags as well as spray )
so yeah i like this especially if you are buying your first home i find it a good starter oven in my opinion well worth the money and the warranty with it is good as well .
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CDA SC210SS
by loopy-lou33
My previous cooker was a very old fashioned gas cooker with an eye level grill. When we had our kitchen replaced two years ago, we decided that the cooker looked too old and tatty, and decided to opt for a sleeker looking integrated cooker and hob. The product I am reviewing is the oven component, the CDA SC210SS. The hob is a standalone ... item, so I will write a review for that seperately.
The kitchen designer had suggested that we opt for an electric oven and a gas hob combination. I hadn't had an electric oven previously, but was happy to follow his advice, even though it ultimately cost us more money, as the electrician installing it told us that our home electrical system would not be adequate to handle the extra power needed to run the oven, and that we would need a new box installed, which cost us an additional £400, but ultimately made our home safer and compliant with regulations.
After the new box had been fitted and tested, the electrician installed the oven, which was done quickly and efficiently with no problems. All work like this must be done by a qualified electrician.
The oven iteslf is quite basic, with two knobs on the front for control. The left hand knob controls the temperature, which has a range up to 225 degrees. The right hand knob gives you the various options for cooking, which allows you to choose between grilling the food using the element at the top of the oven, or using the fan oven, which cooks the food more evenly. You also have an option to run the fan alone without heat to defrost food. The final option is just a light option, to turn on the internal light, which you can see through the glass window. I don't really use this option, as it seems pretty pointless and I already have adequate lighting in my kitchen. You cannot use the grill and oven at the same time, which I find a bit annoying, as it seems to limit your cooking options somewhat.
We are a family of five, and I find the oven a perfect size for cooking family meals. There are two adjustable metal shelves inside, which you can arrange however you like, knowing that the food will be cooked evenly due to the internal fan distributing the heat. The shelves go back quite a long way, and I can definitely fit more dishes and trayes inside it than my previous oven. Likewise, the grill pan is really large, about twice the size of my old one, and I can easily put enough bacon and sausages for the five of us on the grill pan at one time.
The exterior of the oven is brushed stainless steel, which makes it look very classy and minimalist, and the kind of item that would look nice in any style of kitchen. My kitchen is traditional in style, but this cooker would suit all kitchen spaces due to its neutral design.
I like the glass window at the front which allows me to see the food cooking without having to open the oven door. This is useful with items such as pies and cakes, as you can see at a glance whether they are ready or not. The only problem with the glass door is that it gets dirty very quickly and needs constant cleaning to be able to see through it. I must confess to being a bit lazy in this regard, and at the moment, the glass is gunged up inside and I can't see through it! The kitchen installer recommended that I use a product called "Barkeepers Friend", which I reviewed on here a while ago. It can be safely used on glass and stainless steel and is not corrosive and will not scratch surfaces, because on a microscopic level, the cleaning particles are round like ball bearings. If I sprinkle the powder on the inside of the glass door and wipe it with a damp dishcloth, it comes up sparkling clean again in no time. It is also great at cleaning the steel exterior of the oven. The oven interior can be cleaned regularly with a regular oven cleaning product, such as Oven Pride.
Another issue I have with the door is the rubber seal around the glass window. In some places the seal has come away completely, and at the bottom it has actually snapped and burned. It doesn't seem to have any effect on how well the items cook though.
My biggest gripe with the cooker is the amount of black smoke produced, and no, this is not soleley due to my terrible cooking! The problem is that when I have grilled items, bits of fat splash up onto the element at the top of the oven. This is really hard to clean as it cannot be removed. When I cook regular items in the oven at a high heat over 220 degrees, this causes the splashed-on fat to burn and I can smell smoke. When I open the oven, thick, acrid smoke billows out and makes my eyes sting. Even with the extractor fan, this is still a problem and we usually have to open all the windows to get the smoke out. As I have asthma, it is a bit of a worry as the smoke irritates my respiratory system and my daughter cries that it stings her eyes. I really think that this is a big design flaw with this cooker, and the main reason why I would not recommend it to others.
In conclusion, this is a large spacious oven that cooks food evenly and quickly. It looks perfect in any style of kitchen. On the downside, it is not ideal if you enjoy grilled food, as the oven produces a lot of black smoke. Therefore, I award it three stars.
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Indesit FIE56K.BBKGB/1
by nasarali
I was looking at buying an oven but not wanting to spend more than £200. I'd settled for a sub £100 oven before and it had various problems from heating everything outside it whilst not evenly cooking anything inside it to not turning on at certain times. I prefer electric because you can easily fit them yourself where as with a gas oven ... you would have to call out a gas safe engineer to fit it for you and that alone would cost just over £100. Its best to do some research before spending this amount of cash on something and during my research this oven came out top in terms of price, features and performance. I then started looking for the best place to buy this from and Boots seemed to be the cheapest. I managed to get it for just under £250, which was £50 over my budget but i though it was worth spending that little bit more for something that was a little bit more energy efficient (B), and one that came with a timer unit.
Before this i didn't even know boots sold electrical items, but they were pretty good, they managed to get it to me two days after I had ordered it. The packaging was OK, it had all the features as well as a picture of the oven on it, the user manual was quite good in that it shows you first how to install the oven, whilst giving you tips on ventilation for best results, it also gives you a run down of all the features as well as some suggestions for what to cook in it. Once I had the plug on it was just a matter of putting this into its housing. After this i just lined up the four screws and screwed it securely in its place.
It looked very modern and stylish, it also went with the rest of my stainless steel kitchen. The oven came with a dripping tray and a grill mesh that can be fit into any of the five position racks, depending on the food you are cooking I normally just leave them on the middle rack. The control panel is also quite fancy, it has a knob on each side with a timer / clock in the middle, one for selecting a function for the oven, and the other is the thermostat for selecting the temperature you want to cook at. The timer / clock works like you think it would, you select the amount of time you want to cook something using the plus and minus buttons below it and then press the set button. It then lets you know when the time is up with a buzz that is a little on the loud side. One complaint is that the volume of the buzz cannot be reduced, although that is a very minor complaint.
The functions that this comes with the oven are as follows: -
1) Traditional cooking mode, which uses both the top and bottom heating elements to cook the food.
2) Multi-Cooking mode, which is that same as traditional cooking mode but with the addition of the fan.
3) Top Oven mode, which uses only the top heating element.
4) Grill mode, which also uses only the top heating element but at a very high temperature.
5) Gratin mode, which is that same as top oven mode but with the fan on as well.
Now if your going to do any large roasts, e.g. duck, turkey, beef or pork, I would use the traditional cooking mode, as you do not want to evenly heat it. It gives a better all round finish and keeps the flavour, which i have only picked up due to trial and error. I would still roast chicken using the multi-cooking mode because it seems to come out better when its evenly cooked. Likewise, pizzas, lasagne and pies come out a lot better using the multi-cooking mode. The top oven mode seems to be useless for anything apart from finishing off anything that hasn't cooked properly, and grating mode is also only good for when cooking fish, as you do not want to overcook fish. Grill mode is probably useful for cooking burgers but this doesn't get used much in our household.
Cleaning the oven externally does not take much of an effort, cleaning it internally is a bit of a chore but it depends a lot on the product you clean it with, using the cheap value type stuff can take ages, whilst using the good branded stuff takes minutes. I use the value stuff mostly so it does need a bit of elbow grease. It also gets quite hot and that heats is passed onto the housing it is in, although this is not as bad as my previous oven.
Overall, i am quite satisfied with this oven, its easy to use, it does everything that I want from an oven and at quite a reasonable price too. It is also quite energy efficient, which again is saving me something along the way.
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