[Ed Escobar]

I am in the middle of making a decision on buying a new gas cooktop for my kitchen. This is not a remodel—the kitchen is pretty nice as it is—I just want to replace an electric glass cooktop with gas. Given that I’m stuck with the existing cutout, my options are limited, but necessarily bad. The two products that will fit are the Dacor SGM 365 or the GE Monogram ZGU385 and because there is no natural gas in my area, I will be using liquid propane version of each. We do a variety of types of cooking, from searing and stir fries (that I now do on a small propane burner from Smart & Final) to braising and simmering of sauces. There’s a fair amount of chatter regarding the Dacor on the various forums, but little is said about the Monogram series, probably because it has less cache. Some of what I’ve read about the Dacor product is fairly negative. On Epinions there are reports of igniters not working, cracked knobs, and even the stainless steel rusting. Nevertheless, from the point of view of aesthetics, the Dacor is very attractive.

Does anyone have any advice on this?

Thanks in advance to everyone who might respond.

[deltadoc]

I bought a Dacor oven in 1992. Never again. Their service department was downright nasty, they wouldn't fix the oven. Not until the 1-year warranty was up, and THEN they tell me about a replacement kit for the removable oven element. Except that I paid through the nose for the removable element in order to be able wipe out the bottom of the oven easily, and the fix was to hardwire in a fixed element.

Then the thing shorted out because there wasn't enough of a wire pigtail to attach the new element to. It shorted out against the grounded oven cabinet because of "plastic cold flow" of the wire insulation.

The repair company came out and re-wired the oven until they could get a replacement part. He said I could use any setting except the conventional setting. Except he forgot to tell me that you can't turn the dial past the conventional setting to get anywhere else on the dial. I'm not kidding: on both occasions, 6' of sparks jumped out of the oven at me. One time even knocked me down on the floor. I reported them to UL and to the Attorney General's office. They wouldn't replace the piece of junk. Never got so much as a nickel out of them.

Most expensive non-repair they ever performed as I've made sure to tell everyone since about their company and my experience with their product.

doc

[Ed Escobar]

Thanks, I am indeed leaning toward the GE Monogram.

[oldschool1982]

DCS makes the Monogram stuff at least in the pro cooktops. As far as the others I'm not sure. We had a ZGU36N4RHSS in our last kitchen. Not a bad unit by comparison and we didn't have to do all the necessary codes stuff that was required for the true Commercial stuff.

We now have the GE Profile equivallent to the ZGU385 that you are looking at. It's not a bad cooktop but pales in comparison to the previous house. The burners are good for moderate sized pots and it has all the same burner ratings as the Monogram for about 500.00 less. Although the 18k burner is in the front R so a back splach is not required.

There are some better models available that give more bang for the buck but that wasn't the type of remodel we were acompliushing this time around. I'm sure if you look into the Kitchen Aide, JennAir or Kenmore nodels you might find more comparisons. Wolf was the way I wanted to go but like I said, not going that route.

[Ed Escobar]

Thanks for the response. I have looked at other models but I'm restricted by the size of my cutout (34" wide). I also want plenty of power so the 15K BTU (18K in in natural gas) is very attractive. In any case, the Monogram should be vast improvement on the Kenmore electric glass-top that I've been cooking on for 10 years.

[Golden Girl]

We have also had horrible experiences with Dacor! I agree with the other poster about the service department being outright nasty! Our "top of the line" oven came from the warehouse with cockroaches. Also plagued with defective fans, oven glass cracked numerous times etc.We finally switched our our Dacor cook top over to a GE Monogram after being plagued with constant repairs. Our model # is different from the one you are considering as is our size requirements. The 18,000 btu burner is so super powerful as is all our burners. No suggestions on how it could be made better. Very easy to use and well designed. Best appliance I've ever bought and I think a good value as it is so well made.