Since you're doing fine with your old Caloric you should be happy enough with the power of a vintage range, especially if it's one of those professionally refurbished ones where the works work like new (or are new).

You have to be happy while you're cooking. If beautiful styling and chrome will make you happier than 2/3 again more power, pilotless ignition and a bigger oven, then that's your answer.

You can always get a hood which will work equally well with either range and try the vintage. If it doesn't cut it, you should be able to sell it, and get the other. (Or do your own restoration, and sell at a profit...)

Thanks, pillog. Never even thought about the idea of selling the vintage if it doesn't work out. Brilliant! It certainly would be fun to restore one... but I don't really need another hobby, haha. Now to pick a hood -- ugh! :)

When I was redoing my kitchen I would have loved an old restored range but I couldn't readily find what I wanted and even looked at some of the European ranges. The trouble for me was the many of the ovens were too small and I wanted convection. I ended up with a 36" Wolf and and Electrolux wall oven and love them both. I you choose restore one, try to get one that will leave the same size opening as modern sizes. There was a thread on here at one time that was about a Chamber range. I think it did not pass code/inspection for some reason, maybe it had to be lit by hand and they bought a cheap range just to put in for inspection. I think that was the story. They sure are beautiful!

Dear Crispini,

After twelve years of happily cooking on an adorable 1938 Chambers B range I have finally made the switch to a modern pro-style range. It was a change I made with much debate because the range was the centerpiece of my retro-inspired kitchen. It was adorable and I almost felt like it was part of the family.

I was always happy with the burners/rangetop of the vintage range. Indeed, the 9,000 btu burners felt almost as powerful as my new 15,000 btu burners. But what they lacked was the very low simmer I have on my new range and a finely tuned control of the flame. That said, if you mostly use your range for stovetop cooking, I don't think you will be unhappy with a vintage range.

For me the real problem with the vintage range was the oven. It was too small and too uneven, even after having the thermostadt recalibrated. I love my new convection oven, broiler, and all the bells and whistles of the new modern pro-style oven.

The fact that I kept the vintage range for twelve years and cooked some great meals on it for big parties as well as daily cooking for our family of four suggests that it was not devoid of functionality. (Again, the burner power was great.) I have to say, though, I love my new modern range.

We have a 1955 O'Keefe and Merritt, and have been quite happy with it---certainly happy enough not to spend the $$ on a new one. However, different vintage ranges have different BTUs (our burners are 12,000 vs. the Chambers' 9,000, for instance, which splits the difference between really vintage and many modern ranges; we also have simmer caps so we can get the very low simmer) and bigger or smaller ovens. Our oven is on the small side, although once we adjusted our baking pan sizes to fit, we were fine. Temperature in it is pretty consistent, but again, that depends on the specific range and its condition. In an ideal world, I'd love an electric oven, but I've never found anything that I can't do in the gas oven. I do sometimes wish I had a double oven, though---I think that would address the smallness issue, since it's really more about how many things will fit than about the size of individual dishes. The double oven version of our range would solve that problem for me.

The only real issue we have with ours is the need for the pilot light (could turn it off for burners, but a pain to turn it off for the oven). It would be nice to have an electric starter and not have gas running to it continuously. On the other hand, our gas bill is still ridiculously low even with the pilot, and since we use it daily it's not a huge issue. Hope that's useful...

So, what did you decide? I'm having the same debate right now and would love to hear how you came to your decision.

Thanks.

I feel it is my duty as a member of this forum to post this... I happened across this on eBay, and after I stopped gnashing my teeth over the fact that this range costs $500 less than what I paid for the exact same range, and consoled myself because it is so far away from me that shipping would have eaten up all that savings even if I could go back in time such that I would not have already bought my range, I decided I should put it here for those interested in vintage looks plus modern cooking and safety features.

I don't know how the "make an offer" feature works on eBay, but it sounds like you could get this range for even less than the asking price, if no one else offers more than you.

I'm also going to post this in another thread that has a similar theme.

Here is a link that might be useful: Vintage-look Fratelli on eBay

Thanks for the post ideagirl2. That is quite a beautiful range. Out of my price range but they do make a less expensive model without the dual fuel, although not as pretty as that one with the gorgeous handles. Why so much for so little? How do you like yours? Do you bake much? Had you looked at the Bertazzoni? Anyone else out there with a Fratelli?

I posted my experience with my vintage over on the kitchens forum. Link below

Here is a link that might be useful: vintage range

Hi Elaine,

My Fratelli's not installed yet--buying it was basically the first step in our kitchen remodel. The reason it was the first step is also the reason it's relatively inexpensive: because the double oven is being discontinued in the US. It hasn't sold well because a lot of American buyers are, IMHO, caught up in the idea that bigger is better, so they feel that smaller ovens are bad. There's the whole "but what if I have 20 people over for Thanksgiving" thing. But for the number of people I cook for, this was perfect for me--I'm almost always cooking for 2 to 4, and basically never for more than 8 people or so. Maybe 10 max. So, two smallish ovens were fine.

I've put all my pans in and there's only one that doesn't fit, so that's the only one I need to replace. It's a 12-muffin tin, and it would fit if it didn't have these fancy convex handles on each end. I do bake a fair amount, which is why I was hung up on a dual-fuel range instead of all-gas.

So anyway, American buyers are flocking to the single-oven Fratelli instead of the double, so to get it in the color I wanted (burgundy) I had to jump. And I love it. It's sitting in our dining room awaiting the day when it can be installed (current range is 30" so we can't install this 36" Fratelli until the remodel is basically done). It's gorgeous and very SOLID, really well made. I had looked at the Bertazzoni Heritage, but I really, really REALLY wanted two ovens. And if I'd only wanted one oven, I would've gotten the single-oven Fratelli... I just mentally could not justify spending an extra $2000 on the Berta, beautiful though it was. And I'd seen a Fratelli in a showroom, whereas I'd never seen a Berta, so it was an easier decision to make for that reason too.