I just got rid of mine in our remodel. I now have a 36" Duel Fuel range. I like the size of the 36" oven. It holds a full size baking tray, so one or two pans does a whole batch of cookies!

I did not use my bottom oven for over two years. I figured that I really didn't need it. What I did need was more counter space.

I have a large rotessire that I plug in in the garage for roasting meats, turkey, etc. I am hoping that even at Thanksgiving I have enough oven space. When I was deciding, I took baking pans and cassaroles to the appliance store. (They must have thought I was nuts!) I figured out that I could fit four large cassarole dishes into the 36" oven. I can not imagine needing more room.

We will see next time we have a party!

I think it is important for you to really think about your baking habits and the layout of your kitchen. What are your priorities? For me, I really needed the extra counter space .

Good luck!

This is why I like mine:

Kids can bake while I cook, or vice versa, without getting in each others' way.

I can see into the oven from across the room to keep an eye on things...No bending to look, no bending to lift things out.

I can cook more than 1 or 2 pizzas or roast 2-4 pans of chicken pieces at a time, so we can all eat dinner at once...and it's all hot.

I have a crowd all the time, but when you have a crowd you'll have the flexibility to keep things warm in one oven while dessert bakes (that will work even when there's not a crowd)...Or while the turkey is roasting for hours and hours, you can still bake rolls and pie. Maybe you only do that 2 or 3 times a year, but what will you do without it during those times? Wish you'd splurged that once for the dbl ovens?

We've all done with only one range oven. It's certainly possible without great suffering. But if this is to be your long term house, and if you have the room without giving up necessary work or storage space, and if you can possibly eek it out of your budget, how much will it really cost you spread over the years?

Only you can begin to guess if it will sit there unused. --The broken wall oven in our last house was a great place to store chips and crackers, so it can always be extra storage..;-D

Seriously, though. You could augment your range with a countertop-sized convection oven for a less expensive, less space-taking alternative. But also seriously, if you don't have a wall oven cabinet, you will still need to fill that area with cabinets and countertop, which probably means little savings there. You will need to find another place to store pots and pans, rather than so conveniently right under the cooktop.

You had a lot of reasons not to get the wall ovens, so I thought I'd take the other side and point out reasons to consider it.

I would sell a kidney for double ovens.
Seriously.
Any takers?

I think you'll regret it if you don't go with the double wall oven. If you're entertaining the thought of them now, in the planning stage, then they'd be a good idea for you.

Now for my story, so far I've wondered what I was thinking spending the b-i-g money we did on our fancy-pants double wall oven. Not sure why, exactly, but we definitely thought it was the right choice. And I am pretty sure if we'd gone with a single wall oven I would be ruing it. Actually, my husband would NEVER have let us get a single wall oven. (this is slightly funny as he's from a country which doesn't have ovens and other than cinnamon rolls, he's not a baker)

Granted, it's less expensive to have double wall ovens than a single wall oven (I mean, our wall ovens were ~$5,300 but a single would have been ~$3,500), and I would never, ever have a range (oven under cooktop). Never. I think they are murder to use (as you have to bend down to peek inside, bend down to put something in, bend down to pull something out. You get the picture -- you've been pregnant recently and will be again -- it's hard bending over when you've got that big belly! (I'm not currently pregnant but hope to be again one day.)

Plus, since you're a meat-eater it will probably prove terrifically useful for the holiday turkeys and roasts, pies and cakes.

If you can make it work with your budget I'd go for it. With your children growing up (who knows if they'll enjoy cooking?), with the holidays celebrated at your home, you'd rather have too much cooking space than not enough.

I have been making Thanksgiving dinner for groups of 20+ for probably 10 years. With one oven. I do not cook large meals often, but I cannot WAIT to have more than one oven this Thanksgiving. Even though I really only NEED a second oven once a year, I really really really need it on that day. The turkey takes up the whole oven, and so nothing else can go in the oven until the turkey comes out. It is such a frantic rush when the turkey comes out to put other things in the oven, and to get everything on the table hot. It makes the whole day chaotic and stressful. One year, I had a second oven because we were combining two apartments, and the old apartment still had its kitchen. It was heaven, even though I had to go out in the hall to use it. We once asked our next door neighbors who were going to be away on Thanksgiving if we could borrow their oven. They said no!

This year, I will actually have three ovens. We are getting a Cornufe range. It has two small ovens. They say you can fit a large turkey in the ovens, and even show pictures of a turkey in the oven. But when I peered inside, I was not convinced that my giant bird would make it. So I also got a regular size wall oven. Probably overkill, but I had the space.

Just thinking of it makes me happy -- I can have the bird in one oven, my lasagna that I make as a second dish, along with extra stuffing, in another, my sweet potato pies (a side dish, not a dessert) and biscuits in the other. The oven is always so hot by the time I put the biscuits in that they burn if I don't watch them like a hawk. It is a running joke that the last batch of biscuits always gets burned.

I'm getting so EXCITED thinking about it.

So, yes, to answer your question, if you are going to make a large dinner like Thanksgiving, I highly highly recommend a second oven!

I decided against a double oven and went with a convection microwave instead. I'm very happy with the decision, as I don't have to heat up my large oven during the summer months to cook a simple meal. It really depends on your baking needs though, think it through how you would cook your Thanksgiving dinner with 1 vs. 2 ovens and what size you need. Good luck!

I'm deciding no. Maybe. But no--you can pick up a really awesome countertop convection oven to cover you for holidays. If it's once or twice a year for T-day, or the occasional batch of popovers, why permanently dedicate the space? (OK, when I did double ovens in my last place, I got a lot of use out of the extra oven for potato storage...)

My current kitchen has a single wall oven. If I didn't have a second oven in the basement apartment that we no longer rent...it would be DISASTROUS when I cook Thanksgiving/Christmas/insert your favorite feast-type meal here.

In fact, one of the chief things I hate and despise about my current set-up is the oven situation. SOMEDAY I'll be able to go back to a full-sized range. Someday.

If you are going to do wall ovens...then do two.

Of course you don't "need" it. People have been getting along with one oven for years and years. Your question really is, is it worth it? Is it worth the cost? Is it worth the loss of space? Especially if it's for a once-a-year thing. There are ways of getting around a second oven.

My feeling is that if you haven't been lusting over a second oven before now, it's most likely you won't find it all that useful. I thought a 2nd oven would be a big help. We purchased a 48" range for our remodel with a small oven and large one. It turns out I hate using the energy to run a second oven...it feels very wasteful. I use the small oven about 95% of the time and only use the large oven when the space is needed, i.e. for cookie sheets. I rarely need both of them at the same time--and when I need to cook things at different temps, I usually figure out how to do it in my smaller oven instead of running 2 ovens. And consider the waste/energy that goes into manufacturing an oven and then the waste created when it's eventually disposed of. Appliance overkill definitely seems like a theme on this forum.

If you want to insure flexibility in the future, you could get a 36" range with a 12" cabinet next to it so that you could switch to a 48" range with 2 ovens if needed in the future. I really like having the "hot" area confined to one space and having the burners as a landing pad for things taken out of the oven. I generally hate bending down (a complaint with former refrigerators) but it's not a problem with a range (a whole different line-of-sight than the fridge was.) My 88-year-old mother has no difficulty with her single-oven range even when she had 6 kids in the house and even now when we all gather with our families for holidays. I think taking things out of a higher oven, with the potential to spill very hot juices/sauces over a greater percentage of her body, would be a bigger problem (I also think it takes more strength taking out heavier things higher--think about how you carry heavy boxes...I carry them down low and then pull up to place them on a table rather than carry them high and then lower them down.)

Only you can know if a second oven is worth it because it depends on how/what you cook. Certainly, there are cooks out there that greatly benefit from dual ovens. But, really, if it's for once-a-year, I would figure out how to juggle the cooking to make one oven work and plan so you can be flexible down the road if your needs change as your children grow. And the range versus wall-oven debate....there are fans of each configuration on this forum...so you'll need to consider the pluses and minuses with how your family operates and with the configuration of your kitchen.

Good luck!

There are lots of things we don't "need" but if you want it and would use it, it's in your budget, go for it. I've had double ovens for 18 years now and can't imagine life without them. I bake and cook all the time and having two ovens gives me a lot more flexibility. All holiday functions are in my home so they really get a workout then.

When we started our remodel plans, I wanted a professional range/oven set up. The saleman (bless his heart) talked me out of it. I'm 5'10" and he showed me that bending down to take food out, especially heavy bulky items is difficult. As I get older it will become even more so. So the cooktop/double wall ovens is the thing for me. We're all different in our cooking styles so base your decision on what works good for you.

Can anyone recommend a good countertop convection oven like Fori mentioned?

With all due respect to the thoughtfully given suggestion, if I put in a 36" range, I could never convince myself I should spend the money to put in a 48" unless the 36" died, no matter how much I wished for and could use another oven...and you'd have to put in a big hood now, or change that all later, too. It seems like it could be a lot of money to spend to have regrets. Ovens are never cheap, but there are good deals out there that make them much more doable, if that's an issue and you're willing to take the time and look...and if you decide that's what you'd like best for your new kitchen. I got my dbl F&P from an appliance store that also sells on Ebay... for the price of a single's regular retail.

I had second thoughts about 'overspending' to have an 8 burner rangetop for our large family that cooks together. Of course, we could have gotten along with 6, but there are times it would make for more difficult logistics. I mentioned my self-criticism/2nd thoughts about spending the money to my BIL and SIL, and my BIL said that it was better that the 2 burners were there when I didn't need them than not to have them when we do. There are, of course, lines to draw for that sort of logic...if for instance, it's something you'd only use once in a blue moon...But if you can do it, now is when I'd go ahead. BTW, I quit beating myself up for getting the bigger rangetop after that.

When I was tempted by things mentioned here and on the appliance forum, I gave the lust awhile to settle. I usually came to my senses about which things we didn't 'need' and the things that were important rose to the top and stayed with me. If you need to, give it time and see how you feel after awhile.

I'm opting out for several reasons: I'd rather have the cabinet space, I don't want to shell out that kind of money.
It is just DH and I and even if we had family over for a holiday meal, I've never had a double oven and have found only a few occasions where I'd wished I had one.

If you can wait till October or so, did you see this?
http://www.appliancist.com/builtin_ovens/new-revolutionary-ge-profile-single-double-wall-oven.html
I'm thinking this is the way I will go. It's more expensive than a single oven, but less than a double and will be nearly perfect for us.

You could also go with a speedcook oven (Like advantium) and a regular oven for more flexibility.

Good luck.

Well, lets see. The flexibilty would be nice. But Im just questioning how much I would use it. More counter space would be good too. Maybe if I just get a 36" stove/oven unit then it would be ok. I'm having trouble making it all fit in my kitchen and my budget. I was just trying to think long term and I was thinking its probably now or never. I dont know, still pondering...

Another thought is that I am short, 5 ft tall. Is it going to be uncomfortable for me to pull things out of a wall oven?

I'm 5'1"--no trouble with a single or double wall oven, although I'm sure they could be installed in a bad way. I had my doubles with a decent sized drawer beneath and had no problems. If you have back problems or want really good access to your ovens, there are some that are hinged on the side.

The recommendation I got from the appliance forum for really good counter top ovens was Cadco. Some of those are not exactly cheaper than an extra oven, but being able to put them away when you don't need them is a huge advantage in a small room. Of course I've done pies in my old old toaster oven, and the new toaster ovens are much better than that thing. Come to think of it, I've done Thanksgiving during a remodel and you should never forget that it's possible to do a turkey on the grill, even in Michigan...

I'm just saying that if you only rarely need the extra, there are alternatives to a double oven.

I had double ovens for seven years. I rarely used both at the
same time except at Thanksgiving. I am moving to a new house
in a couple of weeks and will have one oven with a convection
microwave above the oven.

I've had double ovens for about 15 years now (two houses) and wouldn't be without them. I tend to use them when I'm cooking with multiple cooking methods---i.e. broiling in one oven and baking in the other (think burgers and oven fries, e.g.). I also use both ovens if two items require significantly different temperatures.

At the holidays---what can I say? Turkey cooking in the lower oven while hot appetizers and sides rotate through the upper oven. Is this thread making anyone else hungry????

Don't know if they're "worth a kidney", but there are a lot of other things I'd give up before them.

We love our double ovens. In fact, that is DH's ONLY input in the new kitchen -- will it have double ovens? -- okay then.

sarschlos_remodeler,

Its funny that you say that. I keep trying to show my husband different kitchen designs and he's like - whatever. I think its true that the woman really designs the home ;).

The need for double ovens finally put me over the edge to do my kitchen when one of my college kids came home as a vegetarian who will eat fish, so now along with the turkey I also have to cook a decent amount of FISH.

Not to mention that when you have the double ovens, at least for me, it is much easier to plan and have gatherings more than just at thanksgiving!

I have my cooktop, over the range convection microwave, and my double ovens and I have had all those cranking at the same time and now seem to be doing it more and more often!

If you have a growing family, chances are at some point you will want to keep your family close and we have done that at our house by making time for big extended-family get togethers on a regular basis and all of them seem to center around the food. So although the food seems central, at least we are all together and close and that has been a big thing for me.

We do Thanksgiving, Gingerbread houses (for 10 - 15 at times), Christmas eve, March birthdays, Easter, June Birthdays, Father's day, and September Birthdays. I didn't even realize we did this many get togethers, but there it is. They are all traditions in our house and hopefully years down the road, my kids will remember...and if they don't, I will :)

I would only want double wall ovens, especially as the one doing the family gatherings and holiday meals. I've had a single oven and a convection microwave, but much of that time I also had a second microwave and tended to use them all.

Keep in mind that a countertop oven takes counterspace just as wall ovens do, so if you get a wall oven and a countertop, you'll actually have less counter space than with the two ovens stacked. If you want to clear the counter, it takes up storage space. Both are bad for me.

And I also would never buy one range with a plan to change it out unless you were going to make do with something you had already and park it in the larger space while you saved up for the larger one. You will spend as much for smaller range, cabinet, and counter as you would likely spend for the larger range -- and you will have to deal with cutting and refinishing the counter and trying not to damage the cabinet or the backsplash. Further, the cabinet next to the range would generally be a finished side cabinet. You'd have to pay for two of those and then deal with the damage where they were joined. There are some things you can easily change, but somethings are worth doing only once.

2+ kids (lots of slumber parties & cookie baking), Thanksgiving, birthdays & family get togethers with 20+ people?

Yes, you need double ovens. You won't use them everyday, you won't use them every week. But when you do use them, you'll need them, both of 'em.

There are great deals to be had shopping Craig's List. If budget is a concern, I would buy used (many are only slightly used). You can always upgrade later. But get something now because it's when your kids are young that you'll get the most use out of them.

Have you looked into double oven ranges? I believe Electrolux has a decent one. The bottom oven is big enough for a casserole. We're kind of leaning towards that since we too don't know if we'd use a double wall oven enough.