I have a DCS 30" cooktop and it's been sufficient for me for canning even with only four burners. The only thing I haven't liked about it is that all of the burners are sized for medium and larger pots. I'd like one burner for small pots. Not a deal breaker, though. It's been fairly easy to keep clean and I like the large knobs that are off to the side (rather than in the middle). Best plan is to try to take your largest and/or most used pots to the store and see how they fit on the models you're looking at.

We've had a 36" DCS cooktop for five years and been quite satisfied with the performance, burner capacity, and design of the cooktop and the controls. We have also had no maintenance or repair issues. As I recall, it was well under $1500 at the time.

Have you considered just getting a dual fuel range? It would be a lot more economical.

I have looked at dual fuel ranges, but 30 inches seems a little tight for the amount of cooking I do. My total budget for oven and cooktop is about $3200. I have narrowed down ovens to a couple in that range, leaving me with $1500 for cooktop. The only 36 inch ranges in that price range didn't seem to have as good of specs as purchasing seperately. I am mostly concerned about being able to cook with 3 10-12 inch pans on the same surface at once, and I don't think I can do that with a 30 inch, but if there is a range that meets those needs, I would love to know. I have an electric range now, and it doesn't work. Just tired of cooking on the cheapest stove money can buy for the last 13 years. I would want a range with a proof function, or that can go down to a low enough temperature to do so. I bake bread every other day.

Any oven can proof, just turn on the light. That is what some of the dedicated proof modes do anyway.

Mine can't , so not every oven, even with the light on. I usually turn it on to keep warm for a while, then turn it off before it gets too hot and shut the door, but it would be nice if it just stayed the right temperature.

Moving on, I need to know if that many large pans fit on the mentioned cooktops. Do you know the answer to that?

Cookingfor7 - what wall oven did you decide on? So happy that you started this string since I am in a similar situation, replacing 30" LP gas cooktop over 30" electric wall oven. The bid to cut the Corian to accommodate a range is $1200, so I feel that putting that into the appliances and keeping the existing configuration is best. I need a good simmer burner and prefer 4 burners (I think). Any suggestions would be helpful! (Empty-nester now so slowing down with my cooking . . . )

I've settled on an electrolux wall oven. Found it for under $1700. I really like the gliding racks, and the model I'm getting has dual convection fans.

Good choice.

I think you will have to go into a store with a tape measure and measure the distance between the centers of the two burners. I have never seen that posted on any specifications. I did this once, and I found that, at that time, if you bought any brand, all of the cooktops in that brand had the same distance between the burner centers. I don't know if that's true anymore but you didn't get more space the more you paid, you got more looks....the maytag gas cooktops are well reviewed and have space between burners...but the brand's cachet is dependability, not hotsy totsy....like the list you proposed...