Depends on what size are you looking at, and what brands? What kind of cooking do you do? Do you have any special considerations (are you petite, or elderly?).

I really wanted to get a French door oven. but after quite a bit of shopping around and reading up here on the Appliances Forum, I decided they're not quite ready for prime-time. Plus they're really expensive for what you get. As an alternative, I'm considering a Bosch Benchmark oven with the side-swing doors. I've heard very good things about it.

We are considering Thermador and Wolf for the combi steam oven to go on top of a single oven. Neither makes a side or French door oven. I'm thinking it doesn't make sense to do French door for the bottom single oven so we might just end up with a regular or side swing. The wall where they are going will only have about a 45 to 48" aisle.

We are 40 with two young kids but this is our forever home.

Im 5'5 and hubby 5'8"

The French door ovens are nice if you have a narrow space between the oven and an island or something in front of it that limits clearance to open the oven and stand in front of it. The doors are essentially cut in half so they only need half the space to swing open and they swing out of the way. Plus, I think they look cool. : ) Side swing will need a larger foot print to open but at least the door is out of the way.

Hi,

The oven size of the Wolf combi steam is much larger than the Thermador combi steam oven. We love our Wolf combi steam oven.

MJ

Agree, the Thermador steam oven is not very wide due to the configuration of the water tank. Interior dimensions of the Thermador are 1.4 cubic feet while Miele is 1.7 and Wolf is 1.8. May not sound like a lot but when you compare them side by side I think you'll notice the difference quickly. I think the extra space would be very important in your situation cooking for a family of 4 not just 1 or 2.

We do like the Wolf, but haven't seen in person yet. We are trying to get the Thermador promotion (buy just the single wall oven and cooktop with the Wolf steam combi) to save money but our rep at Pirch emailed me last night saying the two brands just look too different to stack. Ahhh, decisions decisions!

Hi,

Stan Z raised another very important difference between the Thermador and Wolf combi steam ovens. Having the water tank access outside the oven (Wolf) is much more convenient and safer. Depending on the cooking mode and length of cooking time, it is sometimes necessary to refill the tank during the cooking cycle. The Wolf opens the tank door automatically and sounds an alarm to alert you the tank needs refilling. Very easy, safe and convenient when the tank access is outside the oven.

MJ

That's a key feature for me! I recall reading somewhere someone complaining about having to open the door of the Wolf to refill. That must have been an older model. Now I have to figure out how best to combine the Wolf combi with Thermador single oven in my layout. We are likely doing the Thermador Freedom induction with a modular gas power burner from wolf. That might change once we get a chance to see the Wolf and Miele products in action.

I went back and checked price compared to other induction tops. It's definitely more expensive and we lose the savings we get with the Thermador promotion. Might go with the regular 5 or 4 burner depending on if we add the wolf modular gas unit. I did see the earlier reports of reliability issues as well as recent comments that have said it has improved. But, I'm not sure it's worth the hefty price tag. We loved it when we tested it though. Will look more closely at Wolf and Miele. There goes our promotion package!

We do need to find something that will allow us to use two burners for our griddle which we use a lot and it be cooked evenly.