Induction hobs

busy_mom_2

We are in the process of choosing new appliances for our kitchen. I currently love my gas stoves oven but it's free standing. I want built in appliances in the new kitchen. I have decided to go with electric as the built in gas ovens seems so much smaller. I have also been looking at the induction hobs and wondering if anyone has one and are they any good. I accept the pans are expensive.
can anyone recommend a decent oven and hob?
Budget wise around £400 -£500 for the oven and £200 - £300 for the hob.

ryder72

For your budget you should be able to get Neff electric oven and gas hob.

Induction is superb but a bit more. Neff are offering free pans with hobs at the moment so even better value.

fluffpot

Don't forget you need to factor in the cost of a new largish electrical circuit for the hob - probably 6mm cable and 40A circuit.

markdavey

I wouldn't go back to gas after getting my Induction (I do most of the cooking in our house). Pans needn't be expensive (Ikea do some pretty cheap Induction compatible pans) although I took the opportunity to 'treat myself' to a set of Stella Pans. Agree with Fluffpot though, my induction hob (Whirlpool) is rated at max 6000w, I had to have separate circuits for the Oven and Hob. Each is on its own 32a Breaker.

nicka99

I have a neff induction. it wasnt cheap but I love it. I had gas before but was worried it woulnt be as powerful and I was totally wrong. On the neff there is a 'P' setting (power boost). I had a large pan of cold potatoes in cold water that came to the boil in about 2 minutes using 'P'. same for stir fries and other things that you need a good blast for. the changes are very quick when raising or lowering the power and range is from good low simmer to v hot. only thing to remember is that the heat is only generated when the base is in contact with the hob so you cant go throwing your vegetables around your wok by tilting and throwing them too much or the hob will complain you took the pan away.
its also so easy to keep clean as any spills dont get baked on as the heat is in the pan and not the glass.
lastly better safety with no open flames. I never really gave this much thought/concern until a good friend of mine got badly burnt earlier this year when her 'floaty top' got too close to the flame of a gas hob... she was in hospital for days and will have the scars for life.

ivylinn

I have had a Bosch induction hob for over 5 years now, I am very happy with it and wouldn't use any other type of hob again.
You have the safety of an electric hob but the ability to change the cooking temperature instantly as with gas.

ryder72

Neff now have a model that plugs into a 13A socket. Admittedly you cant run all rings on full power on it but that realistically hardly ever happens. I think you can get 2 rings on full power on it at once.

McKneff

kmdesign wrote: »

Neff now have a model that plugs into a 13A socket. Admittedly you cant run all rings on full power on it but that realistically hardly ever happens. I think you can get 2 rings on full power on it at once.

Any idea who is selling these please.

PeggyAnn_2

From searching around the internet it seems that the vast majority who've had an induction hob wouldn't ever have anything else in the future. They have the controllability of gas but are much cleaner as spills don't burn and so are easy to wipe off. Additionally they cook faster and use much less power so bills are kept down.

For these reasons we're putting an induction hob in the cottage we're currently renovating, the first such hob we've had.

Pans for us haven't been a problem as we'd recently bought a new set anyway, that are suitable for an induction hob. You can check by ensuring that firstly the bottoms are flat, and secondly that a magnet sticks to the bottom (try a fridge magnet).

We're very pleased with the pans we chose. They're part of the Ready Steady Cook range, and a set of 4 + a frying pan cost £59.95 from Argos (cat. no. 861/0959).

Having looked at lots of reviews, including Which?, induction hobs are more reliable than most other appliances, plus there seems to be less difference in performance between various brands.

For this reason we're probably going to go for the top of the range Hotpoint, the CIO 642 DDB, that has power boost on all 4 rings, a timer, plus one touch heat settings from 1 to 10 for each ring rather than just a +/- control that most induction hobs (regardless of make) have. The cost is around £400.

The Which? best buy (indeed the highest rating of all regardless of price) was also from the Hotpoint/Indesit group. This was the Indesit VIA 640C at around £300. It doesn't have power boost or a timer, and has the usual +/- controls. Otherwise it seems similar to the Hotpoint CIO 642 DDB.

We're be interested to hear any other thoughts on which model to choose as we're about to place our order.

nicka99

timers are very useful. on the neff we have (I dont know if the same applies to all makes/models) you can set the timer for individual rings to turn off after a number of minutes and/or a general coooking timer. so effectively on a 4 ring (zone?) hob we have 5 potential timers running at once ! Ours also has 1-10 power. I dont know how you would know what was happening if you just had +/- without any indication what power you had set !

PeggyAnn_2

Correction to my previous post (no 9):

The Hotpoint CIO 642 DDB has power boost on just 2 of the rings. (I misread the instruction manual as it covers 3 different models, not all available in the UK.)

We're also looking at the IKEA NUTID HIN4T that has been reduced from £305 to £249, making it very good value and well within the OP's budget. It too has power boost on 2 rings (but only 1 of these is high power to start with). Apparently it also has a timer, but I'll check this tomorrow if IKEA can give me a link to a manual.

Has anyone any experience of this hob?

I'm guessing it's made by Whirlpool. Can anyone please confirm?