13 out of 13 people found this review helpful.
JennAir JES9860
Date of Review: Oct 18, 2006
The Bottom Line: I highly recommend this range. It is slick and performs well with lots of extras.
We bought our JennAir Electric Downdraft Slide-in Range in November 2005. Our model is white on white. Because we bought it from a Sears Clearance Outlet, there were parts missing and we knew there would be more costs involved. The inital price without burners, grill, or downdraft system was $900.
We decided to order the new parts we needed online and that worked well for all of the downdraft system and grill parts. We had to go to another source than JennAir though as you cannot buy directly from them. We bought two conventional coil cartridges and big pot burner through our local appliance store. Total cost with all extras ended up being about $1400.
What I really liked about this way of buying a stove is we were able to customize it the way we wanted. A smooth top cartridge is available but we chose conventional coil because of the amount of canning I do. I have the grill on one side and a two burner conventional coil cartridge on the other side when I'm not canning. With very little effort, I can remove the grill unit and replace it with the other two burner conventional coil cartridge. I decided to leave the big pot burner, a raised and reinforced burner, on the one front burner all the time because I use a lot of big pots especially when canning. My son made me a wooden cover for the grill too. So basically, I have two different looking stoves with very little effort. What I gained in function is amazing!
Another thing I like, is parts for this stove are readily available. So if you scratch the stovetop, with one click of a button you can order another one online then quickly replace it yourself. Virtually every part is available! I've never seen this in an appliance before especially the ease of finding parts. Replacement parts are reasonably priced, allow you to customize the stove and do repairs if necessary. I will be buying at least one smooth top cartridge for as well to give me three looks and added function.
Now, this is a very slick looking stove that gets a lot of attention from anyone who sees it.
Performance: There is very little I can find fault with in respect to performance of this stove. It is a true pleasure to use. Installing cartridges is as simple as plug and play. This stove really performs well.
I really like the big pot burner. This is an optional raised and reinforced burner that costs about $80 CDN. The self cleaning feature is a real plus and it does do a very nice job. The convection oven allows cooking at lower temperatures for shorter periods of time so that is a real money saver. The downdraft system can be set to either high or low, and it is very effective.
The settings on this stove are almost mind boggling but they give you so many options but that's another thing I really like. Because of the drying setting, I was able to get rid of my old dehydrator. I also like the fact that the stove knobs must be pushed then turned before they will work. They are on the front so this makes them kid friendly.
The grill is easy to use and does a reasonable job when you don't want to battle the snow. I bought the non-stick grill grates. They do get a bit of a coating on them so I like covering when not in used. This is more for looks than anything else. The grill grates clean up nicely. I handwash but they would likely be ok in the dishwasher
Customer Service: Because of the way we bought this stove we had to deal with Maytag's (the makers of JennAir) customer service. The people we dealt with were top notch! They went out of their way to help us find the parts and answer any questions we had. They are super to deal with!
What I don't like: The burner cartridges and vent grill rise above the stove top making a quick wipe down almost impossible. If you use the one or two of the timers when the time is up and cancel is pressed the oven shuts off as well so the timers cannot be used as a generic kitchen timer. The vent (downdraft system) will let in cold air when the wind blows against that wall of the house. I solved this by placing a folded towel over the vent grill. This must be a common problem as I see you can buy wooden vent covers to use when the stove is not in use.
