Cleaning up gites time. Fed up with the ghastly gas hobs and bottles dumbly sitting in a cupboard that could more usefully house a washing machine, so think it is high time to modernise, and reduce cleaning time with an induction hob! The replacement MUST be plug and play (13A) and ‘full’ size - 59X59. Ideally with three rings.
I can find four ring 13A plates by Belling and Neff, but they have four rings. I have scoured tinternet but a three ring version eludes me! I wonder therefore if anyone might have or know of a 13A three ring plate AND if you do have a 13A, will you give me any comments - ie is it less effective with lower wattage burners, please?
I have a new Brandt 3 ring electric induction hob that we bought in the CDiscount sale last year after I got the house and new kitchen fitted. Very easy to install as electrician had put dedicated box in wall (not sure if it is wired in or plugged, my son did it very quick and easily).Am very very pleased after a lifetime of gas cookers and hobs, heats in a fast time to boiling point, has a timer, automatic lock and other features. I also have a Brandt fan oven and dishwasher to keep it all the same as I am a fan of their products for many years in France and they have always been reliable. They also do a 2 ring induction hob as well. You can google their products. Size is approx 57 x 50cm which is pretty large.
Thanks Shiba - your hob sounds to be the ‘full fat’ 72KW type that requires hard wiring into the electrics.
Stupidly and despite spending a lot in refurbing the gites several years back, I never wired in a dedicated circuit for hobs, having made the stupid decision to use gas, I am now paying the price!
Maybe I should have worded my question: does anyone know of a three ring hob that has a standard plug on it that can be plugged into a standard socket…
Thanks Griffin, but yes, they are all full strength ones.
I popped into Darty just now and might have some joy - they have an Electrolux three ring with a ‘puissance’ of 3500W - more than I wanted to spend, but might be the ticket…
Badger - are you reading this? What is the maximum one can put through a standard domestic plug and socket? Can one shove a 3500W appliance through one?
Thanks John - I have two sockets under the worktop on 2.5 mm going directly to the consumer unit. The hob will though share its load with a small fridge. I doubt if three rings will ever be on together, so the load may never hit 35000W.
3500 Watts divided by 230 Volts = a tad over 15A, so a decent plug & socket should have no problem with that load, provided the circuit uses the correct cabling.
The fridge load is minor.
Also, diversity is your friend - you are unlikely to run the full load for long periods, probably only ever half of it.
As they were packing up the 3500W hob, I noticed the cable was much thicker than 2.5mm that I expected to see - checked the specs in the book and see that the hob is in fact a 7200W job, but someone in Darty chose to just put the draw of the large ring in the ‘puissance’ box and not add the other two rings…
They were very good about it and offered me a small goodwill discount on any other, but it seems that it is impossible to get a 3500W 3 ring induction jobbie. 2 rings yes, but whilst ideal, they will not cover the big hole left by the gas hob…
Yes I was surprised when you first said it but kept quiet as strange things do happen. Atul Kochhar was doing a demmo on a stand next to mine at the ideal home show and he said that was under powered and really slow. We put in a commercial unit in a resturant and that was massively power hungry but only in short bursts which is not really a suitable system for france.
Don’t know if it is helpful for me to chip in, but this is one of my Mastermind topics.
I am a very keen chef at home and have a big 5 ring gas range. But tell the truth, I do most of my cooking (90%+) on a single counertop induction hob that is placed on a board on top of the range, occasionally using one or at most two of the gas rings but even then mostly to keep warm pans that I have previously cooked on the induction hob. I rarely use the oven for cooking and have prepared meals for 12 quite happily this way.
I would say that at most a 2 ring induction hob would be adequate, and many of those have one ring more powerful than the other (even 2 full induction rings is quite a load for a wall socket) but that is fine. You could always add a third to be plugged in elsewhere, if that works and provides a little extra flexibility.
Of course, some people will always find a way to complain whatever you provide, and ironically good cooks would cope fine, it is the less capable ones that will struggle and complain about the tools.
I did not, as planned last year, fit an induction hob to replace the gas one. Laziness. But I have another window open on the Mac with a three ring 3500W jobbie on Amazon.
Before I hit the yellow buy now button, question please: Last year, I see very few 3500W induction hobs. This year, I am tripping over them. Is this due to induction technology getting better, or is it the Chinese flooding the market with cheap alternatives - in other words, what if anything might I lose with a 3500W as opposed to the 7200W ones? Anyone know?
I don’t know anything about such things, but I’d guess you’d actually loose 3700kw of power. So, you won’t have as much simultaneous heat when all the induction zones are on. We bought one of these in 2011, it’s been rock solid and very flexible. Hob prices seem also to have dropped marginally over the last thirteen years, which is pleasant surprise.
