Downdraft Slide In Electric Range

The downdraft slide in electric range is quite possibly the best type of cooking range that the average kitchen can have for at least a couple of important reasons:

Downdraft for flexible kitchen design
Modern kitchens call for easy movement and functionality in what is often the most-frequented room in the house. Today's designs can call for large kitchen islands on which Moms cook while their children do homework and converse with each other all at the time. Or the family watches TV and plays video games on a flat screen TV on the wall while dinner is being prepared in an open floor plan that combines a kitchen and family room and includes a peninsula that both divides and unites the two distinct activity areas. In all of these situations, it is very likely that the most effective solution calls for a cooking range that slides into the custom cabinetry of the island or peninsula and have a downdraft duct system since there are no adjoining walls to support the venting. A bonus is that a slide in range with downdraft is likely much quieter than its updraft counterpart with its noisy fan.

Electric is easy
An important consideration for this type of kitchen is the likely "mass market" demographic which today consists of the "leading edge baby boomer" age 55-65 and the group right behind them, the GenX 45-55 "trailing baby boomer". This is the demographic that makes up the bulk of established homeowners today and this is the demographic that fits best with the electric downdraft slide in range. GenX'ers are very tech savvy and want the control and flexibility of a modern kitchen-cum-living room. This almost always means "electric", complete with precise touch controls, alarms and other sensors integrated into the cabinetry and probably including a computer and TV. These folks are too busy with their lives and it is a huge plus that electric cooking surfaces are so easy to clean.

Within this niche, the 30 inch downdraft slide in electric range stands out as the optimal combination of the above added to effective size. The 30 inch cooktop provides a flexible enough accommodation for different size cooking utensils and is also effectively suctioned by the downdraft vents. A larger cooktop, say a 36" cooktop, doesn't provide enough additional flexibility for the slight degradation in downdraft efficiency while a smaller 24 inch cooktop is too small for all but the most modest needs.

Given the above, it's easy to see why the downdraft slide in electric range is the most common cooking range in today's modern kitchens.