Hi All,

I've been looking at adding a small separate cooking area in our
finished basement. It doesn't need to be a full powered stovetop with
a half dozen burners and so forth.

I've looked at all the cooktops and oven ranges w/ cooking surfaces,
and everything seems to require a 240v outlet. This is a frustration
because we don't have a 240v outlet in our basement. I am looking for
something lightweight to put in; we don't need a full powered kitchen
down there, just something that we can use to boil water and cook eggs
from time to time. We might also get a small convection oven for
warming foods and so forth.

I've searched online and haven't been able to find anything. I've
found a few posts such as this one -- http://tinyurl.com/8ex2p -- where
it was suggested that they exist, but so far I haven't been able to
actually find one.

Can anyone point me in the right direction? Thanks for any help! It
would save me a bundle to not have to put in a 240v outlet.

-Josh

"Joshua Beall" wrote:
I've been looking at adding a small separate cooking area in our
finished basement. It doesn't need to be a full powered stovetop with
a half dozen burners and so forth.

I've looked at all the cooktops and oven ranges w/ cooking surfaces,
and everything seems to require a 240v outlet. This is a frustration
because we don't have a 240v outlet in our basement. I am looking for
something lightweight to put in; we don't need a full powered kitchen
down there, just something that we can use to boil water and cook eggs
from time to time. We might also get a small convection oven for
warming foods and so forth.

I think the best you are going to do without adding a 240v circuit is to get
some kind of electric hot plate. In addition to your basement not having a
240v circuit, those 120v ones that are there may be only 15 amp rather than
the 20 amp circuits normally installed in kitchens for wall outlets. For 15
amp 120v service, you are limited to around 1,700 watts total load, for 20
amp 120v service, you are limited to around 2,300 watts. Consider that
single burners on a 240v electric stove are in the range of 1,000 to 2,400
watts for just one burner.

BroilKing makes several double burner hot plates that plug into standard
120v 15 amp outlets, but be aware that if you have both burners on, they are
using 1,650 watts total, so that can be the only thing you are using on that
circuit at the same time. Look at all you want to run concurrently and total
their wattage ratings to see if you are going to run into problems. In my
kitchen I essentially have just one 120v 20 amp circuit for the wall
outlets. I definitely have to watch what I do with the toaster oven, coffee
maker, and microwave. I'll blow a fuse with all three on, and even with two
it's questionable, as the refrigerator is also on that circuit.

The BroilKing double burner hot plates are at
http://www.broilking.com/double_ranges.html. They are available at various
retailers. There are also other manufacturers of similar equipment.

BroilKing also makes a single burner model at 1,500 watts rather than the
825 watts per burner of the double burner hot plates. This one is at
http://www.broilking.com/cast_iron_ranges.html. Browse the site to see what
else they have for what you might want to do.


--
( #wff_ng_7# at #verizon# period #net# )

Joshua Beall wrote:
I've been looking at adding a small separate cooking area in our
finished basement. It doesn't need to be a full powered stovetop with
a half dozen burners and so forth.

I've looked at all the cooktops and oven ranges w/ cooking surfaces,
and everything seems to require a 240v outlet. This is a frustration
because we don't have a 240v outlet in our basement. I am looking for
something lightweight to put in; we don't need a full powered kitchen
down there, just something that we can use to boil water and cook eggs
from time to time. We might also get a small convection oven for
warming foods and so forth.

We have a Sunpentown "Mr Induction" 1881W Induction Burner to supplement
our smoothtop halogen range. It's basically the only burner we use
95% of the time; we love it! I was *just* looking at Sunpentown's
website yesterday, and noticed they had professional "install this
permanently"-style single induction burners in both 120V and 240V.

I'm not sure I'd like them as much, because it didn't say anything
about the "pro" induction burners having timers on them, and my wife
absolutely loves the built-in 99-minute timer in combination with the
temperature setting control on "Mr Induction".

We're thinking about getting the new Kenmore Elite 30" burner to replace
the halogen burner in our kitchen, but without a "shut the burner down"
timer, my wife is thinking we'll still need to use the Sunpentown as
well, "so why spend $1500?".

As is usual for induction burners, you need pots and pans that
magnets will stick to...

Donald (no relationship with Sunpentown, except as a satisfied user
of their induction burner; their "Mr Rice" rice cooker
isn't nearly as good -- the condensate-cup warped from
the heat and is no longer usable!)

Thanks to everyone for your suggestions, those are exactly the sort of
thing I need. As I mentioned in my other post (
http://tinyurl.com/auz5z ), I actually have 40 amps dedicated to this
kitchenette. 2 dedicated outlets at 120v/20amps each. There is other
power in the basement if necessary.

If you have thoughts on the convection oven, let me know. Post asking
about that he http://tinyurl.com/auz5z

Thanks again!
-Josh

IIRC, you said that at some point in time this area might become a
permanent or semi-permanent inlaw suite. Picture yourself having to use
these portable 120 volt units day-in and day-out for all your surface
cooking needs. If I were faced with that, I wouldn't move in.

I live in a very tiny NY apartment, that was originally a garage. The
kitchen is small, and because of the way it was cut out of the original
space, it doesn't have very much usable space. My former apartment had
a galley kitchen that was smaller, but was better designed and had more
usable space. (This kitchen also includes the front door to the
apartment, doors to the LR, BR and bath, the hot water heater, the
furnace, the only closet in the apartment, etc.)

The kitchen has a small 4 burner gas range wedged into the corner. When
I first looked at the apartment, I was pleased to see a "regular" stove,
which isn't necessarily a standard feature in NY apartments. But I
didn't realize how small it was. The burners are so small and so
bunched together that you can't fit two normal-sized pans next to each
other. They'll bang into each other and run into the wall and leave
scorch marks. Only the front right burner is really usable - I can use
a small saucepan on the back left burner at the same time but I have to
be really careful not to push it up against the wall and leave scorch
marks. (I don't know who this stove was made for - dolls? People who
only use 8" cookware? Mobile homes? The brand name has worn off but
it's a regular stove, just very small.)

If the space is so small that a regular stove won't fit, then having two
good burners might be better for cooking than a too-small stove. I
would rather have two usable burners, well placed and reasonably sized,
instead of these four tiny burners, squeezed so close together that none
of them are really useful.

(I haven't used a 120V cooktop so I don't know if the burners would be
powerful enough. If not, that would be a major drawback.)

Karen