<edi> This may not be the appropriate section for kitchen appliances - but I don't specifically see a section I can find 100% applicable. Please move if necessary?
I'd like to post my 3-year review of the Frigidaire FFIC3026TB 30 Inch Electric Induction Cooktop. I did a bunch of research back when, as our old coil-style electric was going out, giving us fits and we thought we wanted to convert to gas, we found out it was going to be something like $2k just to run a gas line into the location for our cooktop. I'd thought it would be easy, as our home furnace (in the garage) is right on the other side of the wall and I thought we could just tap in. Apparently, when the plumber inspected it, they said the line wouldn't support the flow for both stove and furnace and we'd have to run a new line all the way from the other end of the house, so.... yeah, that sealed it for us. Time to try induction.
I was skeptical, I'd never used one, but I wanted something better than our old coil-electric burners. I was attracted to the more 'instant' heat, keeping the cooktop cool and the ability to 'autosize' the burners for different pans. This was one of the more attractive things to me - though, sadly, I've since found out that this feature DOES. NOT. WORK. on the Frigidaire induction cooktops, at least much of the time, and on many different models.
Here's the one I got:
As you can see, (or maybe not), it is CLEARLY marked in EVERY burner position with an "Auto-Sizing" label, and the hashed markings indicate the supposed sizes of the induction cooking zones available in each position.
First, this was a pretty straightforward hookup, I wired it in myself to the outlet under the counter after a little research. It's a 240-volt line, and I think 30A if I remember right. Pretty doable for most people who are somewhat handy (a label I'd like to claim, although I might be stretching a bit).
Dropped right in to my counter opening, had some fasteners/adjustment clamps we had to fiddle with, but it wasn't too bad.
As for the cooktop or cooking surface itself, it's held up well. I have no real complaints there. No real discernable scratches on it after 3 years of normal family use. We use a variety of induction-capable cookware from Anolon and Calphalon to stainless steel to several heavy cast iron pans (well, I do - The Wife doesn't like to use them due to the weight) and one of my favorites, a SolidTeknics 14" Australian steel dual-handle pan. This thing is AWESOME!
Ok, so numerous types of cookware, lots of cooking at home, we use lots of large pans. Several 10", 12" and 14" versions. One interesting thing about induction heating is that it doesn't heat the cooktop under your pan like a typical electric coil-based cooktop, where a superheated electric coil is underneath your surface. This uses electrical induction current to transfer energy to the pan itself, leaving the cooktop cool, and turning the bottom of your pan into its own heating element, sort of. It's pretty cool, and your cooktop stays reasonably cool. If cooking on it for a while, when you pull the pan off and put your hand on it, you can still burn yourself if you're not careful (or melt plastic utensils, etc.!), but it's nowhere nearly as hot as a typical coil-based electric cooktop. The heat is only what's conducted DOWN from your pan's surface into the glass top of the surface, and it seems to cool pretty quickly. Essentially, I can remove a pan I've been cooking with for some time and immediately wipe down the cooktop with a wet washrag or sponge or Clorox wipes and it's only warm to mildly hot. Not enough to cause a problem - and spilled liquids or food don't COOK onto the surface or caramelize or burn and need scrubbing. It's really quite nice! And, as I said, this surface has remained remarkably scratch free and almost pristine for going on 3 years now.
Speaking of spilled liquids or food... this is one of those things you should know about these types of cooktops. If you spill or boil something over, at least on this one I've got, if there's much of it, it will cause the burner to sort of 'short' (it's not really shorting, I think it's some kind of safety feature, obviously) and it will shut down the entire cooktop. So... one day I was boiling some water for tea and went to the bathroom - I probably ended up in there a little longer than I expected (ahem... due to... things... you know), and when I came out I saw water around on the cooktop and it had shut itself off. I've since experimented a couple of times and seen this happen again. Good feature. I like this.
However, similarly, when you're cooking, stirring, moving things around, etc., you know things spill and leak over, etc. Sometimes, due to the cooktop staying so cool, we mix and match with items ON the cooktop. For instance, I'll pull out a bag of cheese from the fridge and set it on the cooktop in preparation for adding it to my pan, or other things like plastic mixing bowls of chopped veggies or meat I've prepared to add into my cooking meal - and the mostly-cool cooktop doesn't melt these bowls, super handy! - but the cooktop will recognize SOMETHING is on one of the other burners, it senses the temp or the composition or something like that, and it'll beep at me a few times. If I've spilled a largish amount, or am quickly wiping spills off or whatever, it'll sometimes shut the whole cooktop off, requiring me to turn it back on with the power button and re-select each burner, setting the power back to where I want it. Again, I'm sure this is a safety feature, and I'm not mad about it. Sometimes requires me to go to a few extra steps, but it's fine, I'd rather have the extra safety features.
Now, for the down side - the auto-sizing.
This just flat out DOES. NOT. WORK. There is NO autosizing of the burners on this model, and from ongoing research I've done, it applies to numerous versions of the Frigidaire and Electrolux lineup. Lots of complaints about this - and I've yet to find a single review where someone complained about it not working and then it somehow being resolved to MAKE it work. It seems more like Electrolux blames the customer's cookware first and almost inevitably. "Is your cookware perfectly flat? Have you checked it for flatness?" "Is it true magnetic, induction-capable cookware?" Even with good quality, trusted, tried and true brands like MadeIn and All Clad, etc. Still they blame the cookware. Then, after some troubleshooting, it seems they just revert back to, "All induction cooktops can cook a little unevenly. This sounds like it is working as designed." Ummm... no it's not. If it's not autosizing as ADVERTISED, it's not working as designed. Well... unless the autosizing doesn't really exist and it is working with it's small induction zones as those are the only zones it has - but NOT working as ADVERTISED.
So... how do I know the autosizing isn't working? It's actually quite simple. If you watch how your food is cooking, you'll quickly find that the zone in the center of your pan is MUCH hotter than the outer edges of your pan. Even with a pan that fits fully within the hash-marked zones on the cooktop. You can place a skillet on the cooking zone, put a shallow ½" or so of water in it, and heat it up to begin to boil and you can physically SEE where the metal is being heated by the induction zone. This shows as a perfect circle in the center of your pan, under the water, where the water is bubbling and boiling in that specific area, but not other areas. The water eventually will heat up around it more and more, and you'll get a rolling boil if you have a deeper layer in a deeper pan, but it's quite evident when you're watching the water exactly WHERE the induction current is being applied - in a very specific ring in the center of the pain - in the case of my largest burner, about 4-4½" in diamter. Not in a CIRCLE, not the whole 4½" disc area, just in a RING around the edges of this area that is 4½" in diameter.
Now... this ring does NOT change sizes based on the size of the pan. Nor does it move based on the location of the pan. In the above example, with a 14" pan with ½" of water, I can slide the pan around to one side or the other and I can see the heated area of the pan's surface staying in the same spot over this induction area on the cooktop. It's very obvious when you cook with it, too - I have to move my pans around a lot to try to get heat to distribute more evenly - even on solid cast iron and my Aussie steel pain. Good though they may be, they will NOT conduct ALL of the heat outward to a degree to allow even cooking when they're only being superheated in a small circle in the center. No pan will do this.
I would have expected, even worst case scenario, that the induction 'ring' would expand and cook the largest outer ring appropriately, even while leaving the center zone unaffected. This would at least allow heat to conduct evenly along the pan's metal bottom INWARD and given you MORE even cooking, but I would have really preferred the entire disc area of the induction zone be heating - but it doesn't. It remains, 100% of the time, a 4½" ring of heat being generated on the bottom surface of my pan that looks like an "O". Now, I'm not sure if other cooktops will do what I want, namely, heating a DISC across the ENTIRE surface of my pan, or if they all do just an outer ring, but even an outer ring, were it LARGER, would lead to better, more even cooking in the entire pan.
Sadly, as I said, I have done some more research now and found this to be a common complaint about Frigidaire induction cooktops. I'm not sure if it's PERVASIVE, meaning not sure if it's only SOME of them that end up this way and others actually work as described, or if others just do what I've done for 3 years and bitch and moan internally about it, while adapting their cooking style to just... "deal with it." I saw numerous reports of others replacing their Frigidaire induction cooktop for this reason with GE models and they claim they worked as claimed for the autosizing feature - although I'm not sure if it's the 'ring' or 'disc' zone like I described above.
Lots of complaints to Electrolux corporate over this. Reports of a class-action lawsuit, though I haven't seen any specifics about how to find this or participate. A couple of reports I saw, the poster claimed Electrolux eventually purchased back the cooktop for their original price, but it seems most of them were essentially told to go pound sand - sometimes after multiple service calls and 'repair' attempts. But never have I found a confirmed report of anyone actually getting this 'autosizing' feature to work once it was reported as NOT working. In fact, I haven't seen ANY specific reports from someone where it DID work at ALL! Of course, many people would just use their cooktop as normal, if it was functioning as expected, and wouldn't complain online about it. But not one report even coming in during 'complaint' posts where someone says, "Wow, that's weird, my autosizing works perfectly and always has." Not one that I saw.
Anyways...
So this is a very longwinded post, but I hope it is thorough and complete enough to help people make their own decisions regarding this cooktop or others like it. Definitely, this is the biggest complaint I have about the one I've got. Having ZERO autosizing really does make it more difficult to cook large meals for multiple people in large pans, which I tend to do a fair amount. It's just annoying.
I'd REALLY like to see this report/post go viral and the company sees a ton of people complaining and actually decides to change how they do business - i.e.,. not advertising a feature that it seems to ME doesn't actually EXIST in reality. It OUGHT to be something they have repercussions from, as this was a major feature and selling point to me in picking this cooktop, and it has never, ever worked. And, it seems like I'm not the only one.
Shame on you, Electrolux, for foisting this off on the public and NOT standing behind your product. Very, very poor practice, and this will DEFINITELY reduce the likelihood I will EVER purchase another Frigidaire product again. To me, honesty is key in everything. Period. I don't forgive lack of it, and I don't forget it, either, when it comes to spending my hard-earned money.
I hope to replace this sometime with a model that works as intended. This one may get donated to Habitat For Humanity or something. It's not a bad cooktop, it does work, and it has served me - but it lacks a specific feature that was a major selling point to me personally, and I feel like I've been lied to and misled.
Again, shame on you, Electrolux.
I'd like to post my 3-year review of the Frigidaire FFIC3026TB 30 Inch Electric Induction Cooktop. I did a bunch of research back when, as our old coil-style electric was going out, giving us fits and we thought we wanted to convert to gas, we found out it was going to be something like $2k just to run a gas line into the location for our cooktop. I'd thought it would be easy, as our home furnace (in the garage) is right on the other side of the wall and I thought we could just tap in. Apparently, when the plumber inspected it, they said the line wouldn't support the flow for both stove and furnace and we'd have to run a new line all the way from the other end of the house, so.... yeah, that sealed it for us. Time to try induction.
I was skeptical, I'd never used one, but I wanted something better than our old coil-electric burners. I was attracted to the more 'instant' heat, keeping the cooktop cool and the ability to 'autosize' the burners for different pans. This was one of the more attractive things to me - though, sadly, I've since found out that this feature DOES. NOT. WORK. on the Frigidaire induction cooktops, at least much of the time, and on many different models.
Here's the one I got:
As you can see, (or maybe not), it is CLEARLY marked in EVERY burner position with an "Auto-Sizing" label, and the hashed markings indicate the supposed sizes of the induction cooking zones available in each position.
First, this was a pretty straightforward hookup, I wired it in myself to the outlet under the counter after a little research. It's a 240-volt line, and I think 30A if I remember right. Pretty doable for most people who are somewhat handy (a label I'd like to claim, although I might be stretching a bit).
Dropped right in to my counter opening, had some fasteners/adjustment clamps we had to fiddle with, but it wasn't too bad.
As for the cooktop or cooking surface itself, it's held up well. I have no real complaints there. No real discernable scratches on it after 3 years of normal family use. We use a variety of induction-capable cookware from Anolon and Calphalon to stainless steel to several heavy cast iron pans (well, I do - The Wife doesn't like to use them due to the weight) and one of my favorites, a SolidTeknics 14" Australian steel dual-handle pan. This thing is AWESOME!
Ok, so numerous types of cookware, lots of cooking at home, we use lots of large pans. Several 10", 12" and 14" versions. One interesting thing about induction heating is that it doesn't heat the cooktop under your pan like a typical electric coil-based cooktop, where a superheated electric coil is underneath your surface. This uses electrical induction current to transfer energy to the pan itself, leaving the cooktop cool, and turning the bottom of your pan into its own heating element, sort of. It's pretty cool, and your cooktop stays reasonably cool. If cooking on it for a while, when you pull the pan off and put your hand on it, you can still burn yourself if you're not careful (or melt plastic utensils, etc.!), but it's nowhere nearly as hot as a typical coil-based electric cooktop. The heat is only what's conducted DOWN from your pan's surface into the glass top of the surface, and it seems to cool pretty quickly. Essentially, I can remove a pan I've been cooking with for some time and immediately wipe down the cooktop with a wet washrag or sponge or Clorox wipes and it's only warm to mildly hot. Not enough to cause a problem - and spilled liquids or food don't COOK onto the surface or caramelize or burn and need scrubbing. It's really quite nice! And, as I said, this surface has remained remarkably scratch free and almost pristine for going on 3 years now.
Speaking of spilled liquids or food... this is one of those things you should know about these types of cooktops. If you spill or boil something over, at least on this one I've got, if there's much of it, it will cause the burner to sort of 'short' (it's not really shorting, I think it's some kind of safety feature, obviously) and it will shut down the entire cooktop. So... one day I was boiling some water for tea and went to the bathroom - I probably ended up in there a little longer than I expected (ahem... due to... things... you know), and when I came out I saw water around on the cooktop and it had shut itself off. I've since experimented a couple of times and seen this happen again. Good feature. I like this.
However, similarly, when you're cooking, stirring, moving things around, etc., you know things spill and leak over, etc. Sometimes, due to the cooktop staying so cool, we mix and match with items ON the cooktop. For instance, I'll pull out a bag of cheese from the fridge and set it on the cooktop in preparation for adding it to my pan, or other things like plastic mixing bowls of chopped veggies or meat I've prepared to add into my cooking meal - and the mostly-cool cooktop doesn't melt these bowls, super handy! - but the cooktop will recognize SOMETHING is on one of the other burners, it senses the temp or the composition or something like that, and it'll beep at me a few times. If I've spilled a largish amount, or am quickly wiping spills off or whatever, it'll sometimes shut the whole cooktop off, requiring me to turn it back on with the power button and re-select each burner, setting the power back to where I want it. Again, I'm sure this is a safety feature, and I'm not mad about it. Sometimes requires me to go to a few extra steps, but it's fine, I'd rather have the extra safety features.
Now, for the down side - the auto-sizing.
This just flat out DOES. NOT. WORK. There is NO autosizing of the burners on this model, and from ongoing research I've done, it applies to numerous versions of the Frigidaire and Electrolux lineup. Lots of complaints about this - and I've yet to find a single review where someone complained about it not working and then it somehow being resolved to MAKE it work. It seems more like Electrolux blames the customer's cookware first and almost inevitably. "Is your cookware perfectly flat? Have you checked it for flatness?" "Is it true magnetic, induction-capable cookware?" Even with good quality, trusted, tried and true brands like MadeIn and All Clad, etc. Still they blame the cookware. Then, after some troubleshooting, it seems they just revert back to, "All induction cooktops can cook a little unevenly. This sounds like it is working as designed." Ummm... no it's not. If it's not autosizing as ADVERTISED, it's not working as designed. Well... unless the autosizing doesn't really exist and it is working with it's small induction zones as those are the only zones it has - but NOT working as ADVERTISED.
So... how do I know the autosizing isn't working? It's actually quite simple. If you watch how your food is cooking, you'll quickly find that the zone in the center of your pan is MUCH hotter than the outer edges of your pan. Even with a pan that fits fully within the hash-marked zones on the cooktop. You can place a skillet on the cooking zone, put a shallow ½" or so of water in it, and heat it up to begin to boil and you can physically SEE where the metal is being heated by the induction zone. This shows as a perfect circle in the center of your pan, under the water, where the water is bubbling and boiling in that specific area, but not other areas. The water eventually will heat up around it more and more, and you'll get a rolling boil if you have a deeper layer in a deeper pan, but it's quite evident when you're watching the water exactly WHERE the induction current is being applied - in a very specific ring in the center of the pain - in the case of my largest burner, about 4-4½" in diamter. Not in a CIRCLE, not the whole 4½" disc area, just in a RING around the edges of this area that is 4½" in diameter.
Now... this ring does NOT change sizes based on the size of the pan. Nor does it move based on the location of the pan. In the above example, with a 14" pan with ½" of water, I can slide the pan around to one side or the other and I can see the heated area of the pan's surface staying in the same spot over this induction area on the cooktop. It's very obvious when you cook with it, too - I have to move my pans around a lot to try to get heat to distribute more evenly - even on solid cast iron and my Aussie steel pain. Good though they may be, they will NOT conduct ALL of the heat outward to a degree to allow even cooking when they're only being superheated in a small circle in the center. No pan will do this.
I would have expected, even worst case scenario, that the induction 'ring' would expand and cook the largest outer ring appropriately, even while leaving the center zone unaffected. This would at least allow heat to conduct evenly along the pan's metal bottom INWARD and given you MORE even cooking, but I would have really preferred the entire disc area of the induction zone be heating - but it doesn't. It remains, 100% of the time, a 4½" ring of heat being generated on the bottom surface of my pan that looks like an "O". Now, I'm not sure if other cooktops will do what I want, namely, heating a DISC across the ENTIRE surface of my pan, or if they all do just an outer ring, but even an outer ring, were it LARGER, would lead to better, more even cooking in the entire pan.
Sadly, as I said, I have done some more research now and found this to be a common complaint about Frigidaire induction cooktops. I'm not sure if it's PERVASIVE, meaning not sure if it's only SOME of them that end up this way and others actually work as described, or if others just do what I've done for 3 years and bitch and moan internally about it, while adapting their cooking style to just... "deal with it." I saw numerous reports of others replacing their Frigidaire induction cooktop for this reason with GE models and they claim they worked as claimed for the autosizing feature - although I'm not sure if it's the 'ring' or 'disc' zone like I described above.
Lots of complaints to Electrolux corporate over this. Reports of a class-action lawsuit, though I haven't seen any specifics about how to find this or participate. A couple of reports I saw, the poster claimed Electrolux eventually purchased back the cooktop for their original price, but it seems most of them were essentially told to go pound sand - sometimes after multiple service calls and 'repair' attempts. But never have I found a confirmed report of anyone actually getting this 'autosizing' feature to work once it was reported as NOT working. In fact, I haven't seen ANY specific reports from someone where it DID work at ALL! Of course, many people would just use their cooktop as normal, if it was functioning as expected, and wouldn't complain online about it. But not one report even coming in during 'complaint' posts where someone says, "Wow, that's weird, my autosizing works perfectly and always has." Not one that I saw.
Anyways...
So this is a very longwinded post, but I hope it is thorough and complete enough to help people make their own decisions regarding this cooktop or others like it. Definitely, this is the biggest complaint I have about the one I've got. Having ZERO autosizing really does make it more difficult to cook large meals for multiple people in large pans, which I tend to do a fair amount. It's just annoying.
I'd REALLY like to see this report/post go viral and the company sees a ton of people complaining and actually decides to change how they do business - i.e.,. not advertising a feature that it seems to ME doesn't actually EXIST in reality. It OUGHT to be something they have repercussions from, as this was a major feature and selling point to me in picking this cooktop, and it has never, ever worked. And, it seems like I'm not the only one.
Shame on you, Electrolux, for foisting this off on the public and NOT standing behind your product. Very, very poor practice, and this will DEFINITELY reduce the likelihood I will EVER purchase another Frigidaire product again. To me, honesty is key in everything. Period. I don't forgive lack of it, and I don't forget it, either, when it comes to spending my hard-earned money.
I hope to replace this sometime with a model that works as intended. This one may get donated to Habitat For Humanity or something. It's not a bad cooktop, it does work, and it has served me - but it lacks a specific feature that was a major selling point to me personally, and I feel like I've been lied to and misled.
Again, shame on you, Electrolux.
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