Number One?? Who'da Thunk!

It started as a boneheaded mixup. My wife and I came home and immediately smelled gas from the vicinity of our stove. It was a drop-in model with a broken timer, something that we had considered replacing for some time. Without any further examination of the problem, I switched off the main gas valve and we started shopping for stoves.

Then we saw how expensive drop-in stoves are. Jeez... do they make these things out of "drop-inanium"?? The cheapest drop-in stove costs twice what a decent standalone stove costs, and my wife and I are frugal to say the least. Instead, we started looking for a standalone stove that would fit in the space our drop-in occupied and it turned out that the Hotpoint RGB745 was a perfect fit. We got ours in traditional appliance white.

Why was the Hotpoint RGB745 a boneheaded mixup? Because it turned out that our original drop-in stove was not leaking gas. The shut-off valve behind the stove was the leaky culprit and we ended up throwing away a perfectly functional drop-in stove. If you look up the word "boneheaded" in the dictionary, I'm sure one of its definitions is "Throwing away a functioning appliance that costs $800."

What Is It?

The Hotpoint RGB745 is a traditional-looking four-burner natural gas stove with pushbutton controls and a digital readout on the back panel. It measures exactly 30 inches wide, which was a whisker less than some of the other stoves that we checked. The backsplash (or whatever the back part is that houses the controls) is 11 inches tall, which is taller than I would like.

The cooktop has four burners: two for medium heat, one for high heat and one for low heat. Arching over the burners are heavy-duty pot supports coated with a tough gray enamel. Gray drip pans surrounding the burners are easily removed for washing in the sink, a nice touch that I appreciate. Although the oven and timer controls are on the electronic panel in the backsplash, the burner controls are traditional knobs at the front of the stove.

The oven measures 24 inches x 17 inches x 19 inches (WxHxD), which seems roomy to me. There are two chromed wire shelves that can be easily removed and the inside of the oven is coated with a speckled gray enamel, the kind of finish that ovens have had for decades. There is a light in the back of the oven and a window on the door so that you can observe your turkey cooking. We use the handle on the oven door for our hand towel and dish towel; it works perfectly for this.

A drawer under the oven is 22 inches wide but rather shallow at 5.5 inches. It is not for broiling but can be used only for storing flat items such as cookie sheets.

The overall height to the cook surface is 36 inches, which is pretty standard. The height can be slightly adjusted using the stove's threaded feet.

As best I can determine, the Hotpoint is manufactured by GE. In fact, the well-written manual says "GE" all over it and refers the reader to www.geappliances.com. Since I have a troublesome GE microwave oven, I might have thought twice if I had known that GE manufactures Hotpoint appliances.

We paid $493 for our Hotpoint RGB745, including $89 to haul away the old stove and install the new one. I thought this was a very good price.

This Thing Really Cooks

The Hotpoint RGB745 has worked quietly and competently for us. We have been using it since early August 2004.

The controls for the stovetop burners are different from any other stove I've used in the sense that the igniter function comes on as soon as you engage the control. The gas flow is maximum at that point. Once the burner is lit, continue rotating the control to lower the flame to the desired heat setting. I find it easy to adjust the burner to the right setting; keeping a pot of spaghetti boiling without overflowing is no problem on the Hotpoint RGB745.

We frequently use a dual-burner griddle for pancakes and the two left burners work perfectly for this. They are the two medium-heat burners, so we simply set them for identical flames and the heat is very even... no more undercooked pancakes in some spots and overcooked in others! The right-front burner is for high-heat, which is perfect for that pot of spaghetti. The back right is reserved for slower cooking chores, such as frying bacon. (Dang! I'm getting hungry!!)

On the downside, the pot supports for the burners discolored almost instantly and no amount of scrubbing has removed the stains. The pot supports are a light gray, which shows stains rather easily. Perhaps black is the way to go for pot supports.

We are not big bakers in my house. We have used the oven for cookies, meatloaves and cakes, but we often go weeks without using the oven.

I have noted a few things, however. The first few times we used the oven, it set off our smoke detector, even though we could smell nothing more than that typical oven heat smell. After a few oven uses, it no longer set off the smoke detector.

The oven also holds the temperature better than any other oven we've ever had. The temperature in the Hotpoint RGB745's oven is dead-on, according to our thermometer. Like every other oven, you have to give it a good 10 to 15 minutes to get up to temperatures in the 350-degree (F) range and another five minutes to get it above 400F. The light in the oven works perfectly.

The oven controls are on the digital panel on the backsplash and they are easy to use. Setting the temperature and timer are intuitive and it took just a glance at the manual for me. Setting the clock after a power hit is far easier than it is on my %$&#@ GE microwave oven.

I'm the one most likely to clean the stove in my household and can say that cleanup of the cooktop is a breeze. The white enamel cleans beautifully with Windex or Simple Green and the removable drip pans around the burners make it a snap to clean them in the sink. Our nine-month-old Hotpoint RGB745 still looks new, except for a couple of stains on the burner supports.

With our minimal use of the oven, it also still looks new without any cleaning to date. Really... we've probably used it 20 times and there is no evidence that we've ever used it. I just checked. I wish that I could offer more insight to the frequency and difficulty of oven cleaning on the RGB745 but we just don't bake much. I don't know if I can attribute the current immaculate condition of the oven to the stove or to our lack of use.

So What Do I Think?

I think I was an idiot to throw away a perfectly good drop-in stove.

That aside, the Hotpoint RGB745 has proved to be a competent and attractive addition to our kitchen. It is easy to use, easy to adjust to the right temperature and easy to clean, all of which are good things. The oven is big enough to hold a large turkey or big cake, and the oven temperature seems to be right on the money, something that has eluded us with previous stoves.

Imagine my surprise when I opened a recent Consumer Reports magazine and read that the Hotpoint RGB745 is the top-rated gas stove among a crop that includes some costing three times as much! The magazine also paid a lot more for its sample than I paid for mine, something else that made me feel like a shopping genius.

I liked the Hotpoint RGB745 well enough before I knew of its top rating. Considering what an idiot I felt like for throwing away a good stove, I hope this error was at least partly atoned by our choice of a new stove. The only things that I don't like about it are the tall backsplash and the easily discolored pot supports for the burners.

I recommend the Hotpoint RGB745.