Anyone else with JennAir gas cooktop downdraft kitchen fires?

[Alora Duncan]

Is it just me, or is anyone else experiencing constant countertop heat damage from the JennAir gas cooktop?

Constantly, the heat from the large JennAir burner has been burning countertop after countertop in the back of the cooktop.

Is there such a thing as a technical service bulletin for JennAir kitchen products. If so, where can I get them?

I'd LOVE to know if this is a KNOWN problem (a standard google search turned up nothing out of the ordinary).

A service technician (qualified by Jennair) provided a written report which said that it was an inherent design flaw that was causing the countertop to burn ... yet when I provided that report to Jennair, they said there are no reported problems of the kind I am running into.

Please ... DOES ANYONE ELSE HAVE THE SAME PROBLEM?

Alora Duncan [e-mail] (Please reply to the newsgroup as my email gets filled every day with spam!)

[Dan O.]

[RB]

I wish I could get enough heat from our JennAir cook top to boil water.

RB

Alora Duncan wrote:

[Del Cecchi]

Have you looked at the installation instructions? They should have some specification of material and separation in this area. It would seem to me that if this is a common problem it would be all over the net and Consumer Reports would be raising hell, not to mention the government consumer product safety adminstration.

del

>

[barb gee]

odd to hear. a friend has a JennAir gas cook top and each burner puts out different BTU's, as per the owner's manual, and they're plenty hot. Are all your burners the same? Maybe it's a low-end cook top? or you have gas/air adjustment problems?

[Dan O.]

[Dan O.]

[Petro]

what is your countertop material?

there also should be 2 layers of heat reflective tape around the perimeter of the cooktop opening (cut-out).

downdraft units defy gravity.................pretty useless.

[Louis Cohen]

I don't like ours, either. With the downdraft going and pulling heat off the burners, it's very hard to boil a large pot of water.

It's not bad with the downdraft off, but of course, you can't use the grill without the downdraft.

[Wayne Boatwright]

"Louis Cohen" [e-mail]> wrote in news:G9%Jb.125205$VB2.374136@attbi_s51:

All true. That's why an electric cooktop with a downdraft works much better.

Wayne

[Rob S]

Until our kitchen was recently renovated, our JennAir slide in unit (really the same as the cooktop) was set tight against a Formica counter and we never saw any problems. That may be for several reasons:

1. It wasn't touching the counter (1/4" gap).
2. It's converted to propane so burner output is lower.
3. We commonly used the burners on the side that wasn't against the Formica (habit, no real reason).

It's currently installed against granite so I wouldn't expect any similar problems to yours.

Finally, I am not a fan of the downdraft. It pulls the flame and thus the heat towards the center of the stove, and it cannot handle the volume of smoke when using the grill. Not a great design.

RS.