a $3000 plus oven with major design flaws

my wife loved the looks of the dacor ovens and felt that a high priced oven such as this "had to be better" than the poorer brands such as an old frigidaire and a ge which had served a us almost faultlessly over periods of 40 and 12 years respectively.

(the frigidaire actually had a coil problem in its first year- but once the coil was replaced by frigidaire, the oven ran for 40 years w/o service)

we were quite pleased when the dacor arrived. it is, indeed a handsome machine.

however, in spite of its luxury pricing and the stated desire of the company to serve its customers well, the unit has intrinsic design flaws- one of which makes the oven totally unsatisfactory, in our opinion.

the manufacturer's instruction booklets require pre-heating of these ovens prior to cooking- however, they grossly understate the required time for the preheating. altho they correctly report the cooking times, the total preheat plus cook time often equals or exceeds that required in a "less luxurious" oven.

the glass windows in the doors are made of two, perhaps three, pieces of glass which are contained in a poorly sealed frame. as a result dirt, oil and moisture all find their way between the panes of glass in the sandwich and make the door appear- smudged, streaked and untidy. this dirt is internal to the window and cannot be cleaned by wiping. one is forced to run a 4 hour cleaning cycle after a very minimal number of uses of the oven unless she is willing to leave this "luxury" unit filthy. Please note that the self cleaning cycle almost, but not quite, cleans the glass.

normally, the only objection to this would be that the cleaning is expensive and very wasteful of energy. however, dacor has incorporated a design flaw in the oven which makes this exposure to constant cleaning extremely dangerous.

in what is probably an effort to save themselves pennies, dacor elects not to place in their circuitry a fail safe relay which could save dacor and their customers a great deal of trouble and money.

this oven is so constructed that if a power failure occurs while the oven is in self cleaning mode, there is a good likelihood that the oven will be damaged upon the return of power so that it will not run and requires a service call and probably replacementof the element. this is quite like connecting a toaster to an unfused circuit so that if an overload occurred the toaster is destroyed or a fire results.

there is NO EXCUSE for designing a "luxury" appliance so that it contains a flaw of this nature.

i consider this design flaw to be so troublesome and, perhaps, so dangerous that i would caution any potential customer to find another brand when shopping for an oven !!!!! DO NOT BUY A DACOR OVEN.