Maytag Freestanding Electric Range: Review

When we first bought our house, it came with an electric range that, while it worked, wasn’t exactly what we wanted. So when we received our federal economic stimulus rebate, we decided to purchase a replacement for it.

We ended up buying a freestanding range from Maytag (model #MERH752BAW) and instantly fell in love with it.

First, let me start with our biggest complaints about the old range. First, the oven was too small. It wasn’t uncommon for us to accidentally touch the sides as we were trying to get things in and out of it. In fact, I have a couple scars on my hand from when I’ve gotten burned.

The stove top was also a pain to clean. If something spilled into the burner, we could get it. But, if it leaked between the burners, we had no way of cleaning it up (the top didn’t lift up); so it wasn’t unusual to see our kitchen filling up with smoke. Not to mention, since it was an older stove, we really didn’t trust the self clean mode on the oven.

The Maytag’s oven is much larger than the one on our older range; which is somewhat impressive considering the Maytag range actually takes up less space in our kitchen. Not only can we get food in and out without touching the sides, we actually can bake more than one thing at a time.

Since it has the flat counter-top-like surface, the stovetop is also very easy to clean. If you spill, all you have to do is take a rag and wipe it up. You’ll still have to do routine cleaning on it but this simple step prevents it from smoking like the old one.

I particularly like the fact that one of the burners on the Maytag gives me the option to either use it as a 6-inch burner or a 12-inch burner. My other stove only had the one 12-inch burner on it so, if I had to make something that required two larger pots, I had to either cook them one after the other or try to cook on one of the smaller burners. That little luxury is definitely a plus.

So is the fact the stove seems to cook much faster than our older range. When we first got it, we tried it out by boiling water. On our old stove, this would actually take 4 or 5 minutes. The Maytag did this in about a minute.

If I have any real complaints about the Maytag range it’s the fact that the burners do seem to take a while to cool down after they are used. For example, it took a minute to boil the water but it took about an hour before the “hot surface” light turned off. This isn’t a huge concern because my daughter knows to stay away from it. But, on occasion, our cat will hop up on the stove if we’ve made something he might be interested in so I’m going to have to keep an eye on him.

Despite this, if you’re looking to upgrade your electric range, this would be the one I would recommend. In fact, I may have to upgrade my other appliances just so it doesn’t look out of place.