Knowing your budget before shopping can help you resist being steered to models that are out of your price range. Once you have decided the basic type of range for which you are shopping, you can consider other choices that mainly affect convenience and appearance. Consider your cooking habits, cookware, personal preferences, and budget to determine which options will be most useful or important to you. Smoothtops may cook using radiant heat or the newer halogen or induction elements. Smoothtops are the easiest cooktops to clean, and today's models include indicators to alert you that a unit is hot.
Solid disks are also easy to clean.
Consider the types of cookware you currently have. With a smoothtop or solid disk model, you may have to choose between replacing many of your pots and pans or dealing with inefficient cooking and higher energy costs. Some surfaces are not appropriate for special uses, such as canning or cooking with a wok. In gas ranges, you have the choice of standard burners and sealed burners. Sealed burners simplify cleaning by preventing bits of food and spills from falling into the area beneath the cooktop.