Double oven range appliances generally include a cabinet that defines upper and lower cooking chambers for baking or broiling food items therein, and may further include a cooktop positioned at a top portion of the cabinet for grilling, boiling or frying food items thereon. To heat the cooking chambers, double oven range appliances include heating elements, such as bake and/or broil heating elements positioned adjacent top and/or bottom portions of the cooking chambers. During operation of such heating elements, the cabinet and other components of the double oven range appliance can be heated to facilitate baking or broiling of food items contained therein.
Current practice is generally to utilize a single, centrally located baking gas burner adjacent the lower wall of the upper cooking chamber. However, such arrangement can result in various disadvantages. For example, flame spreaders are typically attached to such single burner to distribute heat before the heat is provided into the upper cooking chamber. This can cause excess heating of the lower wall of the upper cooking chamber, which can cause excess exposure of food items to such heat and lead to uneven cooking and/or overcooking thereof
Another current practice is to utilize a single, centrally located broiling gas burner in the upper cooking chamber adjacent the upper wall thereof However, such arrangement also can result in various disadvantages. For example, the generally smaller upper cooking chamber generally has a lower venting stack height and thus requires a larger cross-sectional vent area in order to handle gas combustion byproducts. This increased cross-section in turn allows excess venting during cooking when the upper cooking chamber is hot, thus requiring increased operation of the broiling gas burner and/or baking gas burner to maintain the required temperatures.
One solution to the above-identified issues is to move the broiling gas burner to the lower cooking chamber. However, this approach would decrease the usable volume of the lower cooking chamber, which is generally undesirable to users. Further, such approach could increase the risk that neither cooking chamber could handle relatively larger food items.
Accordingly, an improved double oven appliance would be desired in the art. In particular, a double oven appliance that decreased or eliminated excess heating and venting issues while maintaining or increasing chamber usable volumes would be advantageous.
USPTO Backgrounds
USPTO Backgrounds