Regardless of the floor you choose for your kitchen (e.g., something cheap, something durable, or something exotic like hardwood), you’re going to need a cooking range. You can choose between wall ovens, slide-in ranges, and good old-fashioned freestanding ranges, which we typically recommend for most homeowners. However, you’re also going to need to search carefully for a machine that lasts, because with planned obsolescence being the default approach for many manufacturers these days, it’s all too easy to buy a flashy range that promises the world but dies in a year or two due to electronic brain damage from broken circuit boards. Fortunately, if you know what to look for, you can still find quality machines that give you Viking, Wolf, and Vulcan-lite performance for GE and Kenmore prices.

We’ve spent time recently examining quality (and not-so quality) affordable gas ranges, including the Kucht KRG3080U, the NXR DRGB3001, Thor Kitchen HRG3026U, and the Thor Kitchen HRG3080U. Today we’ll review a slightly cheaper alternative, the Thor Kitchen LRG3001U Freestanding Gas Range and compare it to the HRG3080U to see which offers the better balance of price and performance for homeowners on a smaller budget. Our thoughts in ten seconds are to buy the HRG3080U if you want more power in your burners and to buy the LRG3001U if you want to save money and don’t mind a less powerful range. Our full review is below, and you can buy the Thor Kitchen LRG3001U here in the United States. If you’re in Canada, you can buy the closely related HRG3080U here.

Pros, cons, and key features of the Thor Kitchen LRG3001U 30″ Gas Range

The LRG3001U, like the HRG3080U and HRG3026U, is manufactured in China by Chino, California-based Thor Kitchen. The company has a growing line of kitchen appliances beyond gas and liquid propane (LP) ranges, including range tops, range hoods, dishwashers, wine coolers, and refrigerators. All are clad in stainless steel and all are designed to offer premium performance at mid-range prices. Let’s see how the LRG3001U competes with its fellow freestanding ranges on paper.

The LRG3001U features a 4.55 cubic foot, 18,500 BTU convection oven with 2 nickel plated oven racks. Beneath the oven you’ll find a 10,000 BTU broiler and above it you’ll find 5 single burners topped by a continuous cast iron grate to facilitate seamless movement of cookware. The left front burner is the most powerful, delivering 18,000 BTU. The middle oval burner tops out at 9,000 BTU, followed by the right front burner at 8,000 BTU, the left rear burner at 6,000 BTU, and the right rear burner at 4,000 BTU. The range runs on natural gas by default, but you can use a conversion kit and a few hours of your time to convert it to run on liquid propane. It uses a continuous spark ignitor, one of very few electrical components within the range. Aside from the cast iron grates, construction is primarily stainless steel. The oven interior is made from black porcelain, and a black porcelain storage drawer is included for pots and pans beneath the oven. Like all of Thor Kitchen’s ranges, it is covered by their standard 2 year parts and labor warranty.

How easy is it to use, control, and cook with the LRG3001U?

Cooking with the LRG3001U is a minimal, focused experience. There are next to no electronic components included; aside from the ignitors mentioned above, you’ll be able to control nearly every other feature on the range through manual knobs and switches. Technology lovers will be best served elsewhere; this is a professional-style range designed to place as few obstacles between you and cooking as possible. You aren’t going to set any clocks, program any timers, or sync or turn anything on and off with your smart phone or thermostat. To clean the oven, you’ll need to do it by hand, with no auto function to save you.

That said, the lack of electronic circuitry means a lack of unreliable pieces to break and provide expensive repair bills. The LRG3001U is unlikely to find itself in a landfill anytime soon due to electronic brain damage, as it doesn’t feature an electronic circuit board. There are six control knobs, a light to indicate the oven has reached operating temperature, a convection fan on/off switch, and a switch for the internal oven halogen light. Five of the control knobs are for the burners while the sixth is for the oven; you’ll dial the oven knob to set the temperature you want as well as to control the broiler. That’s it. There are no other buttons, dials, switches, lights, or knobs whatsoever.

As a result, you get to enjoy a range designed for cooking; it’s a refreshing experience. You simply place your cookware on your grates or in the oven or broiler and start cooking. No, you’re not going to become the next Gordan Ramsay or Jamie Oliver simply by using the LRG3001U, but you’ll certainly start to focus on your cooking in a way you didn’t before. The oven heats quickly and the burners burn bright and hot. The convection fan shaves additional time off cooking and food cooks evenly. For the money, it’s a bargain–a commercial-grade appliance at consumer-grade prices.

What’s the difference between the Thor Kitchen LRG3001U and the HRG3080U?

The main differences between the two Thor Kitchen ranges, aside from price, involve burner count and power levels. Simply put, the LRG3001U is equipped with five burners (the four standard and a central oval 9,000 BTU burner) while the HRG3080U maintains tradition with four. However, the burners, oven, and broiler on the HRG3080U are more powerful than those on the LRG3001U, resulting in hotter cooking temperatures on the rangetop and faster cooking times on the range, in the oven, and in the broiler.

The LRG3001U’s primary burner (front left) equals that of the HRG3080U at 18,000 BTU, but the front right burner is less by half (8,000 vs 15,000 BTU), as are the rear two (6,000 and 4,000 BTU vs twin 12,000 BTU). There’s a similar discrepancy in oven power (18,500 vs 22,000 BTU) and broiler power (10,000 vs 13,000 BTU).  That said, you’ll find the same build quality in both machines and the LRG3001U as equipped is still more powerful than the vast majority of ranges on the market, particularly the entry-level models most homeowners will be replacing.

Is it worth paying extra for Amazon’s professional expert installation service with the LRG3001U or HRG3080U?

Finally, whether you choose the HRG3080U, which we’d recommend for additional power, or the LRG3001U, which we’d recommend if on a budget, we’d strongly suggest choosing the “include installation” option when you buy it on Amazon in the United States. You’ll pay a few hundred dollars more for a fast, safe, and error-free expert installation; they’ll also remove and responsibly dispose of your existing range in the process. All you’ll need to do is make sure you’re home on installation day so you can let them in to get the new range in and the old one out. After years of experience around appliance installations, we assure you that a 200 pound appliance fueled by explosive gases is worth paying a bit more to have installed by a professional.

You  can buy the Thor Kitchen HRG3080U 30″ freestanding gas range here on Amazon or buy the LRG3001U range here instead.

Canadians can buy the Thor Kitchen HRG3080U 30″ freestanding gas range here on Amazon. Unfortunately, the LRG3001U range isn’t available.

If you find our research on PMC helpful, you can follow our efforts to keep maniacally reviewing home appliances by shopping through our links above. We promise to keep fighting the good fight against every horror children, animals, and grown, yet messy humans can inflict upon a clean home.