Patent 8344292 was granted and assigned to Whirlpool Corporation on January, 2013 by the United States Patent and Trademark Office.
A cooking appliance has a cooktop including a plurality of separately controlled cooking areas. A first heating element and a second heating element are positioned below one of the separately controlled cooking areas. A control switch is electrically coupled to the first heating element and the second heating element and is operable to selectively energize the first heating element with single-phase AC power and selectively energize the second heating element with two-phase AC power.