With the arrangement in the US, isn’t the "broiler"very hard to reach? You would have to bend right down to floor level to see what you are doing?
As in Australia, in the UK the “grill” is on top - normally in a separate compartment - as here.
It gets more complex and disparate the deeper you dig - truly two nations, separated by a common language. I suggest we revert to the term ‘salamandering’ to refer to overhead radiant cooking.
“Revert”? I like it but when did anyone ever refer to salamandering 
?
I think it’s going to take a lot of persuasion before I start “salamandering my sausages” 
It’s a very old English term - a salamander was a metal utensil that would be heated - ideally until glowinig - in a fire or furnace, then held over food to grill or brown it.
You live and learn - I’ve never seen this usage before 
From a quick search on Google it looks like it is mostly confined to catering equipment these days. Is that right or have I just led a sheltered life?
Only cheap gas ovens. “Good” ones have the broiler at the top of the oven, too. My “good” gas oven has storage in that lower drawer. Likewise my previous, good gas oven.
Unfortunately, ‘salamader’ already has a fairly specific definition: a separate piece of equipment (not part of an oven) that has a heating element that can be raised or lowered over food.
That is the broiler element. The top element in my electric oven doesn’t come on when the oven is running normal (‘Bake’ on my oven) mode.
Well, that’s what I used to think, but it looks as though the term has crept into (albeit not very widespread) modern usage to describe part of an oven - see the link in post #22.
As a resident of that nation between Mexico and Canada, I always thought THIS was a salamander.
I have way more to learn than I ever thought, and, that was a lot to begin with 
They’re not entirely unrelated; salamanders (the animal) are connected in mythology with fire, probably because they had been observed emerging from unseen cavities in damp logs when they were put on the fire - so they seemed to be emerging spontaneously from the fire.
Do Brits have a word for the ‘low and slow’ indirect cooking method, which I call ‘barbeque,’ that pulykamell described so well?
Not on a BBQ that I can think of Of course we are only just getting into BBQ culture - global warming and all that 
I’m not sure - how is it performed?
Gah. forget I asked that. Hmmm… cooking slowly over charcoal would be barbecuing here as well - except it’s just not the way many people do it, and the term ‘barbecue’ happens to include the much more common method that leaves the food blackened on the outside and raw in the middle.
Good god, these Canadians here are driving me crazy. The act of using an outdoor grill is called barbecuing. Damned hot dogs and hamburgers cooked on such a device are referred to as barbecue. The damned outdoor cooker (the grill) is called a barbecue. You end up in a stupid situation where someone invites you to their barbecue where they barbecue hot dogs and hamburgers on their barbecue and upon tasting the food they ask you how’s the barbecue taste.
Wikipedia explains it better than I could:
“For those who distinguish between the terms, grilling is almost always a fast process over high heat and barbecue is almost always a slow process using indirect heat and/or hot smoke. For example, in a typical home grill, grilled foods are cooked on a grate directly over hot charcoal; while in barbecuing, the coals are dispersed to the sides or at significant distance from the grate. Alternately, an apparatus called a smoker with a separate fire box may be used. Hot smoke is drawn past the meat by convection for very slow cooking. This is essentially how barbecue is cooked in most genuine “barbecue” restaurants…”
Whatever you call it, just make sure you leave the oven door partially open while doing it. There is a spot where the oven door will stand about 6 inches open for this very reason. It is called the broiler stop. I once charged a rather incredulous woman a $40 service call for this tidbit of information after she had ruined $25 worth of steaks the previous night.
AFAIK, this only applies to ovens where the broiler is in the oven compartment, generally electric ovens. On units with a separate broiling compartment, this may not be the case.
Why are they included with the oven? It’s an inexpensive sales tool like the ice cube trays that come with a new refrigerator. It costs the manufacturer almost nothing and makes the appliance look better in the showroom if there’s something in it.
Well, as a service to the SDMB community here, this is the reply I received from Whirlpool:
Probably just a cometitive thing, like the interior light or the window.
If somebody big, GE or Amana, does it for one model, then every cheaper unit feels obliged to follow suit, and then the major player cannot back down either.
Also, they are cheap. Maybe $2 in bulk. I buy them for apartment buildings, where movers pack them with the other pans.