I used to prefer gas ranges. I grew up with one and really liked that we could still cook when the power was out. Also, fire. I just… kinda like fire.
But learning about the dangers has changed my view. Funny enough, I recently moved into a new place and have an electric stove for the first time. My heart is upset at me, but I can’t deny that it’s better. Not only are there fewer dangers, but it seems to heat up really fast. Much faster than any of the gas stoves I’ve used (which have been in almost every house and apartment that I’ve lived in til now.) I set a pot to boil, go sit down, and it’s bubbling before the YouTuber I’m watching finishes gargling their sponsor’s balls.
(Kidding, of course. I always skip the sponsor placement.)
Induction tops are the best. Instant heat, very safe and energy efficient. Not compatible with cheap non magnetic cookware though.
I fucking hated the induction stove we had in the 90s, and awe moved into a place with a very nice gas range. One of them rich people brands. And I’m a food snob. Well okay I was before I wokenboken. It’s going to be hard to convince me.
In the 90s you probably had one of those shitty glass top coil element stoves. Those things suck. Induction is great. Maybe there was some old tech out there but I love mine
Not sure if induction stoves existed back then.
Do you recall if it got hot with no pot on it?
If it got hot with nothing on it, it was not an induction top, but a normal electric one with glass on top.
It’s going to be hard to convince me.
I don’t think anybody wants to convince you, it’s your own choice.
The fact you didn’t reply to any of the replies here makes me think you’re not capable of having your mind changed.
Or I had other shit to do than be on the internet, but you do you King
Sorry, yeah this is fair. I did not read the timestamps properly.
I think a big part of the issue is the wild variances on electric stove quality.
The landlord specials are dogshit and what most people have experience with. Even a bad gas stove is 10x better than those.
But once you get to quality electric ranges, and then induction options, they are superior to gas in basically every way. But very few people have experience with these, or the money to afford upgrading to them when their existing stoves breakdown unexpectedly. So most are stuck with the cheap crappy electric options.
See this explains my experience. Shitty induction range and expensive gas range. Like, if I had a jennair induction to compare to I could make an intelligent analysis but as is I fucking love gas ranges. Very easy to see what you’re getting as far as heat.
I will never own another Jenn-Air. We had one for a brief period of time. It tried it’s best to burn the house down 3 times by shorting out 2 twice and having the thermocouple induce a runaway the last time.
I’ve got a higher range induction and there are worlds between that and the run of the mill portable induction stove I bought for cooking smelly/smoky stuff outside. So much so that I prefer the 80’s electric hot plate of my mother.
That mobile induction abomination regulates like a microwave: full blast or nothing (in much too long pulses). Cooking on that is a challenge. My stovetop tho goes from just hand warm (keep warm function) to the fires of mount doom in 17 silky smooth steps. I could hardly believe my eyes when it boiled pasta water faster than my electric kettle. As nice as cooking is with that, the biggest advantage is the cleaning…
Fwiw my induction range has blue LEDs built into the glass top so so can see when the big burner is on. I thought it was a stupid gimmick, but it really makes a nice stand-in for that flame
Full size entry level induction is in the 200-300 € range nowadays and already beats gas stoves. Just check your nearest IKEA. There is ZERO reason resistive stoves should still be allowed for sale. NONE. The idea that “induction” is a premium offering is a complete myth and has been for years.
In Pornhub, gargling the balls is the content. It’s all about context… condoms.
Induction stoves should be Mandatory in mew construction. Coil electric works just fine but we need to introduce people to tech that’s superior to gas to get the switch to stick
mew construction
User name checks out.
I got an induction maybe 10 years ago or so. It is amazing how fast I can boil water or just get going in general. Lovely tech
I think that electric cooking speed is only limited by how much power you can draw from your wiring. And if you have good wiring, cooking speeds can be extremely fast. It’s a bit like with cars, where people get excited about having a lot of HP (horse power) where idk (i’m not a car expert) sth like 100 HP is considered “crazy good” and everybody wants to have it (that’s combustion engine cars). Then, an electric vehicle comes across the corner (and it’s not even an expensive EV, just a cheap one) and it easily has 700 HP. Like, the acceleration power is immense, it’s enormous. EVs accelerate crazy fast, and it would actually be dangerously powerful if they didn’t have software control to throttle the maximum engine power.
Suddenly, everybody stopped talking about HP. All these car-crazy friends i had when i was in school, the moment EVs appeared on the stage, they stopped being impressed by HP.
The same is with electric appliances like cooking stoves. They can be crazy fast and there’s no upper limit on power if you get good wiring. It’s only limited by the device so you don’t accidentally burn your food all the time.
I think that with gas flames, the flames are more-or-less always the same size, while for electric cooking, there’s a much greater range in heating power, both up and down. You can also have very small, very gentle heating, that is difficult to get with gas.
Modern electric heaters are also superior to gas in any way. And yeah, induction is just a new level of superiority.
I don’t get why there’s such a huge push from self-declared “left-wing” people to prescribe others what to do. Supposedly, “left-wing” people don’t like being told what to do, i.e. by employers (who are making them work in bad ways) or by “main-stream dominant right-wing culture”. At the same time, the very same people who don’t like being told what to do, tell others what to do. Such as by wanting to force everyone to switch to a specific type of technology that’s supposedly superior. I don’t get this behavior.
Renters don’t get a choice, and pollution affects everyone
renters don’t get a choice in practice, but they should in theory, and pollution from gas stoves is less than from combustion cars, just that it’s densely concentrated in your apartment, so levels are still high for you. but it does not affect everyone
a better move would be to actually build social housing, instead of prescribing others what they should build. otherwise you’re simply seen as “the party that wants to forbid others from doing what they like”, instead of being seen as “the party that actually does some meaningful construction and adds to society that way”.
We shouldn’t create decades of priced in emissions or have to pau twice to rip out the gas and put in electric later. Might as well do it right the first time
If you have a gas stove and can’t afford, or don’t want to switch to electric, keep a window open in the kitchen while you cook. This is especially important if your over-the-range hood does not vent to the outside (yes, that’s a thing.) If your hood does vent to the outside, turn it on every time you cook and you’re golden.
Yeah, I’m going to open a window every time I want to fry a couple of eggs or bake a loaf of bread at -25F/-32C.
Just how many hours a day do you think any stove is continuously on? That 3D printer you might own runs far, far longer.
If you don’t want to poison yourself with fumes, then yes.
Then you must only breathe the finest purified filtered canned air. And not the dirty polluted air in whatever big city you live in.
I actually have more air quality measures in my home than most and I have multiple sensors measuring the quality of the air. I be been measuring it long enough to know exactly what causes my air quality to decrease.
I also do not live in or near a big city.
Your ignorance is not equal to my knowledge situation. I wouldn’t expect a willfully ignorant person to believe this.
I wish someone pointed this out 20 years ago (enough to be heard). I raised two kids with occasional asthma in a house with gas stove, and maybe that could have been different.
I recently converted from gas to induction, and find it a much better cooking appliance in every way. Pans on the stovetop heat up faster than with gas, and I can boil a pot of water faster. The oven has more options and more consistent heating, especially on the broiler.
The only problem was the cost. Way too much money to get a new circuit installed but also the range was double or more what I would have spent on gas. There were very few options at appliance stores, and I never did find one on display, of any brand. In the US, it’s unnecessarily difficult to make this switch.
When I was shopping for one I was told to pay attention to coil sizes. Sure enough experimenting with a large skillet on small coil shows very uneven heating. I did find one or two reasonable priced ranges but with only tiny coils. Even at spending way too much, I only have one coil that works well with 12” skillet or stock pot. I know ikea now sells an induction range for more reasonable price but coil size is critical and the first thing I’d look at
Having a proper exhaust hood that sucks air outside mitigates this to a huge degree, but a lot of us have hoods that “filter” the air through nothing and then shoot it up towards the ceiling.
The flippers who did my house disconnected the outside air vent, I’m still pissed and mean to get it fixed, cause I can’t afford an induction range either.
If you think you can’t afford an induction range, you also can’t afford to hire contractors to have your new ductwork put in and/or unborked.
Much as I hate to recommend Frigidaire for various reasons, the FCFI3083AS is I think the most economical freestanding 30" induction range on the market at the moment and has an MSRP of $1099. You can probably score one from some discount or independent appliance retailers (i.e. not Home Depot, Lowes, or Best Buy) for a little under a thousand.
As a taller guy who wears glasses, I’ve had the horrible experience of some of these filters blowing greasy air in my face and settling on my glasses. Not pleasant
Mine has a vent, but no hood so there’s only so much it can do. And the way they built out the kitchen means there’s no good way to install a hood without remodelling.
But now I don’t care as much. The current vent (and window) is good enough for induction
I have gas and would fight anyone who tries to tell me otherwise. I rented a place with an induction range and now I want one so bad.
(I only read the title)
Pretty damn obvious. Yes, it needed to be tested and verified experimentally, but… well, I really mean no offense, but why is this worth sharing?
Speaking as a board member in a housing community where we are actively dealing with residents who claim that their precious gas stoves are safe and they don’t want electric replacements, I appreciate this post being shared.
I wouldn’t claim either of those things.
However I will tell you my experience. People in these threads will always tell you that induction is better than gas. That might be true, but as a renter I’ll never know it. Gas is better to cook on than the coil electric stoves which is what I always get in a rental. No landlord is going to spend the extra on an induction cooktop when a coil electric is one of the cheapest options.
I understand that, I’ve lived with gas ovens most of the time as well. Interestingly, the studio I just moved into (which is freshly converted from a garage) has a new fridge and an electric flat-top range. But I rent from a lone guy, not from a standardized apartment community. So maybe that’s why he invested in the good stuff. Renovating an entire complex is way pricier than setting up a single apartment.
I also think I just got lucky. It’s not a perfect place - the insulation sucks, there are paint flecks on the floor and kitchen cabinets, the shower hot/cold are backwards (which confused the hell out of me at first. I thought my hot water wasn’t working) and I saw a mouse recently. But I can’t complain, because the landlord is responsive and the good appliances help balance out the negatives.
Are you forcing people to switch to electric stoves? Are you buying the stoves for them and installing them?
Also, simply opening a window while cooking, and/or keeping a hood that vents to the outside turned on, makes them safe to use.
No, we don’t force anyone to do anything, electric replacements are offered as a “free” upgrade. We’re a housing cooperative, so technically it’s not free, but it’s paid for by the community’s collective funds.
The other main problem is that people routinely forget to turn off their stoves. We’ve had the fire department come multiple times this year alone because someone left their gas on and filled their unit with it. One resident left his gas open for who knows how long before he passed out in his living room and shit himself. Luckily someone found him and called the paramedics.
I guess if it was one person living in the wilderness and they blew themselves up or suffocated, then that’s on them. In a community though, it endangers everyone nearby.
Gas is not safe.
The other main problem is that people routinely forget to turn off their stoves.
that is nightmare level stuff
I monitored my indoor air quality prior to getting rid of my gas stove and even with windows open, the levels of the monitored pollutants skyrocket when the stove or oven was going. Maybe if you had a box fan blowing in/out for a long time after you finish you’d be ok, but that’s not ideal if you’re heating/cooling your place.
Because there are billions of people worldwide for whom this fact is unknown.
Yes, it needed to be tested and verified experimentally…why is this worth sharing?
Glances at community name
Smh
A quality electric makes a big difference fwiw. I’ve gone through several types depending on where I lived. I gotta admit that gas is my favorite to cook on. Just so many ways to control heat, where the heat is, and how quickly the heat can be changed. Most electric cooktops and ovens are shit unless you buy an upper tier brand, and even then heating a big coil under a glass top is inefficient AF.
Just switched to induction. While not the same as gas, and it does have a few peculiarities, it is by far better than standard electric cooktops. Way fast, more efficient, easy. These need to come down in price to help win over people used to gas.
I have found gas consistently shit for cooking at low temperatures because you can’t turn it down low enough. Minimum power on the lowest ring, nope, still far too hot right in the middle of the pan.
Sounds to me like you need better pans that don’t have paper thin ass bottoms
Guess I was lucky? Our burner had a very low setting, perfect for low heat and reducing things like jams or whatever.
Electric is horrible. It’s either full on or off. No moderation other than time.
Huh, never seen an electric cooker that is full on/off. That sounds terrible.
Yeah, a good number of electrics do that. 100% or 0%, and they pulse between the two.
I think the core thing I have learned is getting a decent gas stove is easy. But it’s real easy to get a shit electric.
Staying indoors during rain can dramatically cut wetness.
real men use diesel stoves
I just keep a lump of sub-critical plutonium in the kitchen.
As a foil: I grew up with an electric oven. Used an electric ofen through the 70s, 80s, 90s, 00s, and finally got a gas oven in 2017.
Because I was concerned about gas in the home, methane, CO, etc. I invested in a bunch of sensors so I’d know the moment any of it became an issue.
It’s been almost 9 years now, and I’ve yet to experience an issue.
However, that whole “you can use it when the power’s out” thing: can’t use the oven; the valve is electric. On my first gas range, the range wouldn’t even come on without electricity.
The pots and pans I use now are designed for gas and heat up fast, maintain an even heat, and cool down fast.
Essentially, I think not all devices are created equal.
I like not depending on a single utility for my energy needs, but at the same time wouldn’t shed a tear if methane production vanished tomorrow (I’d probably convert to propane short term and electric long-term).
I like not depending on a single utility for my energy needs
We had an extended outage in our neighborhood. Just over a week. I let the neighbors know I had enough wood and charcoal to keep the smoker at 275 all week and we could pop on the propane grills if we needed something hotter (I have been blessed with an abundance of backyard cookery). Fed half the neighborhood at some point that week, everyone at least got some ribs.
Last thing I want the folk on my street to do is go hungry, especially if all what’s wrong is the electricity.
What metrics did you monitor? With my air quality monitor I’d see CO2, particulate, nox skyrocket in rooms even far away from the gas stove. If you got a carbon monoxide detector + explosive gas detector then yeah you wouldn’t get any alarms with normal use, but those aren’t the only pollutants to monitor.
Co2, CO, particulates, NO2 and volatile organics.
I guess it’s down to venting?
One unexpected change with induction is the handles of my cast iron skillets take much longer to get hot. If I cook something relatively fast, like an egg, I can now pick up the cast iron bare handed!
But if I wanted to cook during a power outage, I have a propane grill.
Actually, it’s kind of amusing that my main grill is a pellet grill with powered auger to feed the pellets, so I can’t use that in a power outage
I’d rather have health than maybe marginally better cooking experiences
It’s not marginally. It’s a superior all issues aside.
Gas? What are you talking about?
Yeah gas is amazing.
Gas is dogshit. You’ve never used induction.
I have. You haven’t used a proper gas stove.
LOL if you have to get a “proper” stove to beat a 49$ IKEA portable induction cooktop, you’ve already lost.
GTFOH with your bullshit. Gas. FFS.
Wow calm there buddy. Ask any chef and they’ll tell you why the use gas. Inductions… a fancy gimmick if you have a good set of pots. Try using a wok on an induction stove 🤣
We replaced our gas stove with induction and our water heater with an electric one this past year and disconnected the gas. Now our solar panels offset a lot of the cost of electricity and our main bill is for water.
Happy with an induction cooktop, it boils water quicker and is easier to keep clean. My only concern is someone dropping a heavy pot onto the glass surface.
you don’t say, captain obvious is on it again today
but i guess it’s nice that we now have quantitative data on it
How often are yall getting power outages?
Regardless of that, higher end modern gas stoves won’t allow you to use the stovetop during a power outage anyway even if you match light them, because they have electronic flame presence sensors for safety. And no modern gas range or gas oven with electronic oven controls will allow you to use the oven without power.
Every month or so. Every two if I’m lucky
Once a year maybe? Almost always due to storm damage.
A couple days a year typically, between hurricanes, tornadoes and winter ice storms.
We had maybe one in the past 12 years where I live. A lot of people around me have had more, but my house specifically hasn’t had a major one that I can recall. We’ve been thinking about switching away from gas stove eventually.
the question might be more properly phrased as:
what is better, using electricity + backup power generator, or using gas stove in the first place?
A backup power generator that will run a household stove is kind of a tall order; most of the portable gasoline models on the American market won’t put out 220v.
I’ve got an electric stove, and I’ve got a backyard grill that runs on propane and propane accessories. Ain’t no power outage gonna starve me.
and I’ve got a backyard grill
yeah that’s what i meant with “backup generator” :-)
I just like being able to put tortillas directly on the flame burner.
It also seems safer to only attach each house to one sort of potentially deadly infrastructure.
Can we choose because I vote geothermal
I was thinking of the electrical grid :-) And then heating with heat exchange either to air or to ground, which of course also requires electrical power.
Edit: Unless you want to go autonomous with regards to electrical power. Then the energy storage would become the potentially deadly local infrastructure, I suppose.
Sign me up for the fusion reactor
plus electricity is crazy flexible. you can easily transform electric power into other types of power, such as mechanical power (rotary movement), lighting, heat, computation.
with gas, you can only really turn it into heat. for all other uses, you’d first have to translate it into electric power or use a very bulky combustion engine.
