Gas stoves fill the air in your home with particulate matter (pm), which has been found to increase cancer risk in the long term.
So next time you buy a stove, consider choosing an induction stove.
Btw, gas stoves being better or faster than induction is a myth. They have certain specific advantages, but they are actually slower.
Obligatory Technology Connections video:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eUywI8YGy0Y
This entirely depends on the stove. Consumer-lever stoves? Sure, definitely. Commercial stoves? Probably not. Commercial stoves put out 3-4x the BTUs of a high-end consumer stove, and usually can’t be installed in a home because they require significant shielding around them (so you don’t burn a building down) and a very high flow hood. The highest-end Wolf range has a single burner that has a maximum output of 10,000BTU, and costs a whopping $17,000; a fairly basic range top for a commercial kitchen has six burners that can all output 32,000BTU, and costs about $3700. For stir-frying specifically, you can get a single ring wok burners outputting 92,000-125,000BTU starting at about $700 for natural gas (and a helluva lot more if you use LP).
Unfortunately, I can’t find a solid conversion between gas and induction stove capabilities.
Oh, and FWIW - if you live somewhere with an unstable power grid, a natural gas or LP stove will continue to function when the power is out, albeit you’ll need to light it manually. We lose power fairly regularly due to storms–usually only a day at a time, but sometimes as long as 3-4 days–and it would be a real hassle to have all electric appliances when there’s no power.
1 kW is 3412 BTU/h (=BTUs)
Most induction stovetops have a boost function with around 3-4 kW (that’s about 13000 BTUs).
BUT contrary to a gas stove top, almost all of the energy is actually put into the pot instead of the surroundings (only 30-40% of the energy from a gas stove is used to heat the pot). Meaning that a 4 kW induction cooktop should be comparable to a 40’000 BTUs gas stove (single burner).
Okay, good deal. So, in theory, an induction stove that’s 3500W should be approaching the heating ability of a typical commercial range.
Yes, and you can test it pretty easily by just seeing how much faster a pot of water boils on induction, on-par with the boiling times of commercial burners.
Also, in a commercial setting, induction stoves cook just as effectively with less energy which means they don’t put out nearly as much heat to the environment. For a chef, its the difference between working all day in 90-degree spaces to 70-degree AC. I’m an engineer who works on a lot of commercial kitchens (among other things), and our chefs love the electric kitchens we’ve delivered.
When you’re cooking for work, 8+ hours a day, being comfortable while you do it is a major game changer.
The other thing they enjoy is the level of control and consistency - many professional induction ranges will let you control on temperature, which means you can quickly adjust to specific values in order to, say, sear a steak at 500, then finish it at 300 until it hits the desired internal temperature.
So this is 4000 watts? What household circuit can support that?
Uhhh, tons of people in Europe are on 240V 3 phase power.
My oven is 3100W and that is just fine. 3 phase consumer induction cooktops can easily go that high or higher.
Once my 3 phase charging pole is put in, my car will charge at >10000W on a household circuit.
A random Better Homes and Gardens article clocks a 2000 square ft (185 square meters) home with central air conditioning at nearly 19,000 watts.
https://www.bhg.com/home-improvement/electrical/how-to-check-your-homes-electrical-capacity/
So I think most homes could handle that in general, but I don’t know about specific wiring requirements to handle that kind of power draw from just the kitchen. So do these things require that level of retrofit?
Idk about my math but most American household circuits require stoves to be on a (220V) dual phase 18 amp circuit. Which should output around 8kW (18A * 220V)
Should be a lot more than 18A. Should be closer to 30A-50A to account for usage. 18A is what a kitchen receptacle would require and is so low that an oven on a 18A breaker would trip constantly. I’m Canadian so I mostly know the CEC but the NEC requirements in the USA are very similar.
More info if you’re interested.
Plenty can. Just need a 240v 30a outlet or higher
Which isn’t a thing in the states anyway.
I’m confused as to why you’re so confident. The US has 3-phase power and homes get 120V from line 1 to the neutral (split-phase). If you use line 1 and 2, you get 240V. More than enough to power an oven. This is the case in every modern residential home in the US because they have a national building code.
Yes, I’m aware that you can do this but there are not readily available outlets throughout a home for this, lol. Yes, let me move my stove or dryer so I can plug my wok induction stove in.
…You do know that an oven needs a dedicated outlet, yes? As in, if you don’t have a 30-50A receptacle in your home, one must be installed in order for you to have an oven. All new builds and most existing buildings have this dedicated outlet.
Edit: I see that you’re using stove and oven separately. I am talking about a range (oven and stovetop combined), since where I live these are most common and “oven” and “stovetop” are roughly interchangeable. Apologies for any confusion.
Yes it is? The US very much has 220v for power hungry stuff. Things like ev chargers, central ac units, water heaters, electric clothes dryers, etc. It uses quite the variety of different plugs for the various amperages
Edit: technically its 220v*
That is exactly what I have running to my traditional electric stove and I live in USA.
Here in Italy most houses used to have contacts allowing max 3kW, but nowadays it’s more common to have 4.5kW (with smart utility meters which allow 30% over current for 3 hours).
Still have to be careful if you’re running a washing machine or something like that, but it’s doable.
Of course old houses may have insufficiently-sized wires, and that’s another can of worms.
LP camp stoves work without power and are a good backup for an electric stove
Yeah, a coleman (or equivalent) 2 burner camp stove combined with the adapter to use a full size propane tank is super handy. Combine it with a cast iron griddle, and you can functionally replicate a Blackstone for much much cheaper. It’s also way better for high heat cooking if you don’t have a good stove fan that actually vents outside.
Also, sometimes when power goes out, gas does too (it’s still a grid that can fail).
we got a griddle attachment for my weber babyQ so we can take it camping and fry bacon on it. I’ll take that over a coleman any day.
I have a Viking with 15k burners. No shielding needed, but huge upgrades to air exchange and a really powerful hood fan were.
Because it’s a consumer (really a prosumer) stove, that shielding is already built in. You wouldn’t want to install a commercial range in right next to wooden cabinets; it’s assumed that surfaces in commercial kitchens are all going to be non-porous, hard surfaces, usually stainless steel or ceramic.
Yeah, I don’t mind electric stoves but I gotta have one large high pressure burner for woks and griddles
My partner won’t let me have one. :( It’s too dangerous since our house is a cedar cabinet, and cedar burns VERY well.
This is only true on the simplest (or older) gas stoves. Most models these days have all sorts of electronics, including features to prevent gas leaks.
I also live in an area with frequent power disruption. We have a backup generator. It is more than enough to power the electronics in our propane gas range, but nowhere near enough to power an electric range.
Mine works when the power is out. The only electrical part is the starter.
Also, I can heat my house (well, keep the temps above freezing) with my gas fireplace. I just have to manually click the pezioh electric starter.
OTOH, when the power is out, I can’t run my stove vent hood, which vents outside and is why I don’t worry much about “particulate matter.” Never seen a non-externally-vented gas stove; I thought they were against code in the US, but whatever. The fireplace is entirely enclosed and sealed, and vented outside; heat circulation is via a fan that runs air around the heat box - which also doesn’t run with power out, making it less efficient. But it still beats having the pipes freeze.
Never seen something like this?
It’s a pain in the butt cause all it does is suck up any smoke and direct it towards your smoke detector.
i mean ours was built to look that way, but when you open those cabinets above the microwave there’s ducting in there for the vent to get to the roof.
Nope, not personally. I mean, I have had hoods that just vent into the kitchen, but never on a gas stove; only on cheap electric ones.
I believe they exist, but IME gas stove installation code says it has to vent outside, because of the gas fumes. With electric stoves, installers can get away with just venting into the kitchen, so if something burns you get your smoke alarm.
I roast coffee beans, and I do it by placing a cookie tray on my stove, and put the roaster on that. It is a major PITA, but if I do a dark roast it produces smoke - like real, dark, something’s-burning smoke - and if I don’t have it under the vent it sets the smoke detectors off every time. But under the vent, it just sucks it all out and jets it outside.
This is the first house I’ve owned that has a gas stove, but my in-law’s place has a big Viking in it with, like, 10 burners; it’s a monster, and the hood on that looks like it came from a restaurant. Their’s vents outside, too.
I have no doubt there are places in the US where gas is cheap and even trailer homes have gas stoves and no outside venting, and maybe older homes. I dunno. But every gas stove I’ve personally seen in the US in the past decade has vented outside.
Yes, they exist, as I acknowledged. How old is it? Is it representative of what you’d find at a standard big box retailer?
For it to work, it means the controls must all be manual and mechanical. This is in contrast to the “smart” features that are very common.
Oh, 25 years old, or something? I’ve looked at replacing it with something newer and easier to clean, with electric controls instead of dials, but they’re enormously more expensive and the basic manual dial versions are still available, and cheaper.
I mean, there’s not much to a gas stove. I’ve taken mine completely apart because the peizo starter fried itself. You don’t need more than physical dials to control gas flow, like a water faucet, and a peizo starter. Making them more complex is really silly. Even my in-laws stupid giant, expensive Viking has manual dials and peizo starters, although they only have to turn the dials on and the starters go automatically until they detect that the gas is burning. I have to press my dials to trigger the starter. Even in the Viking, the gas control is still just a valve; as long as there’s gas pressure in the lines, you can manually start it with a match with no electricity. Their’s is about 10 years old.
Funny, though: our fireplaces are reversed. Our gas fireplace is peizo started; their’s you have to manually light with a lighter.