Live data from Hacker News

How bad is my gas stove?

carbonswitch.co

481–490 of 541 posts

Re: How bad is my gas stove?

#481

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I believe they sell induction hobs that project blue light 'flames' to reflect the heat strength as a visual aid. Not sure if any do the audio as well. https://www.theverge.com/2015/1/6/7504115/samsungs-virtual-f...

You can hear induction if you can hear above 16khz too.

[deleted]

Re: How bad is my gas stove?

#482
post #403

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My favorite way to show people how my induction stove works is to put some cold water in a kettle, pop it on a "burner", then turn it to "power boost". You can instantly see tiny bubbles forming on the bottom, and 20 seconds later it's at a rolling boil so intense you fear it may explode. I have no idea how anyone can say induction is slower than gas. And on the other end, low will slowly melt chocolate or heat a hol…

All the induction stoves I've tried, here in the EU, are great at boiling one pot of water. They suck at everything else. E.g. want to boil two pots of water in parallel? No can do - after warming up seemingly forever you will have one pot boiling for 5 seconds, then stopping and letting the other pot boil for five seconds, and so on. I want to love induction - no gas pipes, so much easier to clean, so much better fo…

Holy smokes, if you folks across the pond plug your stoves into 3kw, you indeed should never use that for cooking. The plug behind my stove can carry 12, about 10 continuous.

Now, about your issue with parallel cooking: you indeed can not send Max Power to two pots if they are on the same rail. However, even the cheapest ranges I've ever seen have 4 burners, two rails. Which means you _could_ boil two pots of water, as long as you use the correct two burners. You learn pretty quickly which burners share a rail. I'd imagine the really nice ones have a transformer per burner so it's never an issue.

And as long as you're not trying to send boil-in-20-seconds kind of power, you can use all the burners without noticing anything.

Re: How bad is my gas stove?

#484
post #367

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You might wanna take a second look at the title of the article.

You might want to take a minute to read the article itself. The author measures NO2 levels in their house with the equipment (stove, furnace, etc) that they have and the meals that they cook (or don't, e.g. when getting takeout). They make no comparison to other stoves.

There is an implicit comparison through the research he cites. It’s also almost certain the reader would be using this information to decide on moving away from gas. No one is trying to use this information to make a decision on whether to abandon cooking. They want to know how bad gas stoves pollute indoor air so they can weigh their decision to go electric.

Re: How bad is my gas stove?

#485

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> It was running 2 burners with water on our gas stove all night long that kept our house from freezing As in, boiling the water? Wasn’t it very humid?

Unlikely in the winter. My current humidity sits at 17%, for example, far below the comfort level (no house-HVAC humidifier installed). I would welcome a couple of boiling pots in my room right now.

You seem to be somewhere that has a real winter. I’m in a region of New Zealand where we have hot and humid summers and cool and humid winters. Our temperature range is only about 5-30 degrees C, which is small compared to many places.

Re: How bad is my gas stove?

#486

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It could be that your gas lines are old and porous, leading to slow release of gas. Usually not a problem, unless the space is enclosed or poorly ventilated, in which case it can cause pooling of the gas and possibly an explosion. Gas is dangerous, lines should be checked every couple of years (pressurized or vacuum tested) and the rubber connection hose for the range should be replaced every five years or so.

Rubber hose for gas? Is that really a thing? For years now all the appliance-to-supply line connections I've seen have been flexible stainless steel.

Perhaps poster meant polyethelene, which is normal for gas retic.

Re: How bad is my gas stove?

#487
I've cooked (professionally) on both coil and induction, both low-end (sub $2,000) and high-end ($12,000+, e.g. Wolf, Fisher & Paykel, Gaggenau and that obscure European brand that's now all the rage) ranges. With fancy pans and cheap dollar store shit.

Give me gas, every time. Especially when stir frying or flambe-ing or working on the hibachi grill or teppan grill or grilling.

An electric oven is "okay" except for the heat/cool cycle which frankly is just annoying when baking bread.

I got to use an electric salamander once, and that was a huge disappointment. Nothing matches gas for flexibility and control and unassisted convection heat transfer. When I turn the pan on the side to get more heat there for braising, I get more there, right _there_, not over there, not over here, not all around, right there.

The other thing with a gas range, when I'm pulling a 500F pan out of the oven and dropping it on the range, or dragging 30lb of hot liquid in a stock pot across the top, I'm not worried about damaging anything except my back. I don't need $5,000+ of hardware in my kitchen being taken out of commission because someone was slightly careless.

Re: How bad is my gas stove?

#488

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I mean, they could have just fixed their gas leak (lol what the fuck) and bought a nice hood. Even having to suggest people fix their gas leak is comedic and reminds me of how absurd many tech people are. Bragging about transitioning, recommending a subsidy, allowing a gas leak.

Here in New Orleans they take your meter if you report a leak and you can’t get it back for a couple weeks and thousands in reconnection fees because they don’t trust people’s plumbers apparently and have to reinspect everything themselves

> and thousands in reconnection fees because they don’t trust people’s plumbers apparently and have to reinspect everything themselves

That makes my regulatory capture spidey senses tingle in several different ways.

Re: How bad is my gas stove?

#489
post #347

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Right, but duty cycling is a common method of output control. I've seen induction cooktops (presumably cheap ones) that also has the same behavior.

Sure all inductions jobs will use duty cycling (pulse width modulation if we’re getting technical). But that doesn’t determine responsiveness. With a resistive hob (ceramic hob is the industry name) you’re relying on a large lump of stone (hence the name ceramic hob) to be a heat store and even out the elements lumpy power output. Problem with this approach is that it takes forever for the stone to heat up and cool d…

>inductions jobs will use duty cycling (pulse width modulation if we’re getting technical). But that doesn’t determine responsiveness.

It absolutely does when the pulses are on the order of ten seconds long, as in many electric ranges. But yes, the thermal mass of the heated coil/cooktop are also a major factor.

Re: How bad is my gas stove?

#490
post #464

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The professional machines don’t look nice, don’t have fancy buttons or electronics. They are not fashion items for fancy looking kitchens. Instead, They are practical. They have insane power (4.5kW is low range… and it goes directly into the pan…). They are easy to clean, and they have physical knobs: one for on/off, and a dial for power, which they display in a cheap display in kWs.

Any pointers on where a residential customer could get one of these?

Any kitchen supply store. Just google "kitchen supply store" and in any decently sized city you will get a half-dozen within 30 minutes of you.
Post reply on HN