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?
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?
I’ve never had an induction stove, but I grew up with an electric stove - IIRC, it was on a separate fuse from the rest of the kitchen, and it had a weird plug because it needed a different voltage than most other appliances.
I would assume the requirements for an induction stove are more or less the same… Switching from regular electric to induction would probably be easy, but gas to induction would take a lot more work.
Plenty can. Just need a 240v 30a outlet or higher
Which isn’t a thing in the states anyway.
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.
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.
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)
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.
Yeah, I want one of those, too. I think it fits different needs, though. Stove vs grill.
yeah, it basically takes the place of a frying pan. if we want soup or coffee, we’ve still got a one burner camp stove for that. we end up using the grill more tho.
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.