Changed electric stove for gas

[Exflyboy]

so the electric stove was starting to fall apart and it was time for a replacement.

My Wife has got pretty heavily into canning of late and I can just feel that electric meter spooling up heating up all that water .. OK I'm an engineer I could calculate that..:)

We have gas to the furnace and water heater so I thought it was about time to tee into the gas pipe and cook with gas.

We took advantage of the current 20% discount offer on Home Depot appliances and got a nice Samsung unit in Stainless steel for $747..

I almost wish the 20 year old electric dryer would die as well..:)

Frank

[geekette]

I keep thinking about swapping out our electric to gas.  Just not sure I trust myself around an open flame...

[Exflyboy]

Hehe.. well cooking with gas is just much nicer particularly with modern convection ovens.

as to overall safety I would guess (OK engineers hate guess but I don't have data) that an electric oven is probably a wash risk wise.. i.e a number of them have shorted out and if you have gas in the house anyway.

As long as you don't set fire to your clothing you should be fine.

I'm a bit more concerned about a gas fired dryer to be honest.. Then again you have a red hot wire in an electric dryer.. plus clothing lint and that combination has burned down a lot of houses!

Frank

[sunnyca]

I would kill to do this. But unfortunately, I have a condo and my HOA is crazy, to put it mildly. I'm not sure if this is something they would condone. :(

[Thegoblinchief]

I've gotten used to cooking on electric, and it boils water faster. It really comes down to the relative cost of electricity versus gas in your area (which varies widely).

If you want the MOST efficient way to can, you have two options:

1. Traditional boiling water bath using an induction burner (assuming you have induction capable gear).

2. Steam canning. You'd want to double check the food safety. I think it's all USDA approved, but can't remember.

If you have a free source of firewood, a wood-fired stove would be even more bad ass.

[Greg]

I've wondered about this -  we have gas stovetop burners but the oven itself is electric... so the gas line is already run up to the stove.  Would the cost savings be pretty big?

You can calculate the cost of electric vs. gas, but consider what you currently (heh) have is the best of both worlds.  Foodies love gas burners but also love electric ovens.  It has to do with the heat and how fast and even it is.

[Exflyboy]

So there are a couple of points about gas vs electric.

The first one is how much heat is available (thinking about boiling the several gallons of water in a hurry here.

I just pulled out my  multi meter and measured the resistance of the largest burner and got 27.5 ohms.
This is for a single burner.

Current I = V/R = 240/27.5 = 8.73Amps.

Now Power = I^2* R = 8.73*8.73*27.5 =2095W.. or roughly 2.1kW. which is equivilent to
92.1+3413) ...7200 BTU/Hr for the electric stove top.


Comparing this to the biggest rated burner of 17,000Btu and you can see the gas burners have significantly more output.. In fact 4 of the 5 gas burners have significantly more output than the biggest of my electric burners.

I'll now dig out a bill and compare energy costs for our area.

Frank

[Exflyboy]

OK gas vs electric costs.

Gas around here costs about $1 per therm which is 100,000 BTU's

Eelectric costs about $0.08 for 1 kWH

1 KwH = 3314 BTU's

so 1 therm electric costs  = 100,000BTU= 0.08*100,000/3314 = $2.41

So electric costs about 2.4 times as much as gas around here at least. In terms of the amount of energy used for cooking vs heating your house its probably not that great of a hit on your monthly bills. Heating your house of course will be more significant.

Gas dryers are probably worth having though if you use the damn thing like we do!

Frank

[Exflyboy]

Now the wrinkle to the calcs is how efficiently does the heat get transferred to the pot of water?

In the case of electric the pot is in in contact with one side of the heating element.. thus is heated by conduction and some convection from the underside of the element.

In the case of gas its mostly by convection.. so one could see that perhaps one looses more heat to the atmosphere with a gas stove vs electric.

But I don't know that for sure.

I am thinking an experiment is in order.. I.e adjust the output of two burners, one with gas one with electric (before the stove gets taken away) so they are the same, then time to heat the same volume of water.

Yes I think I must do this!!!

Frank

[Thegoblinchief]

Now the wrinkle to the calcs is how efficiently does the heat get transferred to the pot of water?

In the case of electric the pot is in in contact with one side of the heating element.. thus is heated by conduction and some convection from the underside of the element.

In the case of gas its mostly by convection.. so one could see that perhaps one looses more heat to the atmosphere with a gas stove vs electric.

But I don't know that for sure.

I am thinking an experiment is in order.. I.e adjust the output of two burners, one with gas one with electric (before the stove gets taken away) so they are the same, then time to heat the same volume of water.

Yes I think I must do this!!!

Frank

I haven't done a controlled experiment like that. In my (personal, unscientific, anecdotal) experience, the slow warm up of the electric burner gets mitigated by its more efficient conduction later in the process. So something that takes a while (boiling a large pot) happens faster.

Curious to see your results, though :) I have gas piping I can tee into almost directly below where the stove goes, and was thinking of doing this whenever the kitchen gets remodeled. Even if we don't use it, might add some small amount of resale/convenience.

[Exflyboy]

Ok  little Google research turned up the "fact".. namely I have not found a verifiable source yet.. That gas is only about 35% efficient in transferring heat to the pot on the stove with gas, but with electric it is 70% efficient.

So say we have two identical volumes of water and we put 1 therm of energy into the water to heat it.. what is the equivalent cost of the electric to heat the same volume of water to the same temperature.

Well in this case of gas its 1/0.35 = $2.86
In the case of electric  its 2.41/0.7 = $3.44

So in other words heating a pot of water on the gas stove is about 20% more expensive with electric.... BUT if you are cooling your house and are cooking in the Summer.. then that waste heat from the gas will have to be cooled by your house AC system... So that cost advantage will be reduced further.

From the above if you are trying to decide between electric and gas based purely on cost of energy... There is a small advantage of gas.. but not much.

Cooking a turkey in the oven will be a much better advantage with gas however because the heat will not escape as readily as it does on the stove top.

Frank

[Spork]

OK gas vs electric costs.

Gas around here costs about $1 per therm which is 100,000 BTU's

Eelectric costs about $0.08 for 1 kWH

1 KwH = 3314 BTU's

so 1 therm electric costs  = 100,000BTU= 0.08*100,000/3314 = $2.41

So electric costs about 2.4 times as much as gas around here at least. In terms of the amount of energy used for cooking vs heating your house its probably not that great of a hit on your monthly bills. Heating your house of course will be more significant.

Gas dryers are probably worth having though if you use the damn thing like we do!

Frank

Around here: electricity is made with gas (though generation is arguably more efficient than a kitchen stove)...  But I'd say that implies gas is cheaper.

Gas dryers are also not all they're cracked up to be.  They're a bit more likely to cause house fires than electric (though either will eventually cause a fire if you don't keep the lint trap and vent clean.)

[SingleMomDebt]

It's not about kWh or BTUs when it comes to a cooktop... It's all about whether you can cook a tortilla on it straight from the burner!

[NaturallyHappier]

Instead of replacing the dryer, use drying racks.  We use our dryer once a year at most.  The key is you need to plan to just do one load a day to give it time to dry. 

0 BTUs, 0 KWH and no chance of a fire.

[Gerard]

I cook on electric at my place and gas at the girlfriend's, and (despite what foodies all tell me) I prefer the electric. The gas heats up the kitchen more, the broiler sucks, and most important for me, it's hard to get the gas low enough for the reeeeeaaaallll slowwww cooking I'm doing more and more. Maybe a combo of gas and a bigger slow cooker would be ideal.

wrt energy consumption and heat-up speed, we used an induction stove in our airbnb place in Paris this summer. Holy shit! It boils water quickly. And I assume is far more energy-efficent. And induction burners can be plugged into regular 110 outlets.

[dragoncar]

Ok  little Google research turned up the "fact".. namely I have not found a verifiable source yet.. That gas is only about 35% efficient in transferring heat to the pot on the stove with gas, but with electric it is 70% efficient.

Don't forget that the rest of the energy is 100% transfered to the air around you (depending on your hooding situation).  Great in the winter, not so great in the summer.

[Bob W]

Instead of replacing the dryer, use drying racks.  We use our dryer once a year at most.  The key is you need to plan to just do one load a day to give it time to dry. 

0 BTUs, 0 KWH and no chance of a fire.

Love this one.  Do you even air fluff?

[deborah]

Depends upon the type of electric hotplates. My parents have solid electric hotplates which cool down very slowly - resulting in burnt porridge and pots boiling over all the time. Of course, these are the worst type of electric hotplates. However, only induction appear to have the instantaneous changes in heat that you sometimes want in cooking.

[NaturallyHappier]

Instead of replacing the dryer, use drying racks.  We use our dryer once a year at most.  The key is you need to plan to just do one load a day to give it time to dry. 

0 BTUs, 0 KWH and no chance of a fire.

Love this one.  Do you even air fluff?

No fluffing at our house.  The towels are a little stiff the first time they are used. 

On the positive side, I never have trouble with the T-shirt shrinking.

[Spork]

I cook on electric at my place and gas at the girlfriend's, and (despite what foodies all tell me) I prefer the electric. The gas heats up the kitchen more, the broiler sucks, and most important for me, it's hard to get the gas low enough for the reeeeeaaaallll slowwww cooking I'm doing more and more. Maybe a combo of gas and a bigger slow cooker would be ideal.

This is going to depend on the stove.  My sis's gas stove sucks balls.  Mine rocks.  Broiler is awesome.   And you can turn the cooktop down to almost nothing.   

[GizmoTX]

It does depend on the stove/cooktop. Most are way underpowered.

We installed a single hob induction cooktop (electric but not conventional) & a natural gas range. This induction unit, 240w & rated for 33K BTU, can bring a 4 qt pot of water to boiling in 6 minutes, while the gas burner, rated for 17K BTU & on full blast, manages this in 17 minutes. The induction transfers very little heat into the kitchen, while the high gas burner transfers a lot -- good in the winter, terrible in the summer. For browning &  then simmering, you need to run 2 conventional electric burners at the different temperatures, but not for induction or gas. Induction is safer for kid cooks because there's no flame. It doesn't work with aluminum pots but they present health concerns. Induction loves cast iron & stainless steel. There can be some aluminum encased in a pot for conductivity, as long as the pot retains enough magnetic material.

Using today's third generation pressure cooker with any cooktop really saves energy, speeds up cooking, & concentrates flavors, but induction really steps this up.

If we move, we'd choose full induction. It's an easy swap out for an electric cooktop or stove. We'd maybe add 1-2 gas burners only if gas was easily available.