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How bad is my gas stove?
- logifail 5y agoCan anyone recommend (ideally inexpensive) devices/kits to measure CO2 and NO2 levels in a residential home? Ideally capable of sending data to be stored & processed locally (Home Assistant or similar).
- ysleepy 5y agoI got a MH-Z19 co2 sensor attached to an esp with esphome, works really well.
- wallacoloo 5y agoif you have a high-uptime PC, you can find USB-enabled SDS011 sensors for $30 on Amazon or anywhere else, and free software that creates a web dashboard that shows VOC count by time. can’t remember if these devices measure CO2/NO2 specifically though. https://github.com/seandlg/sds011docker https://github.com/seandlg/sds011docker
- TedDoesntTalk 5y agoAny other recommendations for stand alone units?
- peterohler 5y agoElectric stoves are fine until the power goes out. With power issue in California it's nice to be able to cook a meal on the stove instead of resorting to a tiny camp stove.
- BXLE_1-1-BitIs1 5y agoNewer building codes require a separate air supply for gas stoves as well as venting outside. With a high efficiency furnace the combustion air comes from outside and is directly vented outside. That leaves water heaters which are vented either up the chimney (mostly these days with a liner) or a forced air vent. A mid or low efficiency furnace vented to a chimney without a liner could well result in combustion products leaking through the chimney into the house. Heat exchanger leaks could also be a factor, but usually the duct space is higher pressure than the vent which has the chimney draft. Leakage can still happen before the draft develops after ignition.
- Schiendelman 5y agoThe newest building codes (in New York, Seattle, and a few other places) simply ban gas hookups. You don't want that NO2 outside in a dense city, either.
- hardolaf 5y agoMy biggest motivation in buying a condo this year is the ability to switch to an induction stove and electric oven from shitty gas appliances.
- throwawaysea 5y agoCan confirm. I have a high efficiency furnace and gas stove and both vent outside. I also have air quality monitors and filters and cooking does not set them off, so I feel like the claims about indoor pollution are overblown and just being used to try and justify banning gas stoves.
- crmd 5y agoIf anyone is worried about combustion byproducts in their living space, I highly recommend looking into upgrading your furnace and hot water heater to direct vent models. Both appliances have sealed combustion chambers, and there are two pipes coming down from the roof that supply air in, and two pipes that vent exhaust gasses out. I did this because I live in a converted industrial loft, so my furnace and hot water heater are essentially in the same space as my bed, and having open flames in the same space seemed risky.
- yaomtc 5y agoIs direct vent the same kind of tech as a heat pump?
- maxerickson 5y agoNo, older furnaces draw their combustion air from inside the building, the direct vent draws combustion air from outside. Modern furnaces release a lot less heat as waste, one result of that is that there aren't a lot of hot gases to deal with, a flue isn't necessary.
- quickthrower2 5y agoWhat? I thought ventilation of water heaters was a legal requirement. I am sure it is in the UK. It is illegal not to do this. Because of CO poisioning. Same with furnaces, heaters, etc. I like my current setup - the entire boiler is outside and away from any windows.
- rohitb91 5y agoI always see vented and even power vented in ontario.
- jsharpe 5y agoI'm curious what improvement, if any, is seen from using the fan on the range hood while using the gas stove/oven. Since I heard about this issue, I've been using it every time I use the stove or oven, and it does make a different to the subjective gas smell around the house, but I don't know if it impacts actual NO2 levels.
- andrewberls 5y agoI agree, a discussion of ventilation seems like a critical omission from the article. Do vent hoods help, and to what degree? Is installing more effective / higher CFM hoods a productive avenue to explore, vs replacing the whole stove? What about the impact of air purifiers? Or opening a window? I hope these things are covered in part three.
- xenadu02 5y agoBesides improving air quality you should use the vent hood anyway otherwise your kitchen will get a nice coating of grease on everything over the years. This applies to the oven too, not just the stovetop. I wish residential vent hoods came with interconnects like commercial kitchens so they would come on automatically whenever cooking.
- leoedin 5y agoAEG make stoves and hoods that have some sort of wireless communication so they come on automatically. Expensive though.
- c_o_n_v_e_x 5y agoAssuming it is not a recirculating hood and it’s venting outside, it should help reduce NOx levels. When you’re venting to the outside, you’re creating a negative pressure inside the home which is drawing in fresh air, which in theory will dilute the concentration. Some systems have “make-up air” which blows in fresh air, roughly equal to what is being vented out.
- jacobolus 5y ago
- mikewarot 5y agoA truck hit a pole near our house and we lost power overnight. It was running 2 burners with water on our gas stove all night long that kept our house from freezing, as it was 15 degrees F outside and 49 degrees inside. (Old house, no real insulation) I was glad to have it as a backup plan.
- skybrian 5y agoDo you have a carbon monoxide detector?
- lostlogin 5y ago> 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?
- antisthenes 5y agoUnlikely 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.
- maxerickson 5y agoYeah, I have a humidifier that matches the square feet of the house running and it can't keep humidity over 20% when it gets colder. Need to work on air leaks I guess.
- lostlogin 5y agoYou 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.
- teirce 5y agoThis is a really, really bad idea. Please do not do this. A quick search online will give you tons of results about potential fires and carbon monoxide poisoning. https://ota.dc.gov/release/dangers-using-your-stove-home-heating https://ota.dc.gov/release/dangers-using-your-stove-home-hea...
- aemreunal 5y agoI enjoy cooking a lot and I cooked on gas stoves, electric ones (the ones that have those red hot spiral things under a glass) and top-of-the-line induction ones. In my opinion (and probably many restaurants' opinions from what I can see through their reactions on bans for gas appliances in new buildings), a gas stove is just unmatched in how much easier and better it makes cooking. I totally get the desire to switch to electric appliances for many reasons, but I am yet to meet an electric stove of any kind that I remotely enjoyed cooking on. Is this everyone's experience? Did I just not meet the right induction stove yet? Is there some sort of new technology on the horizon that will make electric stoves infinitely better?
- R0b0t1 5y agoI was able to get the most even heating with a high quality (but not insanely expensive) induction stove. Boiling water in about a minute, insane. And because the heating element is necessarily closed loop you don't have the regulation problems you do with an ohmic heater. A gas stove is a lot more powerful (10-60kW vs 1-3kW) but a lot of that heat simply escapes upwards.
- bogota 5y agoIts not about power or speed for me. Whenever i visit my parents i hate cooking anything because the electric stoves release heat in bursts then turn off for a bit then a huge burst. It’s impossible to cook anything the way you want . Normally i just go for overcooking everything. But in general i find cooking relaxing and that stove turns it into something that makes me mad every morning. Maybe this is specific to the stove they have though. I have and will continue to use gas because of this.
- leoedin 5y agoMy AEG induction stove has short enough pulse cycles it's not noticeable - a low setting just means low heat. In fact, it's the best stove I've ever used by far - it can go from gently melting chocolate to way too much heat in about 2s. Apart from boiling water I never use the most powerful settings because they'll burn stuff. The only thing it can't do better than gas is wok cooking - the curved sides don't get hot. My parents have a different brand induction which does seem to have longer pulse cycles - maybe one every 5s or so. That is probably the effect you're describing - it'll go from essentially off to too hot and back. It's obviously a manufacture specific thing.
- ericbarrett 5y agoNO2 is also produced by diesel and gasoline combustion and is a significant pollutant in most cities; its value changes during the day (Windy.com has this info if you are curious). I don't see that the author is controlling for the outside value. Some of the variance could be regional air quality (e.g. the low values around Christmas).
- nickkell 5y agoSo why would there be spikes during the night? And how do you explain the dip on days when they don’t cook?
- ericbarrett 5y agoI don't know, but actually (again, according to Windy) NO2 spikes at night across the U.S., but less on weekends. Industrial processes? Furnaces? Weather? Bad data? This is why they should have an "outside" control away from any house exhausts. I'm also not saying the gas stove has no effect, just that they don't seem to be controlling for ambient NO2.
- defen 5y agoCan anyone recommend a good air quality monitor for home use?
- doitLP 5y agoThe author seems to be using the uHoo in home monitor, which is what I have myself. They’re pricey but I’ve been happy with mine for 2 years. uHoo Smart Air Quality Sensor – 9 in 1 Indoor Air Monitor with Temperature and Humidity Gauge, CO2, Dust (PM2.5), VOC, NO2, Allergen Meter -to Breathe Easy and Boost Health with App https://www.amazon.com/dp/B076PV9X99/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_api_glt_i_H3TQBPQAM7E2QG1W72J1 https://www.amazon.com/dp/B076PV9X99/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_api_glt_...
- koksik202 5y agoThank you now I can explain spikes on my air quality monitor
- operatingthetan 5y agoI think particulates in smoke can cause air quality monitors to go off as well, I notice this with my electric stove.
- PostThisTooFast 5y ago
- diiaann 5y agoI can sympathize with the desire to have gas but what I can't accept is people who want massive BTU stoves with inadequate ventilation or worse none. Honestly, I'm surprised that a lot of building codes are so lax. My preferred setup would be 4 induction burners with one or two gas burners. I understand if you have a house without gas, it does't feel worthwhile to just have one or two burners. Induction would be the daily drivers, i.e. boiling water. The gas would for occasions where I want tighter heat control or want to use a pot/pan that doesn't work with induction.
- userbinator 5y agoor worse none I've never seen a stove without a vent hood above it...?
- nightfly 5y agoI have. I've also seen vent hoods that don't actually dump to the outside, they just pass through a small filter and dump the air right back inside...
- londons_explore 5y agoWhich is okay if it's a carbon filter to remove smells and nox you're going to change every year. But many are just mesh grease filters and are never changed.
- marcianx 5y agoI've seen a bunch in NYC, especially in older apartment studios.
- raffraffraff 5y agoIn Europe (or at least big tea drinking Nations like Ireland and the UK) electric kettles are in every home, and they can boil 1l of water in just over 2 minutes. So while I have a gas range stove, I actually use the kettle to boil water for tea, coffee, rice, pasta, stock etc. Other small appliances like air fryers and standalone induction hobs reduce reliance on the has burners. And from a "green" perspective, switching to an induction stove would mean junking a 100kg stove. I'll probably never change my stove.
- mint2 5y agoHope he put a sensor outside his home as a control to rule out outside sources. Air pollution pools at night and the early morning 6-7 am is the worst time to go running anywhere remotely near freeways.
- timzaman 5y agoWhen i bought my house last year, first thing i did is upgrade to 400A electric and removed all gas. Welcome to 2022
- b112 5y ago400A! I heat my entire home with electric, baseboard heaters, and have 200A. And it gets to -40C where I live! (Power comes from hydroelectric, and is cheap) What are you doing?
- rohitb91 5y agoWow that would be exceptionally expensive. In cold areas I've seen people with moderately sized homes have $1000 bills in the cold months in ontario.
- mrblampo 5y agoMy wife and I decided to switch to induction after the NYT article on this topic a few months ago. Not only did we have a gas stove that was probably spiking NO2 levels when we actually used it; we also seemed to have a gas leak. It was not a big one, just a faint smell, but it was hard to pin down. A plumber concluded the connection between the range and the pipe wasn't the problem. No specific part of the range smelled stronger than the rest of it. For all we knew, it might be a hole in a pipe. So we wanted to make gas stop flowing through our unit (a condo within a three-family home, very normal here in Cambridge, Massachusetts) altogether. We contacted an appliance company about switching to induction. To prepare, they told us, we would first need to upgrade the range power outlet to 40 amps, and cap off the gas pipe behind the range. The electrical work cost $1800. It could have been much more; we were lucky our circuit breaker was positioned such that they only needed to make two openings in our walls. (They suggested we put little hatch doors in those spots to make future work easier.) We asked our plumber to not only cap off the gas pipe behind the range, but also put in a valve in the basement, such that gas flow could be shut off to our unit, but also easily turned back on if a future owner wants to reverse what we did. We did this rather than turn off our gas altogether, because we have a gas water heater and still needed gas available there. The plumbing work cost about $300 I think. To make cooking stay as close as possible to being how great and fast it is with gas, we chose a range with an induction stove: The LG LSE4616ST, which cost $3000. We were lucky to be able to afford this change for our health. Of course, it would have cost a lot less if we hadn't cared about induction, but still multiple thousands of dollars. We should be subsidizing conversions like this.
- ajmurmann 5y agoWe would probably better off not relying on politicians to use what technology wins, but instead tax carbon emissions. And I mean tax it properly at real cost of the externality. Not some fig leaf $1/gallon.
- nightfly 5y agoI live in an apt and bought a ~$100 induction hot plate and now do about 90% of my cooking on that (formerly used semi-faulty burners on a cheap electric range). In the future when I own my home I plan on just a having a few cheap restaurant induction hot plates at ~$250 each I can replace/upgrade at will. It might not look as classy, but it will do everything I could ever ask it to do.
- globular-toast 5y agoWhat types of gas is this relevant to? Natural gas?
- bagels 5y agoIt's referring to natural gas. Probably similar effects with propane.
- dijonman2 5y agoElectric cooking is awful, gas is superior except for boiling water. Induction will boil water much faster.
- sputr 5y agoCurrent level of NO2 in our city, as measured by the official sources is 48 um/m3, with the official safe level of 200. Why is my gas stove a problem?
- samwillis 5y agoTo anyone considering switching to an induction hob and hearing anecdotal stories of how some people don’t think they are “as hot” or “slower” than gas. I guarantee these are all related to the pans being used. It is of upmost importance that you get a really good set of pans “designed” for induction. We have found “tri-ply” stainless steel pans work really well, better than on gas. Cast iron is also brilliant, I inherited loads of them. We have aluminium none stick frying pans with solid stainless steel bases, they work well. Aluminium pans without a solid steel base are absolutely crap on induction - even the ones that say they work. Avoid them. If you have any pans with a slightly curved base they won’t work. And you will have to get a Wok with a flat bottom designed specifically for induction. Make sure you read reviews before you purchase any new pans, and if you are changing your hob to an induction one be prepared for replacing your pans - budget to spend more on them than the hob even. We are absolutely converted to induction, love it and will never go back. Planning to one day get rid of the gas boiler too.
- zwily 5y agoWhen we got a nice induction stove we spend years showing off to friends how it could boil a pot of water in about 15 seconds. But the thing we like most about it is how easy it is to clean. :)
- mizzao 5y agoHow do I use my trusty wok on an induction stove? On gas we have a wok ring that just sits on top of the burner.
- arka2147483647 5y agoA good point. Alot of depends on the style of cooking you do, and how heat is used in that cooking style. I personally dont even have a wok, so the idea would never occur to me.
- samwillis 5y ago(Just edited my comment to mention woks, sorry) You would need to get a special flat bottom Wok designed for induction. I believe there are also some induction woks that come with a special plate or ring you place them on to make them work and still have a curved bottom, I have no experience of them.
- ospzfmbbzr 5y agoI have induction but I do prefer gas for cooking with a good gas stove. Induction is great for boiling water FAST. I see people saying gas is faster but it's not even close with a decent induction stove. That said I wouldn't stand with my balls next to the front burner on an induction stove due the EMF. I stand a few inches back. The recommendation is to primarily use the back burners and occasional front burner use as required. I've tested this with an EMF meter and it's pretty bad right up against my stove.
- SuoDuanDao 5y agoDid your EMF meter note the frequency? I didn't think it was in a frequency that would interfere with normal cellular function but I didn't exactly check either...
- lumb63 5y agoIt probably doesn’t interfere with cellular function, but that doesn’t mean it has no impact on your health. EMFs at virtually all ranges of artificial (and natural) magnitudes have been shown to cause a vast variety of health problems. The OP neglects this entirely. Maybe you save on the respiratory illness by converting to electric or induction from gas, but you now expose yourself to EMFs instead of dirty air. I don’t have solid info on which is the worse environmental contaminant but am reasonably certain there is no “safe” way to cook.
- SuoDuanDao 5y agoGot some studies you could share on that? It's something I've heard rumoured but not had a look at the data myself yet.
- lumb63 5y agoHere's a source that references induction stovetops specifically: https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/22674188/ https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/22674188/ For a more comprehensive treatment on the health and ecological consequences I'd recommend The Invisible Rainbow by Arthur Firstenberg. It discusses the topic in depth with respect to humans, insects, birds, trees, and more, across hundreds of years of history. It's very well researched; its references are 2/3 as long as the entire book. The Body Electric by Dr. Robert Becker is another book to possibly look into. It talks about electricity from a medical perspective and talks a bit about the mechanisms by which electricity influence the body and what it can do. If nothing else, the interesting takeaway for me from this book was that he was able to induce limb regrowth in tissue using currents on the order of picoamperes (this is an unfathomably small current compared to what we interface with daily). He also notes that more or less is not necessarily worse in terms of electricity's impacts on the body, just different. Here are some interesting highlights I've chosen from The Invisible Rainbow to give a broad sample. Impact of Mobile Phones on the Density of Honeybees: https://www.stopsmartmetersbc.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/04/Impact-of-mobile-phones-on-the-density-of-honeybees-by-Sainudeen-Sahib-S.-Feb.09-2011.pdf https://www.stopsmartmetersbc.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/04... Biological Effects and Health Implications of Microwave Radiation: https://books.googleusercontent.com/books/content?req=AKW5QadcjIVQBhLZ96xXTlGDSVtlCBLV-0zctR-vl_3n0KOM4T1x-sIl5Yy0eA5NDN4nvgpjcf1D2Lyjp_7cNozW5Ex___4ZN-fFxhqiBwNiZwpwW6hZy4AAZBtVRueTmFIWmFonEGTrl-naocZW9D93oUyfJyl2zrh29vNpltcwf2MKhGpLZtKXK7vag6XZcochIFHEUQ5a1ByGn6PrExOfptBVhFxd90hnefPoJCVG3-4vVJqqmms1K4r-IDBaexX9dGpZxJQNWDc_Ziyolwi-OMXlU8TnxK2GHHEjt9zKf62zH6D4AOI https://books.googleusercontent.com/books/content?req=AKW5Qa... There are compelling references throughout the book implicating EMFs in diabetes, heart disease, possibly cancer, and illness, to name a couple.
- clusterfish 5y agoApparently unpopular opinion: despite growing up with gas stoves and cooking every day I do not find them any better at it than decent electric ones (not talking about induction). Granted, my kitchen is not Michelin rated, but I have no idea what fancy temperature control people are constantly raving over with gas. Electric has a bit of thernal inertia, yes. If you cooked more than a few times on your own, you know what it's like, and it's not a problem. This gas hype is very puzzling.
- SuoDuanDao 5y agoWow, that really is unpopular! I had no idea people felt this strongly.
- bennysomething 5y agoMy wok doesn't work as well with electric and I find it easier to cook steaks with gas
- mhh__ 5y agoIt isn't so much average temperature control as much as being able to very finely choose where you want to apply the temperature. If you're making a stew that doesn't really matter, Induction is easier to clean, nothing wrong with it, for searing a steak I've always felt slightly limited by induction. I'd take anything over the awful "student house electric oven" I have now though.
- BuildTheRobots 5y agoI might have only experienced olderand cheaper electric hobs, but the thermal inertia is more than a bit. Off to low or low to high can take minutes, and the same for cooling down. With gas o have instant increases and decreases in energy. Induction hobs are much better in thst regard, but they fail in other ways - eg with gas i can lift the pan slightly above to shake it ans mix the food, with induction the second i get a few mm above the surface, the pan stops being heated. Its a massive change in process and feel... Its a bit like going fron riding a motorbike (extremely responsive) to piloting a canal boat where action and effect can be minutes apart.
- 5y ago
- ZeroGravitas 5y agoI'm surprised this person was surprised. Do the American home building standards not take account of this? Fairly certain it's already law for a while in other places, e.g. if you have a gas stove or central heating then you need greater ventilation and maybe carbon monoxide alarms and so forth. New houses in some places aren't allowed to have gas connections at all, which is partly greenhouse gas related, but the health benefits and cost savings are part of the discussion. No new home today should be built around the assumption that gas is a sensible fuel source.
- asteroidp 5y agoI am glad I don't live anywhere near places that are prohibiting gas appliances Gas furnace, stove, dryer and water heater are much nicer than the electric counterparts
- maxwell86 5y agoGood induction is light years better than good gas stoves. Ours has 4.5kW _per plate_, and its awesome. Silent, instantaneously hot, instantaneously cold, full control over the heat, no gases, etc. For heating and hot water, "remote heat" is infinitely cheaper, both in acquisition and maintenance costs, and infinitely more environmentally friendly than gas and electric heating. Sure, if you live in a remote region or a third world country, then you get what you can get. But in any modern first world city, there is no quality in the solution space in which gas is better than the alternatives, and as a whole, gas is just substantially worse.
- asteroidp 5y agoMost people don't live in a dense large city. It is telling you equate those people with living in a third world. Country though. Gas blows induction out of the water for actual cooking, not just reheating stuff
- maxwell86 5y ago> Most people don't live in a dense large city. Actually, most of the world population (>50%, ~4 billion people) lives in dense urban areas since ~2007: https://ourworldindata.org/urbanization https://ourworldindata.org/urbanization The current trend is expected to continue to increase.
- matthewaveryusa 5y agoWell now I’m curious. I just got a new high efficiency furnace and gas range, all venting outside. Whats the cheapest air sensor I can get to monitor no2 levels? I have spare rpis and arduinos if that can drive cost down (and fun up.)
- nemo44x 5y agoCooking food indoors creates many combustible particles. From oil approaching smoke points to the act of browning food - the Maillard reaction is precisely that. So of course this guy sees more things on the days he cooks and not on the day he gets takeout. On the take out day run a burger and measure. You won’t see much. Not compared to cooking in general. Get some induction plates and cook and note the results. “Studies” show kids that grow up in cities acquire asthma at higher rates and also that dwellings in cities are more likely to have gas appliances.
- lumb63 5y agoIt is really disappointing to me to see a comments section most glorifying induction stovetops because of how much “healthier” they are. They win on energy efficiency, but I think the argument over health is less clear cut. Consider that induction stoves emit EMFs roughly 16 times the “safe” limit for non-ionizing radiation [1]. And when you’re cooking, the parts of the body that are most likely to be exposed to the highest EMFs are your reproductive systems and the heads of children, which the study cited above notes can be damaged by EMFs 8x weaker than those from an induction stove. Investigate and consider all the health risks of your decisions. It may be very well possible that one form of pollution (air) is no worse than another type (electromagnetic). Sources: [1]: https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/22674188/ https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/22674188/
- bluejellybean 5y agoI agree that health should be considered fully. As is the case with gas, don't put your body on the burners, the distances discussed in that paper are extremely close, less than 50mm, and upto 300mm. From the paper linked[1]: "the exposure of the non-pregnant models at the largest distance (300 mm from the cabinet) is always compliant with the basic restrictions for the general public even when including all body tissues for the current averaging." And to consider the case of close distances... "the exposure limits for the general public can be exceeded by more than a factor of 5 (distance < 50 mm; Fig. 5). When considering CNS tissues only, the basic restrictions for the general public can be reached for the child models (Thelonious and Roberta) at close distances from the cabinet edge when allowing for the overall uncertainty of this evaluation. The combined numerical and experimental uncertainty was assessed as 6.0 dB (k = 2; Supplementary Table V) or as 0.50–2.0 of the provided exposure with a confidence interval of 95%." I read this as don't push your kids face onto the stove top, which is probably good advice no matter what cook surface you're using. It also reads to me as having the cooktop being further back as desirable, and not being directly inline with the edge of the counter. As for pregnant mothers... "The exposure of the mother and fetus models exceeds the basic restrictions for the general public by a factor of 6 for the mother and 3.5 for the fetus when standing at the cabinet edge, if considering all body tissues. Given the numerical and experimental uncertainty, the violation of the occupational limits can be regarded as likely for the devices with high B-fields. For CNS tissues of the fetus, the induced current density can reach the order of magnitude of the basic restrictions when taking into account the uncertainty. The combined numerical and experimental uncertainty for the exposure of the fetus was assessed as 6.4 dB (k = 2; Supplementary Table VI) or as 0.48–2.1 of the provided exposure with a confidence interval of 95%." From this data, it seems to me that the best way to use these devices is to force yourself to 'reach' over the countertop rather than being directly up against the cook surface. From the summary of the paper. "The measured B-fields of 13 professional induction cooktops and the three domestic devices evaluated in Viellard et al. [2006] were evaluated experimentally. The field strengths are compliant with exposure limits for the general public when measured at 300 mm from the cooktops as specified by IEC 62233 [IEC, 2005]. The current densities reached the exposure limits according to the ICNIRP 1998 guidelines for the general public at 300 mm from the cooktop. The results were then scaled to the measured B-field levels of the professional and domestic cooktops. The findings can be summarized as follows: Most of the measured cooktops are compliant with the field limits for public exposure at a distance of 300 mm from the cooktop. Due to the high field gradients in the close environment of the cooking zone, most devices exceed these limits at closer distances. When considering the entire body of the exposed user for the current density averaging, the basic restrictions of the current density for the general public can be significantly exceeded and reach occupational levels. A generic worst-case cooktop which is compliant at the measurement distance specified by IEC 62233 can lead to current densities that exceed the basic restrictions for the general public by a factor of 16. The brain tissue of young children can be overexposed by a factor of 2 with respect to the basic restrictions for the general public if they come close to the cooktop. If exposure limits of the general public apply to the fetus of a mother in a working environment, the current density in the CNS tissue of the fetus can exceed the basic restrictions while they are still fulfilled for the mother." There's pros/cons with any cooking devices, and it makes sense to consider the potential risks with any heat source. With that said, we are not talking about the induction burner spewing these fields across your entire kitchen, unlike say, with gas burners. From my point of view given your source's data, it is still a much healthier option to operate these devices properly than to subject the family preparing the meal in the kitchen with me to a poisonous gas. Anecdotally speaking, my rental doesn't have a fume hood (yes in 2022!), and if the gas burners are operated my partner gets nauseous with headaches sitting in the other room. The benefits of induction are quite clear and until something better comes along, I don't see myself ever going backwards to inferior heating devices. [1] https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/22674188/ https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/22674188/
- mc32 5y agoGas in general may cause incidental gas pollution —but I see a problem by the author. The author mentions high pollution results when cooking —which for the author does using a gas range. However the author doesn’t discuss results from alternate ranges. I have an induction stove and every time I cook the indoor air pollution also spikes (lots of frying). It’s likely less than that caused by gas stoves but never the less creates pollutants in the air. I have no doubt that gas causes more pollution but they are remiss for not mentioning the cooking process itself causes pollution.
- gibbonsrcool 5y agoThe author is comparing cooking between different types of stoves, not indoor air quality between different activities. I believe you would call this a controlled variable, for example by making sure you cook the same meal, at the same quantity, the same way. Real scientists can correct me.
- jtbayly 5y agoNo. The author didn’t do this.
- gibbonsrcool 5y agoYou might wanna take a second look at the title of the article.
- topaz0 5y agoYou 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.
- gibbonsrcool 5y agoThere 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.
- jopsen 5y agoCleaning alone is the best motivator for induction. I mean who doesn't spill when cooking?
- Spooky23 5y agoThe website is “carbon switch”, so the solution to this problem is obviously going to be induction stoves, although that isn’t the problem. An easier solution to the actual problem is to open a couple of windows slightly. The obsession with sealed living spaces to yield marginal savings in HVAC has pretty obvious downsides and measurable, marginal savings.
- vehemenz 5y agoThis was my conclusion as well. Use a good vent fan and crack a window. Unlike many commenters here, most aren't willing to spend $20k to replace their appliances for vague health reasons. For example, natural gas powers my furnace, water heater, stove, and fireplace, as is common in the midwestern US. It would be impractical, not to mention expensive and wasteful to upgrade my electrical system to 200A and replace each appliance. Utility costs would increase too, and I couldn't use my fireplace or range when the power goes out (a battery backup would solve this, for another $2k).
- tigerBL00D 5y agoI wonder, would a gas dryer suffer from the same issues, or is it somehow better due to forced venting?
- cpsns 5y agoIt's telling how many people posting live in areas with cheap electricity. Running a propane stove is still cheaper for me, they deliver propane every few months.
- oxymoran 5y ago“ the climate community would risk backlash and not be as effective at convincing people to get rid of their furnaces and water heaters” Is this a thing, wanting to convince people to get rid of furnaces and hot water heaters? Are we replacing them with anything? Seems like an extremely tough sell, especially for people living places that are cold. Take the poor little boy who just died because his “family” forced him to take an ice cold shower in the middle of winter as punishment. This seems like the hairbrained idea of people who don’t experience seasons.
- PebblesRox 5y agoMy understanding is the goal would be to swap out gas-burning models with other versions that don't have the same emissions issues, not to eliminate these appliances entirely.
- Macha 5y agoThere's a push to replace them with storage heaters or immersion heaters or other forms of electric heating for sure in my country. But not to replace them with nothing.
- samsa 5y agoThere is a push to get rid of new natural gas hookups and force new construction to use all electric appliances. Some localities have legislated this.
- keeganjw 5y agoIn many places, heat pumps and electric hot water heaters would work great! Even in relatively cold places, heat pumps can still work. My office in Vermont switched over to using heat pumps to heat and cool the entire building and we have plenty of heat this winter plus very efficient AC in the summer.
- doitLP 5y agoIn case anyone is wondering what air quality monitor they should buy the author seems to be using the uHoo 9-in-1 monitor, which is what I have myself. They’re pricey but I’ve been happy with mine for 2 years. uHoo Smart Air Quality Sensor – 9 in 1 Indoor Air Monitor with Temperature and Humidity Gauge, CO2, Dust (PM2.5), VOC, NO2, Allergen Meter -to Breathe Easy and Boost Health with App https://www.amazon.com/dp/B076PV9X99/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_api_glt_i_H3TQBPQAM7E2QG1W72J1 https://www.amazon.com/dp/B076PV9X99/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_api_glt_...
- taf2 5y agoIt'd be interesting if the hardware used to measure this was described... maybe something along the lines of https://learn.adafruit.com/pmsa003i/arduino https://learn.adafruit.com/pmsa003i/arduino... it would make the data collected and reported in the article much more easily replicated and for fun we could do this at home too...
- spacephysics 5y agoI feel we’re nitpicking far too much for climate change in the case of at hone stoves and cooking. The pretense of climate change, and the implication of “well if you have a gas stove, you’re contributing” is going to cause more harm socially and psychologically than to the environment. At some point we have to realize that some climate effect is OK, and to live our lives. Let’s go after the big ticket items, like sea vessels or large scale fishing operations. Those are far worse than any modern car emissions.
- SamuelAdams 5y agoI agree with you. We could accomplish far more by creating a carbon tax for big corporations than if a million households converted to induction ranges. Even if every American household was using an induction range, the needle would only move slightly. This is the big problem with climate change and how it’s presented. It’s far too ambiguous for any one person to be able to make an actionable difference. So companies that sell products (like induction ranges) execute a campaign that enables individuals to feel like they are making a difference while selling them a product The irony is that the carbon cost to manufacture and distribute that new induction range will likely offset any amount of future carbon burned from simply continuing to use and repair your current range. If you’re in the market for a new range then yes consider induction. But if your stove is working fine, the better action is to write to your elected officials and encourage them to make policies that have a far broader impact than how you make your eggs each morning.
- pibechorro 5y agoAnd the military emissions, and people who commute hours to work everyday, climate controlled brightly lit buildings on 24/7, etc.
- martythemaniak 5y agoYeah, home cooking is irrelevant for climate chage, but it is very relevant to people's health. Burning things produces compounds that are bad for you to breathe in, and this is what anti-gas stove articles talk about.
- rsynnott 5y ago
- asdfasgasdgasdg 5y agoWe made a gas line extension for an outdoor grill during a recent remodel and are being forced to fix preexisting code violations as a result. I'm not entirely sad about this, because even though it is expensive, it will also require us to add a fresh air intake to our boiler room. Im going to take the opportunity to make the fire door more airtight as well. My hope is that the net effect of this will be to essentially eliminate air exchange between the boiler and the rest of the house. (Note that our heat system's air exchangers are not in the same room as the boiler.) I kinda want to see what the indoor air quality is looking like before and after. Personally, I don't intend to exchange out my gas stove for a while since as this article points out the vast majority of gas burned in the house is for heating, not cooking.
- toddmorey 5y agoDoes anyone know good indoor air quality monitors where the data can be graphed over time as the author has done?
- mlok 5y agoSee this comment for example : https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29946311 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29946311
- deleted 5y ago[deleted]
- lettergram 5y agoI’d like to see a comparison with a wood burning stove (what the majority of the world likely still uses). I’m installing a wood burning and an electric stove in my current house.
- noduerme 5y agoThe good Norwegian ones, cast iron, burn almost all the fuel in a single log and put out an immense amount of heat, and are perfectly safe if they're vented properly. It's almost as close as you can get to perfection in terms of safety and efficiency. The only downside is it's damn hard to control the heat. (So work on your wok stir fry skills).
- andrepd 5y agoI really really cannot see how a device that burns wood can ever be "perfection in safety and efficiency" wrt. induction cookers.
- lettergram 5y agoI think the point is just generally pretty efficient. If you are interested in technicalities: - 5-15% loss in power transporting energy [1] - 30-40% efficiency of natural gas turbines (where most power comes from, 2nd highest is coal; which is worse)[2] - 80% efficiency induction heating [3] - in all likelihood (haven’t done math). The heat lost from wood stove cooking heats your house and cooks your food with a renewable resource. It’s likely more efficient than induction. [1] http://insideenergy.org/2015/11/06/lost-in-transmission-how-much-electricity-disappears-between-a-power-plant-and-your-plug/ http://insideenergy.org/2015/11/06/lost-in-transmission-how-... [2] https://www.brighthubengineering.com/power-plants/72369-compare-the-efficiency-of-different-power-plants/ https://www.brighthubengineering.com/power-plants/72369-comp... [3] https://ultraflexpower.com/learn-about-induction-heating/efficiency-of-induction-heating/ https://ultraflexpower.com/learn-about-induction-heating/eff...
- twobitshifter 5y agoIt appears that most of the worlds wood burning stoves are terrible for health but that doesn’t mean that there can’t be options that do much better at removing smoke. https://www.nationalgeographic.com/photography/article/guatemala-cook-stoves https://www.nationalgeographic.com/photography/article/guate... for taste charcoal/wood > gas > electric IMO.
- lr4444lr 5y agoWhat I want to know is, what data is there on food service workers? Because their exposure is well above the average person's, and reduces a lot of other potential other noise in the data when compare to their counterpart subpopulations of the same SES and geographic region.
- fma 5y ago"The more likely norm is unused range hoods, furnace flues that spill chemicals into the air we breathe, and ultimately higher rates of illness..." The range hood on average American houses are weak, because they are the cheapest. Till I got a range hood built by an Asian manufacturer(Fotile) did I know what I was missing out. Range hoods are measured by the amount of air it can move, CFM. Futile starts out at 850...while regular ones (GE, for example) are 300, 400. And it's not even a price thing...there are range hoods near the price of Fotile which still only do 400 CFM! I turn on the fan before turning on the gas stove, and leave it on for a bit after cooking. The reasons I call out Chinese range hoods is because stir frying is a huge part of cooking and you gotta have something powerful enough to pull out everything.
- briHass 5y agoThe problem is, you need a source of makeup air entering the building to actually move that much CFM out. Even with my basic 400 CFM (likely overstated) hood, it's only when I crack a window on the other side of the kitchen that I clearly see all the steam fly up the hood.
- fma 5y agoGood point, and true even if people were to open windows to fresh air (open 2 on opposite ends of the house). Entirely possible I have a source by default...I do have a chimney and even with the flute closed I feel a draft. All I know is in the past, before replacing my hood I can smell the cooking from upstairs...now I can't.
- technothrasher 5y ago> there are range hoods near the price of Fotile which still only do 400 CFM! Ok, but having just shopped for range hoods (and purchased a 1000 CFM Thermador hood) there are plenty of good hoods in the same price range by various manufacturers that do 800-1000 CFM. I'm not trying to say the Fotile hoods aren't good, I honestly didn't look at those. But I don't think there's anything particularly unique about the fact that they do 800+ CFM. You're right though, there are plenty of underpowered hoods out there also, and one should definitely pay attention when purchasing, along with other factors such as source of make up air.
- rib3ye 5y agoWhere is the part where he explains the specific measurement tool to capture air quality data?
- hashimotonomora 5y agoPlease start plots at y = 0.
- Jedd 5y agoMy problem <sic> with both is in trying to achieve very low simmer-like temperatures. With gas the challenge is to ensure the flame hasn't gone out. With induction the challenge appears to be partial cycling (microwave-style) or simply just reducing power down to bare minimum. For some things, say an authentic bolognese sauce or a chakchouka, I desperately want a tiny amount of heat, but neither modern gas cookers, or most induction cookers, will give me that. Xiaomi (yes, that Xiaomi) have a 0-99 induction cooker that nearly got me there, but even then I had to utilise a diffusion plate.
- fasteddie31003 5y agoRegardless of gas or induction, whenever you fry, have the oven on, or burn something, air quality drops dramatically. I have a pretty robust air quality meter and see PM2.5 go as high as 400 when I fry food. The most microwave vents only recirculate air. You really have to cut a hole in the wall to properly vent cooking fumes. I think this is a bigger issue of gas vs induction for indoor air quality.
- deleted 5y ago[deleted]
- hoffspot 5y agoCan anyone recommend an NO2 detector? What was used wasn’t mentioned in the article that I could see.
- garrettgrimsley 5y agoI reached out to the author and they're using an uHoo Smart Air Monitor and will be writing a review of it in the future. Most reviews of air quality monitors seem to focus on details like the size of the screen, or whether the monitor app is easy to use, and fail to actually test the accuracy of monitor itself. Hopefully this author's review is different. See this EPA testing table for some measures of accuracy: https://www.epa.gov/air-sensor-toolbox/evaluation-emerging-air-sensor-performance https://www.epa.gov/air-sensor-toolbox/evaluation-emerging-a...
- analyte123 5y agoIt’s telling all these studies he’s citing are from the 70s - scientists and regulators found out the hazards, and then they mandated vents via the building code since approximately the year 2000. This should basically be the end of the story. The message could be “unvented gas stoves are bad, consider this when buying or renting and remember to always use your vent if you have it”. If the real goal is to ban gas stoves because of climate change it needs to be said upfront. From this perspective the problem isn’t the 0.12% direct emissions but that people like it enough to generate demand for residential gas service at all.
- ajmurmann 5y agoTo me the core point of the article is that things in theory could be safe, but in practice aren't. Vents might not be used, vents might not be set up correctly, the furnace is leaking or not properly venting. As the article points out, this seems to be the norm rather than the exception. The article doesn't purpose any policy changes. Not everything needs to go straight to politics.
- meristem 5y agoQuestion for the folks who switched to induction, from someone in the initial process of thinking about it: 1. what is the plan for when there is no power (I live in an area currently prone to seasonal brownouts/blackouts) and 2. what did you do re: oven?
- thurn 5y agoWhat kind of air quality monitor is being used here? I've been looking for a good one to purchase for myself, would be good to get one with N02 capability.
- garrettgrimsley 5y agoI reached out to the author and they're using an uHoo Smart Air Monitor and will be writing a review of it in the future. Most reviews of air quality monitors seem to focus on details like the size of the screen, or whether the monitor app is easy to use, and fail to actually test the accuracy of monitor itself. Hopefully this author's review is different. See this EPA testing table for some measures of accuracy: https://www.epa.gov/air-sensor-toolbox/evaluation-emerging-air-sensor-performance https://www.epa.gov/air-sensor-toolbox/evaluation-emerging-a...
- thurn 5y agoSo, there are basically no consumer products on this table that have a respectable accuracy, right? The ones with good R² values all seem to be $1000+ scientific tools.
- garrettgrimsley 5y agoUnfortunately, yes. And I wouldn't trust the uHoo marketing claims about their sensor even one bit. I found another testing table if you'd like to take a look: https://www.cabq.gov/airquality/documents/research-on-availablity-and-reliability-of-low-cost-air-quality-monitors_4-15-21.pdf https://www.cabq.gov/airquality/documents/research-on-availa...
- aulin 5y agoAny cheap sensor (electrochemical? single electrode or even dual) sold for amateur use is unlikely to provide any useful measurement, especially if you want to draw any conclusion about concentrations exceeding safety limits like the author is doing. They are a pain to calibrate, the absolute values you get cannot be trusted, the most you can use them for is to say something about trends and spikes. "Look the gas stove is on, there's a NO2 and CO spike!", now let's get a chemoluminescence spectrophotometer to see it we should worry.
- drudoo 5y agoLoving gas stoves seems like such an American mentality. Currently living in Denmark and I don’t know anyone who doesn’t have induction. All new kitchens will come with induction stoves. Gas is a thing of the nineties… I had a gas stove in the US but honestly I don’t see a big difference between gas and induction.
- kibwen 5y agoThe gas industry here uses propaganda to elicit positive emotional responses to gas ranges: https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=hX2aZUav-54 https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=hX2aZUav-54
- JasonFruit 5y agoWell, that was a nice read. Now I'm going to go cook lunch on the woodstove. To me, not everything is about safety and health; some things are about what my family likes. We like to work together cutting wood and stacking it for the winter. We like the feel of wood heat. My kids are proud that they can cook on an appliance most people never even attempt. We like the feeling of a tie to the past, that we're doing tasks our great-great grandparents would recognize. I think we as a society are over-prioritizing personal safety. I cringe whenever a business sends me a notification saying, "Your safety is our #1 priority!" and proceeds to explain why I won't be allowed to do yet another thing I am accustomed to do. My safety isn't my #1 priority, and I certainly don't want the companies I do business with to decide how safe I have to be. I'd rather live the way I want to live, and I'm not really bothered if my happiness cuts ten years off my life; I'd prefer seventy years of living to eighty years of not dying.
- smokey_circles 5y ago> I'd prefer seventy years of living to eighty years of not dying You're going to be disappointed then. Closer to 40 years of living, 30 years of being imprisoned by your failing health. I support your right to make stupid decisions but at least make sure they're accurate and informed stupid decisions.
- schmichael 5y agoFindings like this, like all societal issues from climate to pandemic, are naturally read as “What should I do?” when they should be read as “What should society incentivize?” Sure electric instead of gas, bike instead of car, N95 instead of cloth, are all beneficial choices on an individual level, but it’s much more important for authorities to create incentives to encourage optimal behaviors. Want to use a wood stove and understand the risks? Great! But maybe building codes are stricter to discourage using them in new construction and/or regulations require proper ventilation. We shouldn’t expect every individual consumer to be an expert on indoor pollution, carbon emissions, and viral transmission. You’ll never get the kind of aggregate behavior needed for significant change, and the people most likely to suffer are those who don’t have the leisure time and ability to install NO2 sensors all over their house and contact friends who are experts.
- loeg 5y agoI'm sympathetic to the argument, but the data presented is anecdotal, or pure hearsay. Also a bit weird that he's talking about measuring his stove, which he knows produces less emissions than furnaces or water heaters, but ends up measuring his furnace. This is not a compelling argument against gas stoves.
- antattack 5y agoIt's quite possible that the author's increased nightly NO2 pollution is from their neighbors, not just from their appliances alone.
- drobert 5y agoI'm curious if using an extractor hood makes a difference. If it's sized correctly the extractor should replace the air 8-10 times per hour so that should eliminate I guess most pollutants in the kitchen. Another way to look at the this is checking the health outcomes of chefs, given they spend much more time next to the stove we should see increased respiratory problems.
- itsjustmath 5y agoIs a gas powered heater a source of nitrogen dioxide?
- bioinformatics 5y ago
- justinlloyd 5y agoI'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.
- ipunchghosts 5y agoWhat meter did they use? I want to try this at my apt.
- poulsbohemian 5y agoFor the induction fans here: How do you use things like woks or tagines? Feels like there are types of cooking that become difficult or not possible, or am I really missing something.
- IdoRA 5y agoIn addition to those, I also like to cook in donabes: I use a portable butane stove. I don’t think you’re missing anything, even if you could get an induction setup to work you have to make too many compromises to make it worthwhile.
- macinjosh 5y agoCooking with a flame is _natural_, visual, and instinctive. Cooking with induction is like cooking in a video game in comparison. No thanks.
- ajhurliman 5y agoAny recommendations on how to measure NO2? Everything I’m finding on Amazon does VOC, dust, CO2, etc. but not NO2.
- myrandomcomment 5y agoStuff like this is why I love this site. In our last remodel we put in a damn expensive Wolf range and a tankless water heater, both propane fueled. Both work great. That being said, all the press on NO2 have made us always turn on the vent when cooking, something we did not do before. My previous dealing with induction was crap. Yes I understand the pan makeup part. That was years ago. The technology has progressed since then and next kit will be induction and electrical powered water heater, driven by a solar backed power wall type system.
- wlecometo 5y agoAm i the only one confused by this part ? > I looked at the energy usage data from our Nest thermostat and discovered that those levels corresponded almost exactly with the times that our gas furnace was on. Another way of seeing this could be that nest is turning on the heat between 2am and 7am, and it looks like the author was not aware of this. so yeah the gas stove is bad but not as much as the heating system, and the fact that a "smart thermostat" turns it on at night when it should be less useful.
- halpert 5y agoSo the gas stove wasn’t causing elevated NO2 levels, but rather the furnace was? I’m confused as to what the conclusion is. Gas stoves ok, but furnaces not?
- Maursault 5y agoI'm confused about the source of the NO2 product. From trace amounts of nitrogen compounds (NO2 and N2O) in natural gas? What conflates the trace amounts to dangerous concentrations?
- garaetjjte 5y agoNOx are formed from the atmospheric air during the combustion.
- PostThisTooFast 5y ago
- nickkell 5y agoI gathered that both were at fault