9 ms·

On a related note, gas appliances have pretty substanial adverse health effects: https://mobile.twitter.com/curious_founder/status/1481746460378992641 https://m

On a related note, gas appliances have pretty substanial adverse health effects: https://mobile.twitter.com/curious_founder/status/1481746460378992641 https://mobile.twitter.com/curious_founder/status/1481746460... Even if I wasn't against fossil fuel based appliances in principle, this was enough to make me actively worry about living in a house with a gas stove.

throwawayboise 5y ago
I imagine it's better than the coal and wood stoves that previous generations used. I have gas appliances and would not trade them for anything.
- colincooke 5y ago
  Totally agree better than coal, and to each their own on your personal risk tolerance. Although if it's the heat control/speed of gas that you love maybe look into induction? I've heard great things and thats what I plan on using (coil stoves are just not very good) once I buy a stove (currently a renter).
  - Baeocystin 5y ago
    Induction is great, compared to resistive coil. Even the good ones don't come close to the control and accuracy of a flame. Unfortunately.
    - hgomersall 5y ago
      That's not my experience. The dynamic range of our induction hob is phenomenal. We can boil water faster than anything else, and the low mode is just excellent for very low temperatures (you can leave it on just to stay warm). I just wish the buttons worked better!
      - Baeocystin 5y ago
        I have yet to come across an induction unit that handles low temp settings well- even the best ones I've tried use low-frequency PWM to approximate lower temperatures, and you need to have enough thermal mass in your pan to smooth it out that rapid adjustments aren't possible in the way that with using gas is. If you can recommend a specific model, I'd like to take a look at it.
        hgomersall 5y ago
        Yeah it certainly uses pwm with about a 1 second period, and most of our pans are a good weight. It's effective though. The hob is a fairly fancy neff one, but I wouldn't necessarily recommend it for other reasons (the low and boost buttons stopped working after <4 years).
  - uoaei 5y ago
    Induction is annoying when you want to use ware that is not ferrous. However if you are a cast iron junkie you will be happy.
- Scoundreller 5y ago
  From the indoor perspective, Won’t the coal or wood stove draw indoor air out, which would get replenished by drawing outside air inside? Meanwhile the gas stove just vents it’s exhaust into room air?
  - Godel_unicode 5y ago
    This is the thing I think is missing from all of these analyses; does the fume hood vent to the outside? I have lived in plenty of houses/apartments/condos with gas stoves, and external venting has always been a hard requirement for me.
    - Imnimo 5y ago
      The Twitter thread links to this study: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4909253/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4909253/ Which finds that fume hoods do not help: >NO2 concentrations in the kitchen and bedroom did not significantly change following ventilation hood installation. These are outdoor vented: >Ventilation hood: Range hoods [BROAN® (Hartford, WI, USA) Range Hood model numbers 433611, 403001, or 423001] with ventilation fans to the outdoors and secure seal to minimize energy loss were installed over existing gas stoves.
      - nobodyofnote 5y ago
        I keep seeing this study referenced. However, I find it pretty glaring that the Range Hoods they used are not even adequately rated for gas stove usage. For instance, they listed "flow rates for the models used as 160–220 cubic feet per minute". These are range hoods typically used for electric models - not gas. 400 CFM is generally considered a baseline hood for gas stoves (100 CFM / 10000 BTU). I would feel much more confident in their results had they used more powerful range hoods that were more appropriate for the stoves in question.
        aidenn0 5y ago
        I've never had a kitchen with a 400CFM+ range hood, despite 50-50 gas appliances. All but one have been micro-hood combos and those don't move much air at all.
- nomel 5y ago
  > I have gas appliances and would not trade them for anything. Why? I have gas, but induction, and the new one's that support temperature control of the pan itself, seem really neat. For baking, when I had electric, I would add a little container of water to maintain a little humidity, when needed. Being able to maintain heat, while lifting the pan, is nice.
- __turbobrew__ 5y ago
  Same. Nothing compares to gas appliances when it comes to putting raw energy into your cookware. Also, nothing compares to broiling food in a gas oven. You can also use the burner flame as a utility to do things like toasting tortillas.
brimble 5y ago
May be swapping ours soon since the gas stove is malfunctioning anyway (won't hold temp, have to constantly screw with it). I'm happy about improving air quality, but not happy that it's gonna be significantly more expensive than getting another gas stove :-/ I'm glad I can afford it but every time I see one of those "electric's not god-awful anymore, induction's amazing!" posts on Twitter or Reddit or whatever it's like... yeah, great solution for us folks with plenty of disposable income, I guess. Not sure how I'm going to make certain kinds of flatbread that I heat directly on the flame. I'll figure something out I suppose. Reports of the tops being easy to crack worry me, too. I don't like having to baby kitchen equipment. [EDIT] Hrm. Reading about cooking technique on them, I'm not sure I'd be able to make scrambled eggs (that didn't suck). My technique relies heavily on being able to move the pan on and off the burner. I guess... I could live with just not making scrambled eggs.
- Baeocystin 5y ago
  Do what a lot of people already do, and use one of those butane-powered single-burner units. Just about any asian grocery store will have them + the fuel for sale. I use one for when I need a flame char, or flame control for something finicky that my induction top can't handle, and they work great.
  - brimble 5y ago
    Good solution for when I have to have a real flame. That'd let me do the handful of things I can't practically do on induction. I like it.
- germinalphrase 5y ago
  In addition to cost, the Main thing preventing me from switching to induction is knobs. I just know up front that digital/touch controls will be a headache (for me).
  - hgomersall 5y ago
    Yeah, absolutely. Two of the touch sensitive buttons on ours no longer work. Love the induction hob, hate the interface.
chaxor 5y ago
Health concerns are real (methane and potentially CO), but they are one thing - vastly more energy efficient. So if you're in to energy efficiency gas appliances make some sense. There's something ridiculous about burning a ton of gas [to boil water and spin turbines], which generates and sends electricity (with enormous losses at every step) to a stove which heats a coil ... to boil water.
- stjohnswarts 5y ago
  What's different about it? Should we stop boiling water and return to salmonella and botulism?
  - chaxor 5y ago
    The difference is that there is far more wasted energy when using electric stoves vs a gas stove. There are more carbon emissions from electric appliances over gas appliances because of the losses (entropy, etc) at each step.
nomel 5y ago
I've just replaced my hood vent to something larger, and am installing a duct fan above it, in the duct that exhausts outside. I think this can be a good mitigation, without the need for worry. Doing a "candle smoke" test, very little makes it out from under the hood, as is, and the fan I'm installing is about 5x the airflow of what's there now. Most vents have very poor fans built in, in my experience. Of course, this only works if you're in a climate where a large exchange of outside air won't cause a problem. If you have a smart oven (or a little heat detecting sensor with an esp32), you can buy a smart switch to turn the fan on whenever the oven is on.
- dangrossman 5y ago
  The Twitter thread says "unfortunately range hoods don't reduce NO2 (see peer-reviewed research below)".
  - nomel 5y ago
    > unfortunately range hoods don't reduce NO2 You'll have to quote it, since I don't see that in the peer reviewed research. Here's the entirety of mentions of hoods that I found: > In fact, some kitchens have “ductless” hoods that recirculate fumes through activated charcoal filters, which are generally less effective at cleaning the air. Where I am, it's illegal to have a gas stove without ducted vents since activated carbon filters won't prevent death from carbon monoxide. As mentioned, I have a ducted fan. > Vented hoods have a range of effectiveness and function best when overhanging the stove. (12,13) As mentioned, this is my experience, too. The average hood has abysmal CFM. If you've ever bought a range hood, you'll see know that the higher CFM come at nearly triple the cost, with fancy buttons and grills. There's no way to purchase a cheap AND high CFM vent from a common retailer. I think most people don't go for these high end fans. A duct fan that sucks 5x of a high end fan is probably on the "effective" side of things. > Because exhaust hoods are separate from the stove and must be operated manually, vented hoods in practice are used only 25–40% of the time. > Previous modeling-based approaches suggest that residents are exposed to NO2 levels above outdoor acute (1 h) exposure guidelines 62% of the time while using their stove but not using their range hoods, (36) and people use their range hoods only 28–36% of the time. (15) This is why I suggested it should be automated, otherwise it's forgotten sometimes. Mine turns on with about 1 second of the oven turning on, and stays on for a few minutes after it shuts off. I think this is very important, and I would worry without this. Perhaps one of the citations in that paper say they're not effective, but it's only suggested that they can be ineffective. We know range hoods can work since they're used for noxious gases in basically every chemistry lab in the world. So, it's a bit silly to claim they can't work (there are standards to measure effectiveness). I think it's safe to claim that the average range hood is insufficient, but I don't think it's safe to claim that all are insufficient. :) Regardless, the purpose of my comment was to show that steps can be taken to minimize risk and worry. I think the steps I've taken, according to the peer-reviewed research, do just that.
WalterBright 5y ago
I watched the NOVA episode on methane bubbling out of the defrosting arctic. Made me wonder if instead of pumping gas out of the ground here, we should be collecting that gas instead and piping it south. I.e. since it's bubbling out anyway, use it to replace our natural gas burning, for a total reduction.
- Dumblydorr 5y ago
  It's very spread out, in far northern locations, where roads and infrastructure don't exist. These are microscopic bubbles released very slowly over all of Russia and northern Canada. It'd be an economic money pit to attempt to harvest gas that way. Better to put all that money towards making batteries to supplement renewables.
- tasty_freeze 5y ago
  If there were a small number of sites where the gas was emitted, akin to the way rivers tend to combine into one larger river, then the idea would be good. The problem is that the emissions are happening over hundreds of thousands of square miles. Putting a dome over all of it to capture the gas is not possible.
  - WalterBright 5y ago
    Watch the NOVA show, they showed it bubbling fairly vigorously out of a lake. They speculated it was coming from a large reservoir 500 feet below the permafrost.
- reincarnate0x14 5y ago
  It's typically considered not worth it collect methane from oil-producing wells, even though it comes out in such volume that it needs to be appropriately vented and flared (burned) which is why you can see burning torch-like pipes out in the middle of nowhere all over oil producing areas. Given that is much more concentrated than thousands of kilometers of bogs and tundra, the odds of this being practical, much less profitable, are basically zero.
heartbreak 5y ago
The thread author appears to have mistaken the acceptable NO2 level for 5.3ppb when it’s actually 53ppb. The averages on his chart never met or exceeded that value.
- dahfizz 5y ago
  Source? The closest I could find is [1], which says 10 μg/m3 annual mean and 25 μg/m3 24-hour mean. It is for outdoor levels, but I can't imagine why the same chemical would be safer to breathe depending on whether you are inside or not as you breathe it. [1] https://www.who.int/news-room/fact-sheets/detail/ambient-(outdoor)-air-quality-and-health https://www.who.int/news-room/fact-sheets/detail/ambient-(ou...
- BugsJustFindMe 5y ago
  The EPA current standard is 53ppb, but actually the WHO in September set their recommended AQG target at 10 micrograms per cubic meter with 3 step-down interim targets of 40,30,20. 10 micrograms per cubic meter of NO2 is 5.3ppb. (conversion factor is 1.88ugm3/1ppb) You can read it here: https://apps.who.int/iris/handle/10665/345329 https://apps.who.int/iris/handle/10665/345329
  - heartbreak 5y ago
    Is the WHO value for indoor air quality? Why would WHO and EPA deviate by an order of magnitude?
    - BugsJustFindMe 5y ago
      The EPA value is a limit for today. The WHO value is a recommendation for the future target after some industry accommodation period. Essentially "what it is" vs "what it should be".

throwawayboise 5y ago

I imagine it's better than the coal and wood stoves that previous generations used. I have gas appliances and would not trade them for anything.

colincooke 5y ago
Totally agree better than coal, and to each their own on your personal risk tolerance. Although if it's the heat control/speed of gas that you love maybe look into induction? I've heard great things and thats what I plan on using (coil stoves are just not very good) once I buy a stove (currently a renter).
- Baeocystin 5y ago
  Induction is great, compared to resistive coil. Even the good ones don't come close to the control and accuracy of a flame. Unfortunately.
  - hgomersall 5y ago
    That's not my experience. The dynamic range of our induction hob is phenomenal. We can boil water faster than anything else, and the low mode is just excellent for very low temperatures (you can leave it on just to stay warm). I just wish the buttons worked better!
    - Baeocystin 5y ago
      I have yet to come across an induction unit that handles low temp settings well- even the best ones I've tried use low-frequency PWM to approximate lower temperatures, and you need to have enough thermal mass in your pan to smooth it out that rapid adjustments aren't possible in the way that with using gas is. If you can recommend a specific model, I'd like to take a look at it.
      - hgomersall 5y ago
        Yeah it certainly uses pwm with about a 1 second period, and most of our pans are a good weight. It's effective though. The hob is a fairly fancy neff one, but I wouldn't necessarily recommend it for other reasons (the low and boost buttons stopped working after <4 years).
- uoaei 5y ago
  Induction is annoying when you want to use ware that is not ferrous. However if you are a cast iron junkie you will be happy.
Scoundreller 5y ago
From the indoor perspective, Won’t the coal or wood stove draw indoor air out, which would get replenished by drawing outside air inside? Meanwhile the gas stove just vents it’s exhaust into room air?
- Godel_unicode 5y ago
  This is the thing I think is missing from all of these analyses; does the fume hood vent to the outside? I have lived in plenty of houses/apartments/condos with gas stoves, and external venting has always been a hard requirement for me.
  - Imnimo 5y ago
    The Twitter thread links to this study: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4909253/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4909253/ Which finds that fume hoods do not help: >NO2 concentrations in the kitchen and bedroom did not significantly change following ventilation hood installation. These are outdoor vented: >Ventilation hood: Range hoods [BROAN® (Hartford, WI, USA) Range Hood model numbers 433611, 403001, or 423001] with ventilation fans to the outdoors and secure seal to minimize energy loss were installed over existing gas stoves.
    - nobodyofnote 5y ago
      I keep seeing this study referenced. However, I find it pretty glaring that the Range Hoods they used are not even adequately rated for gas stove usage. For instance, they listed "flow rates for the models used as 160–220 cubic feet per minute". These are range hoods typically used for electric models - not gas. 400 CFM is generally considered a baseline hood for gas stoves (100 CFM / 10000 BTU). I would feel much more confident in their results had they used more powerful range hoods that were more appropriate for the stoves in question.
      - aidenn0 5y ago
        I've never had a kitchen with a 400CFM+ range hood, despite 50-50 gas appliances. All but one have been micro-hood combos and those don't move much air at all.
nomel 5y ago
> I have gas appliances and would not trade them for anything. Why? I have gas, but induction, and the new one's that support temperature control of the pan itself, seem really neat. For baking, when I had electric, I would add a little container of water to maintain a little humidity, when needed. Being able to maintain heat, while lifting the pan, is nice.
__turbobrew__ 5y ago
Same. Nothing compares to gas appliances when it comes to putting raw energy into your cookware. Also, nothing compares to broiling food in a gas oven. You can also use the burner flame as a utility to do things like toasting tortillas.

brimble 5y ago

May be swapping ours soon since the gas stove is malfunctioning anyway (won't hold temp, have to constantly screw with it). I'm happy about improving air quality, but not happy that it's gonna be significantly more expensive than getting another gas stove :-/ I'm glad I can afford it but every time I see one of those "electric's not god-awful anymore, induction's amazing!" posts on Twitter or Reddit or whatever it's like... yeah, great solution for us folks with plenty of disposable income, I guess. Not sure how I'm going to make certain kinds of flatbread that I heat directly on the flame. I'll figure something out I suppose. Reports of the tops being easy to crack worry me, too. I don't like having to baby kitchen equipment. [EDIT] Hrm. Reading about cooking technique on them, I'm not sure I'd be able to make scrambled eggs (that didn't suck). My technique relies heavily on being able to move the pan on and off the burner. I guess... I could live with just not making scrambled eggs.

Baeocystin 5y ago
Do what a lot of people already do, and use one of those butane-powered single-burner units. Just about any asian grocery store will have them + the fuel for sale. I use one for when I need a flame char, or flame control for something finicky that my induction top can't handle, and they work great.
- brimble 5y ago
  Good solution for when I have to have a real flame. That'd let me do the handful of things I can't practically do on induction. I like it.
germinalphrase 5y ago
In addition to cost, the Main thing preventing me from switching to induction is knobs. I just know up front that digital/touch controls will be a headache (for me).
- hgomersall 5y ago
  Yeah, absolutely. Two of the touch sensitive buttons on ours no longer work. Love the induction hob, hate the interface.

chaxor 5y ago

Health concerns are real (methane and potentially CO), but they are one thing - vastly more energy efficient. So if you're in to energy efficiency gas appliances make some sense. There's something ridiculous about burning a ton of gas [to boil water and spin turbines], which generates and sends electricity (with enormous losses at every step) to a stove which heats a coil ... to boil water.

stjohnswarts 5y ago
What's different about it? Should we stop boiling water and return to salmonella and botulism?
- chaxor 5y ago
  The difference is that there is far more wasted energy when using electric stoves vs a gas stove. There are more carbon emissions from electric appliances over gas appliances because of the losses (entropy, etc) at each step.

nomel 5y ago

I've just replaced my hood vent to something larger, and am installing a duct fan above it, in the duct that exhausts outside. I think this can be a good mitigation, without the need for worry. Doing a "candle smoke" test, very little makes it out from under the hood, as is, and the fan I'm installing is about 5x the airflow of what's there now. Most vents have very poor fans built in, in my experience. Of course, this only works if you're in a climate where a large exchange of outside air won't cause a problem. If you have a smart oven (or a little heat detecting sensor with an esp32), you can buy a smart switch to turn the fan on whenever the oven is on.

dangrossman 5y ago
The Twitter thread says "unfortunately range hoods don't reduce NO2 (see peer-reviewed research below)".
- nomel 5y ago
  > unfortunately range hoods don't reduce NO2 You'll have to quote it, since I don't see that in the peer reviewed research. Here's the entirety of mentions of hoods that I found: > In fact, some kitchens have “ductless” hoods that recirculate fumes through activated charcoal filters, which are generally less effective at cleaning the air. Where I am, it's illegal to have a gas stove without ducted vents since activated carbon filters won't prevent death from carbon monoxide. As mentioned, I have a ducted fan. > Vented hoods have a range of effectiveness and function best when overhanging the stove. (12,13) As mentioned, this is my experience, too. The average hood has abysmal CFM. If you've ever bought a range hood, you'll see know that the higher CFM come at nearly triple the cost, with fancy buttons and grills. There's no way to purchase a cheap AND high CFM vent from a common retailer. I think most people don't go for these high end fans. A duct fan that sucks 5x of a high end fan is probably on the "effective" side of things. > Because exhaust hoods are separate from the stove and must be operated manually, vented hoods in practice are used only 25–40% of the time. > Previous modeling-based approaches suggest that residents are exposed to NO2 levels above outdoor acute (1 h) exposure guidelines 62% of the time while using their stove but not using their range hoods, (36) and people use their range hoods only 28–36% of the time. (15) This is why I suggested it should be automated, otherwise it's forgotten sometimes. Mine turns on with about 1 second of the oven turning on, and stays on for a few minutes after it shuts off. I think this is very important, and I would worry without this. Perhaps one of the citations in that paper say they're not effective, but it's only suggested that they can be ineffective. We know range hoods can work since they're used for noxious gases in basically every chemistry lab in the world. So, it's a bit silly to claim they can't work (there are standards to measure effectiveness). I think it's safe to claim that the average range hood is insufficient, but I don't think it's safe to claim that all are insufficient. :) Regardless, the purpose of my comment was to show that steps can be taken to minimize risk and worry. I think the steps I've taken, according to the peer-reviewed research, do just that.

WalterBright 5y ago

I watched the NOVA episode on methane bubbling out of the defrosting arctic. Made me wonder if instead of pumping gas out of the ground here, we should be collecting that gas instead and piping it south. I.e. since it's bubbling out anyway, use it to replace our natural gas burning, for a total reduction.

Dumblydorr 5y ago
It's very spread out, in far northern locations, where roads and infrastructure don't exist. These are microscopic bubbles released very slowly over all of Russia and northern Canada. It'd be an economic money pit to attempt to harvest gas that way. Better to put all that money towards making batteries to supplement renewables.
tasty_freeze 5y ago
If there were a small number of sites where the gas was emitted, akin to the way rivers tend to combine into one larger river, then the idea would be good. The problem is that the emissions are happening over hundreds of thousands of square miles. Putting a dome over all of it to capture the gas is not possible.
- WalterBright 5y ago
  Watch the NOVA show, they showed it bubbling fairly vigorously out of a lake. They speculated it was coming from a large reservoir 500 feet below the permafrost.
reincarnate0x14 5y ago
It's typically considered not worth it collect methane from oil-producing wells, even though it comes out in such volume that it needs to be appropriately vented and flared (burned) which is why you can see burning torch-like pipes out in the middle of nowhere all over oil producing areas. Given that is much more concentrated than thousands of kilometers of bogs and tundra, the odds of this being practical, much less profitable, are basically zero.

heartbreak 5y ago

The thread author appears to have mistaken the acceptable NO2 level for 5.3ppb when it’s actually 53ppb. The averages on his chart never met or exceeded that value.

dahfizz 5y ago
Source? The closest I could find is [1], which says 10 μg/m3 annual mean and 25 μg/m3 24-hour mean. It is for outdoor levels, but I can't imagine why the same chemical would be safer to breathe depending on whether you are inside or not as you breathe it. [1] https://www.who.int/news-room/fact-sheets/detail/ambient-(outdoor)-air-quality-and-health https://www.who.int/news-room/fact-sheets/detail/ambient-(ou...
BugsJustFindMe 5y ago
The EPA current standard is 53ppb, but actually the WHO in September set their recommended AQG target at 10 micrograms per cubic meter with 3 step-down interim targets of 40,30,20. 10 micrograms per cubic meter of NO2 is 5.3ppb. (conversion factor is 1.88ugm3/1ppb) You can read it here: https://apps.who.int/iris/handle/10665/345329 https://apps.who.int/iris/handle/10665/345329
- heartbreak 5y ago
  Is the WHO value for indoor air quality? Why would WHO and EPA deviate by an order of magnitude?
  - BugsJustFindMe 5y ago
    The EPA value is a limit for today. The WHO value is a recommendation for the future target after some industry accommodation period. Essentially "what it is" vs "what it should be".