11 ms·

Counterpoint: I also measured the pollution from my gas stove (using the same meter the author is, from the look of the graph) and it was well within acceptable

• byyll 4y ago
  I've read a few reviews of the uHoo saying they both 2 and put them in the same room and ending up with vastly different readings. I am not sure it's accurate.
• ahelwer 4y ago
  How much did you pay for the meter? Last time I looked into this measurements for various metrics were basically useless (unless you're only looking at relative, not absolute numbers) unless you spent at least a few hundred bucks and occasionally calibrated it.
• asveikau 4y ago
  I think what I've heard before is that this needs regular monitoring, which most households will not do. Stuff can break in your stove and oven and you might not know.
  • RetpolineDrama 4y ago
    >Stuff can break in your stove and oven and you might not know. I'd argue >99.9% of people would have no clue if the stove was otherwise functioning normally
• diziet 4y ago
  What specific meter did you use? I want to try it myself.
• deleted 4y ago
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• wcoenen 4y ago
  > I bought a meter and started monitoring after reading an article similar to this one. Which meter? (I'm asking because I have a bad experience with a device from Aliexpress that turned out to produce fake air quality measurements. Though it did not claim to measure the NO2 pollution which the article talks about.) edit: the uHoo seems to be an expensive device that promises to measure a bunch of stuff, but it cannot be calibrated. I would not trust it.
• SoftTalker 4y ago
  A good rough indicator is that the flame on a gas burner should be pure blue. If you see yellow tips, or a yellow flame, it's not getting enough oxygen for complete combustion.
  • kragen 4y ago
    proper combustion will probably increase your nitrogen dioxide levels, not decrease them; if you have yellow diffusion tips you are getting unburned hydrocarbons and carbon monoxide which will tend to reduce any nitrogen dioxide present the carbon monoxide can kill you pretty fucking dead tho
    • LarryMullins 4y ago
      That's my understanding as well. Three stage catalytic converters reduce nitrogen oxide emissions through reduction, so it makes sense that a reducing flame (oxygen starved) would produce less nitrogen oxides than an oxidizing flame.
      • kragen 4y ago
        yes, though if it's sufficiently oxidizing (sufficient excess of air) the flame temperature starts to drop, which will also cut your nitrogen oxide emissions to almost zero
      • Gordonjcp 4y ago
        Both my Range Rovers are converted to run on propane, and unlike on petrol the LPG system runs the engine very lean. If you use a special glass sparkplug (those old "Colortune ones!) you can see the flame is a lovely bright blue on propane and quite orange on petrol, with the mixtures set correctly. Measured at the downpipe with the sniffer in the lambda sensor hole it shows no (or almost no) CO and a bit more NOx than you'd really want, but after the cat there's no measurable NOx either. The tailpipe emits basically just warm carbon dioxide and water vapour.
        • noyoudumbdolt 4y ago
• jeffbee 4y ago
  I think the big issue here is that renters do not get to pick and choose their appliances, so like other types of indoor health hazards this needs top-down regulation to make landlords replace gas with electric.
  • s17n 4y ago
    Dear god please no, electric stoves are awful and idgaf about my lungs.
    • asveikau 4y ago
      Depending on where you live you may be out of luck in the future. Some places are requiring them in new construction. Including California.
      • yamtaddle 4y ago
        Hope that comes with a price drop. Gas is the only option right now if you want cheap and well-performing. Last I checked (maybe a year ago?) the cheapest induction ranges were well into the middle tier of prices. Which makes the fact that I keep seeing stuff about their tending to stop working after only a few years, or suffering from very-fragile surfaces that are easy to crack and ruin, even more of a turn-off.
        • jerlam 4y ago
          Maybe the ranges are cheap. But the price of natural gas has soared over the past year. Right now, it's cheap again, but it seems that prices are a lot more volatile than electricity, which will benefit from alternative sources of production and storage.
          • weaksauce 4y ago
            in socal the price of natgas is soaring. they expect this next month to be 3x more expensive than last month which was also more expensive than before. went from $27 to $75 and probably now going to be $200+ for the same amount of use. we'll see. https://www.ocregister.com/2023/01/06/your-natural-gas-bills-to-jump-shockingly-high-across-region-socalgas-warns/ https://www.ocregister.com/2023/01/06/your-natural-gas-bills...
• totoglazer 4y ago
  Also have a uHoo. Kind of hate the UI, but it seems like a decent sensor. While my CO2 spikes during cooking on gas, fortunately NO2 remains low. 5-15 ppb range. My gas furnace is in the basement, several floors away from my apartment.
• miguelazo 4y ago
  $300?! That's half-way to a decent induction range on sale.
  • nomel 4y ago
    USD? Mid range where I am is over $1k USD, from a big box store. Amazon shows similar results. Are you thinking a little countertop unit?
    • miguelazo 4y ago
      Yes. I have seen drop-in counter ranges (not countertop) go on sale for like $700. In addition, this Samsung range/oven combo was on sale for $900 in November. https://www.samsung.com/us/home-appliances/ranges/electric/6-3-cu-ft-smart-instant-heat-induction-range-in-black-stainless-steel-ne63b8211sg-aa/ https://www.samsung.com/us/home-appliances/ranges/electric/6...?
  • yamtaddle 4y ago
    Has there been a huge price drop? We bought a range about a year ago and the cheapest induction ranges were still around $1,800 on sale. Gas could be had for like $350, entry-level. And has a robust used market, which is lacking for induction (which isn't necessarily the tech's fault—it is fairly new)
    • interactivecode 4y ago
      Here for example 242 euro, plenty of choice: https://www.ikea.com/nl/nl/p/matmassig-inductiekookplaat-ikea-300-zwart-10467093/ https://www.ikea.com/nl/nl/p/matmassig-inductiekookplaat-ike...
      • yamtaddle 4y ago
        Huh. Ikea's got one—and only one—induction option, for $1,400, in the US. A couple cheap "portable cooktops" ($70!) but only one range, and it's not cheap, though that is cheaper than what I was seeing last I checked. [EDIT] Nebraska Furniture Mart, which has a much bigger selection than Ikea: Cheapest induction range: $1,493 (sale price, claims full retail is more than $800 higher) Cheapest gas range: $529 (also a sale price, claims full retail is $139 higher)
• nomel 4y ago
  > And I don't even have a vent above it. Where I am, this is illegal! I unintentionally bought a "smart" gas range. I hooked it up to turn on my oven fan any time the burners are on, and for some minutes after they're off. I t think all ovens should have this feature, built in.
  • jjeaff 4y ago
    Do you also have a vent that goes outside? Because an oven fan means little if you don't have external exhaust.
    • jaclaz 4y ago
      Here (Italy) there is a safety norm originally dating back to 1974 that (though a lot more complicated than this) essentially makes in any kitchen (with a gas stove) compulsory two connections (of a given size, 100 cm2, in practice a 12 cm pipe) with the outside, one at a low level for intake and one (usually it is the kitchen vent, but it could be another opening) for exhaust at a higher level (I seem to remember above 1.80 or 2.00 meters). It has to be underlined how - in practice - the actual need for such provisions was at the time perhaps a little exaggerated (as windows were usually leaky) but with the increasing use of air-tight windows (but not usually mechanical ventilation of the house) the intake and exhaust are actually needed.
    • nomel 4y ago
      Yes, the law requires an actual vent that removes the combustion gases from the breathing space.
• danans 4y ago
  > but just be aware that not ALL gas stoves are problematic if set up correctly and burning cleanly. There is no such thing as a clean burning gas stove. Even when not in use, they leak methane, and the majority of methane they leak is when they are not in use. All gas stoves and ovens, regardless of cost or age, put levels of pollutants into indoor air that are greater than what is safe [1]. A $15k Wolf range is no better than a $1500 range. The solutions are to either introduce a lot of ventilation, or switch to non combustion cooking. 1. https://pubs.acs.org/doi/10.1021/acs.est.1c04707 https://pubs.acs.org/doi/10.1021/acs.est.1c04707
  • hedora 4y ago
    However, there is such a thing as an even dirtier burning gas stove. For instance, put a natural gas regulator on a propane supplied burner, or vice versa. Also, even a properly tuned range will emit all sorts of things that are much worse than methane.
  • lukev 4y ago
    Methane (at the volumes we're taking about) does not have significant health effects; the paper you link speaks mostly about its effect as a greenhouse gas. And I'm measuring my NO2 and it's within safe levels. So should I believe you or my own lying eyes? Granted, a lot of this may be due to other effects (e.g, ventilation) and I agree my next stovetop won't be gas. But clearly some setups are less problematic than others and it's not the case that everyone is poisoning themselves unless they go buy an electric tomorrow.
    • danans 4y ago
      > So should I believe you or my own lying eyes? That's a question only you can answer. > But clearly some setups are less problematic than others and it's not the case that everyone is poisoning themselves unless they go buy an electric tomorrow I didn't say everyone should go electric tomorrow. But people are exposing themselves to (IMO high) indoor air pollution by using gas stoves without running an extractor fan and opening windows. A lot of people (everyone I know at least) only run the extractor to get rid of food smells, not for natural gas combustion byproducts, which is a mistake.
• _benedict 4y ago
  NO2 is not easily measured accurately with inexpensive sensors like the uHoo. The US government tests a number of sensors and generally finds them lacking - my limited research suggests NO2 in consumer equipment is generally estimated mathematically based on correlations with other more easily measured pollutants, meaning it’s just not measuring NO2 at all. The uHoo was tested some time ago and found to not be that great, but not for NO2 (which wasn’t tested) http://www.aqmd.gov/aq-spec/sensordetail/uhoo http://www.aqmd.gov/aq-spec/sensordetail/uhoo Indeed, as far as I can tell uHoo’s own website does not list an NO2 sensor as part of the equipment, despite listing it as a pollutant it reports: https://getuhoo.com/blog/business/performance-precision-and-accuracy-the-technology-of-uhoo-aura-sensors/ https://getuhoo.com/blog/business/performance-precision-and-...
  • lukev 4y ago
    This is the same sensor used by others who have reported high NO2 levels correlated with their gas stove burning, though, so it's got to be measuring something relevant.
    • _benedict 4y ago
      Sure, but it’s not measuring NO2, just things that sometimes correlate with the presence of NO2 in some environment. So, maybe it’s sometimes rightish in a general ball park sense, but often it won’t even be that as these correlations are necessarily based on lots of assumptions that often don’t hold. And this is all ignoring interdevice variability which is often very high on this consumer equipment if the tests are to be believed.
    • lukev 4y ago
      Update: I read a tweet thread by the author of the original post, and they also used an uHoo. So if you find the "uHoo doesn't measure NO2 anyway" argument compelling, then really we're all just talking about nothing.
      • TedDoesntTalk 4y ago
        So how do I measure NO2 in the home and not something that “correlates”?
• sliken 4y ago
  My house has a large air volume, the 2nd floor is half as big as the first, so half the first floor has 20 foot ceilings. I don't monitor NO2, but do monitor PM2.5 and CO2. I see no difference in PM2.5, but do see my baseline of 550-650 CO2 bump to 1500 with significant gas stove usage. The CO2 spreads quickly, my basement and bedroom sensors follow the 1st floor pretty quickly. If people want a air quality sensor that can upload data to the cloud (by default) or your local graphana, including source for an exporter, I'd check out airthings, their units are basically turnkey and can, but don't require) use a cloud. I'm definitely shopping for an induction stove soon.
  • ed25519FUUU 4y ago
    Do you use an exhaust hood vent when cooking? How long until the CO2 dissipates?
• deleted 4y ago
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• ahaucnx 4y ago
  This articles is very misleading and makes conclusions based on a low cost sensor that in most cases will give you very wrong absolute readings. I would not trust the results at all. Unfortuntaley all too often, people do air quality measurements and just blindly believe what they see on the display as true figures. It appears that the monitor in this article is a uHoo meter that can also measure NO2. The uHoo uses the SGX Sensortech MICS-2714 as NO2 sensors. It is a low cost metal oxide sensor and has a couple of significant issues. It is extremely suspectible to interfering gases like CO, Ethanol, Hydrogen, Amonia [1] and also gives highly different results based on humidity and temperature [2]. So just normal temperature and humidity fluctualtions will give greatly different results. Like other TVOC sensors, often the measurements correlate somehow with the gases but the absolute measurements are often by magnitudes wrong. If absolute measurements -as highlighted in the article- are important than the sensor needs to be calibrated exactly for this environment. This calibration requirement is even mentioned in the official specs [2]: IS CALIBRATION NEEDED, AND HOW OFTEN? It depends on the application, and on the required precision. Several factors tend to reduce the measurement accuracy e.g. production dispersion on base resistance (Ro) and sensitivity (S), temperature, humidity, the presence of interfering gases, ageing of the sensor, and on-time. Calibration is needed when the required accuracy cannot be obtained due to one or more of the factors listed above. This is the case for most applications where an absolute gas measurement is needed. This problem with absolute measurements on MOX sensors (most TVOC sensors) has been recognised by the large sensors manufacturers like Sensirion and Bosch and the newer generation of these sensors do NOT provide absolute measurements anymore but an INDEX which defines if air quality is improving or getting worse. In our open source air quality kits [3], we offer the Sensirion SGP41 as an option which is a much more modern sensor and offers an Index for TVOC and NOx. It still suffers from some of above issues like cross-interference of other gases but at least it does not give false absolute values. It can be very useful for detecting spikes but as outlined above the results need to be really understood with the knowledge of the limitations of these sensors in mind. [1] https://www.sgxsensortech.com/content/uploads/2014/08/0278_Datasheet-MiCS-4514.pdf https://www.sgxsensortech.com/content/uploads/2014/08/0278_D... [2] https://www.sgxsensortech.com/content/uploads/2014/08/AN2-%E2%80%93-Frequently-Asked-Questions-for-MiCS-Gas-Sensors.pdf https://www.sgxsensortech.com/content/uploads/2014/08/AN2-%E... [3] https://www.airgradient.com/open-airgradient/kits/ https://www.airgradient.com/open-airgradient/kits/