6 ms·

Are Gas Stoves Causing Asthma?

27 points by haltingproblem 3y ago

callalex 3y ago
Are there any studies on how many gas stoves have a properly sized and functioning vent hood over them?
- lathiat 3y ago
  I'd have to go hunt down the numbers again but the studies were claiming something like 12% of Asthma was potentially gas cooking triggered, but it could be 3% if more of them used better ventilation. It was also super common here in Australia growing up in the 90s to have gas stoves installed under the old wood stove Chimney with no active exhaust fan. That's much less common in my city now since we've built a large portion of the total housing stock since then, but it would make sense for kids in the 80s & 90s to have been maybe more affected by this than now. It's also super common in brand new 90s builds just to have a fan in the roof at roof height, the same as you'd have in a bathroom. Only in the 2000s have the rangehoods right above the stove become the standard. Not sure how effective those roof fans would be in practice against these kinds of pollutants. However, on those new builds that all have rangehoods, here in Australia they are all so loud. Increasingly our building regulations require them ducted and usually out the roof. They cannot deal with the static pressure and sit at 65-70dB and even when they are working, people don't want to use them. That's on the lowest fan speed. Without any ducting or being ducted out a wall only 30cm or so, they are still kindof noisy but not mind bendingly so. At my brand new house, and those of many others I've asked (it's not just a bad install here) you get a real sense of relief when you turn it off. It's wild. What upsets me the most about this, is that there are plenty of much quieter solutions that aren't even really that expensive to make. The problem seems to be a combination of having the fan right behind the filter at head height (easier/cheaper packaging) instead of remote in the ductwork, the style of fan commonly used not being great with static pressure and the noise rating not requiring any testing against static pressure even though our building regulations now require that in most cases. On top of that, all the "cheaper" brands just don't seem to care. There is also engineering that I see other companies do to flatten out the sound curve so the noise is emitted on different frequencies. I don't see any of that kind of design in these products. You see that in MacBook Pro fans and I think my favourite demo was the Zipline drones where they made the drone fans almost inaudible compared to what you normally get on drones with the same technique.. you can see that in practice in Mark Rober's video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DOWDNBu9DkU https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DOWDNBu9DkU We have the same problem with bathroom exhaust fans. The major brands all the builders used, you just don't want them on. Similar noise levels though (possibly due to the lack of fine grease filter) slightly different frequency profile. For exhaust fans you can buy much, much quieter models for almost no more money. The Clipsal CEF40 nearly every builder here uses is, at retail, $110-130. The Fanco Luna Pro 200 is about $85. The same is not true of rangehoods though, most of the entry level brands (Westinghouse, Electrolux, Technika, etc) all seem stupidly loud, and only the real high end brands (e.g. Miele) market and sell quieter models. I've yet to track down a solution in that regard.. b I wrote to the "wirecutter" of Australia, Choice, to ask that they include static pressure testing in their rangehood and exhaust fan testing - sadly so far only got the typical feedback recorded and have yet to see anything come of that. In the mean time I purchased a flow hood and using the iPhone NIOSH app am on a mission to document the actual flow, installation situation (length and height of ducting, etc) and the noise level in practice and see if I can find some patterns and make some recommendations to people. Small pet peeve... I'd love to find some people to find out similar in other countries. Not sure if we just have poor standards, terrible manufacturers here, or what. Now, all of this aside, you should absolutely be using a rangehood when cooking anything anyway. Cooking produces lots of cruft you're better off sucking out. But it seems not too well argued to be much worse to cook with Gas without a rangehood and factors like this seem to impact people not using them. Those arguing against this research etc mostly seem to go down the path of using ventilation makes it OK.
malfist 3y ago
TL;DR: Do gas stoves cause asthma? Maybe, inconclusive evidence. Do gas stoves worsen asthma? Yes, for certainty.
housemusicfan 3y ago
The asthmatics can switch to cooking on glorified hot plates if that makes them happy while the rest of us can continue cooking with our woks over gas. The rules are constantly being tweaked to appease the 0.01% at the expense of everybody else and it's getting a little frustrating.
- kungito 3y ago
  It's creating new asthmatics from the pool of not asthmatic people. It's not about the already asthmatic people
- bbatha 3y ago
  I will take any bet that the pool of folks with asthma and susceptible to asthma from stoves is outstrips the amount of people who cook with woks and would benefit from gas over induction by a significant margin. Not to mention the public health costs…
  - kelipso 3y ago
    Wok users might be rare but gas stove lovers are plenty.
    - bbatha 3y ago
      But do they actually get better performance out of a it then induction? That's why OP mentioned woks they are one of the rare things that is somewhat better on gas vs induction.
      - chillbill 3y ago
        Why do you care? Let people do what they want!
        bbatha 3y ago
        1. Maintaining gas infrastructure leaks methane which is a terrible greenhouse gas. Burning it emits co2. 2. As numerous other and the original article states there are numerous public health effects. This is both costly to public health systems/insurance providers meaning we all pay for it. Morally the other occupants of your household may not have a say (children). Renters won’t have a choice in the matter either. This is especially salient since apartments often lack proper ventilation.
throwaway22032 3y ago
This whole "debate" is so manufactured. Frying creates particles that you don't want to inhale, so you need extraction regardless of whether you use gas or induction/electric. The correct question is "should you ventilate a hob" and the answer is _obviously_ yes.
- basch 3y ago
  The article discusses this and says active charcoal air filtration is better than a hood. Which raises at least one eyebrow but maybe I shouldn’t be so skeptical.
cafard 3y ago
I should have said that gas stoves were more common when the boomers were growing up, and that asthma was less common, or less commonly discussed. But the houses that boomers grew up in were a lot leakier, or if you will better ventilated.
antiquark 3y ago
Where is the asthma study that compares people who grew up with electric stoves vs gas stoves?
perryizgr8 3y ago
Remember the narrative a few months ago? > Don't be a conspiracy theorist! Nobody is coming for your gas stove! Are you paranoid??! Now all of that has come true. Suddenly NYC has banned stoves. And stoves are causing asthma. Soon we will discover that gas stoves are part of a scheme devised by the devil himself. Consider the fact that if product of technology X is better than Y, people will automatically switch over to Y. You wouldn't need to force them. If you have to, it means you haven't considered the pros and cons properly.
- giraffe_lady 3y ago
  Two thirds of people living in nyc rent their apartments. Their appliances are selected based financial considerations of landlords, not end user consumer preference.
  - perryizgr8 3y ago
    Do renters have no say in the apartments they rent? If electric stoves are clearly better and that fact is important enough, apartments with gas stoves would find fewer takers, prompting the owners to fit them with electric stoves.
    - object-a 3y ago
      I think very few people make the decision primarily based on the stove provided.
      - perryizgr8 3y ago
        Ok then that means the type of stove is not an important issue. Again, that reinforces the incentive not to make laws about it.
- faeriechangling 3y ago
  I don’t remember that narrative honestly but I’m sure somebody said that.

callalex 3y ago

Are there any studies on how many gas stoves have a properly sized and functioning vent hood over them?

lathiat 3y ago
I'd have to go hunt down the numbers again but the studies were claiming something like 12% of Asthma was potentially gas cooking triggered, but it could be 3% if more of them used better ventilation. It was also super common here in Australia growing up in the 90s to have gas stoves installed under the old wood stove Chimney with no active exhaust fan. That's much less common in my city now since we've built a large portion of the total housing stock since then, but it would make sense for kids in the 80s & 90s to have been maybe more affected by this than now. It's also super common in brand new 90s builds just to have a fan in the roof at roof height, the same as you'd have in a bathroom. Only in the 2000s have the rangehoods right above the stove become the standard. Not sure how effective those roof fans would be in practice against these kinds of pollutants. However, on those new builds that all have rangehoods, here in Australia they are all so loud. Increasingly our building regulations require them ducted and usually out the roof. They cannot deal with the static pressure and sit at 65-70dB and even when they are working, people don't want to use them. That's on the lowest fan speed. Without any ducting or being ducted out a wall only 30cm or so, they are still kindof noisy but not mind bendingly so. At my brand new house, and those of many others I've asked (it's not just a bad install here) you get a real sense of relief when you turn it off. It's wild. What upsets me the most about this, is that there are plenty of much quieter solutions that aren't even really that expensive to make. The problem seems to be a combination of having the fan right behind the filter at head height (easier/cheaper packaging) instead of remote in the ductwork, the style of fan commonly used not being great with static pressure and the noise rating not requiring any testing against static pressure even though our building regulations now require that in most cases. On top of that, all the "cheaper" brands just don't seem to care. There is also engineering that I see other companies do to flatten out the sound curve so the noise is emitted on different frequencies. I don't see any of that kind of design in these products. You see that in MacBook Pro fans and I think my favourite demo was the Zipline drones where they made the drone fans almost inaudible compared to what you normally get on drones with the same technique.. you can see that in practice in Mark Rober's video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DOWDNBu9DkU https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DOWDNBu9DkU We have the same problem with bathroom exhaust fans. The major brands all the builders used, you just don't want them on. Similar noise levels though (possibly due to the lack of fine grease filter) slightly different frequency profile. For exhaust fans you can buy much, much quieter models for almost no more money. The Clipsal CEF40 nearly every builder here uses is, at retail, $110-130. The Fanco Luna Pro 200 is about $85. The same is not true of rangehoods though, most of the entry level brands (Westinghouse, Electrolux, Technika, etc) all seem stupidly loud, and only the real high end brands (e.g. Miele) market and sell quieter models. I've yet to track down a solution in that regard.. b I wrote to the "wirecutter" of Australia, Choice, to ask that they include static pressure testing in their rangehood and exhaust fan testing - sadly so far only got the typical feedback recorded and have yet to see anything come of that. In the mean time I purchased a flow hood and using the iPhone NIOSH app am on a mission to document the actual flow, installation situation (length and height of ducting, etc) and the noise level in practice and see if I can find some patterns and make some recommendations to people. Small pet peeve... I'd love to find some people to find out similar in other countries. Not sure if we just have poor standards, terrible manufacturers here, or what. Now, all of this aside, you should absolutely be using a rangehood when cooking anything anyway. Cooking produces lots of cruft you're better off sucking out. But it seems not too well argued to be much worse to cook with Gas without a rangehood and factors like this seem to impact people not using them. Those arguing against this research etc mostly seem to go down the path of using ventilation makes it OK.

malfist 3y ago

TL;DR: Do gas stoves cause asthma? Maybe, inconclusive evidence. Do gas stoves worsen asthma? Yes, for certainty.

housemusicfan 3y ago

The asthmatics can switch to cooking on glorified hot plates if that makes them happy while the rest of us can continue cooking with our woks over gas. The rules are constantly being tweaked to appease the 0.01% at the expense of everybody else and it's getting a little frustrating.

kungito 3y ago
It's creating new asthmatics from the pool of not asthmatic people. It's not about the already asthmatic people
bbatha 3y ago
I will take any bet that the pool of folks with asthma and susceptible to asthma from stoves is outstrips the amount of people who cook with woks and would benefit from gas over induction by a significant margin. Not to mention the public health costs…
- kelipso 3y ago
  Wok users might be rare but gas stove lovers are plenty.
  - bbatha 3y ago
    But do they actually get better performance out of a it then induction? That's why OP mentioned woks they are one of the rare things that is somewhat better on gas vs induction.
    - chillbill 3y ago
      Why do you care? Let people do what they want!
      - bbatha 3y ago
        1. Maintaining gas infrastructure leaks methane which is a terrible greenhouse gas. Burning it emits co2. 2. As numerous other and the original article states there are numerous public health effects. This is both costly to public health systems/insurance providers meaning we all pay for it. Morally the other occupants of your household may not have a say (children). Renters won’t have a choice in the matter either. This is especially salient since apartments often lack proper ventilation.

throwaway22032 3y ago

This whole "debate" is so manufactured. Frying creates particles that you don't want to inhale, so you need extraction regardless of whether you use gas or induction/electric. The correct question is "should you ventilate a hob" and the answer is _obviously_ yes.

basch 3y ago
The article discusses this and says active charcoal air filtration is better than a hood. Which raises at least one eyebrow but maybe I shouldn’t be so skeptical.

cafard 3y ago

I should have said that gas stoves were more common when the boomers were growing up, and that asthma was less common, or less commonly discussed. But the houses that boomers grew up in were a lot leakier, or if you will better ventilated.

antiquark 3y ago

Where is the asthma study that compares people who grew up with electric stoves vs gas stoves?

perryizgr8 3y ago

Remember the narrative a few months ago? > Don't be a conspiracy theorist! Nobody is coming for your gas stove! Are you paranoid??! Now all of that has come true. Suddenly NYC has banned stoves. And stoves are causing asthma. Soon we will discover that gas stoves are part of a scheme devised by the devil himself. Consider the fact that if product of technology X is better than Y, people will automatically switch over to Y. You wouldn't need to force them. If you have to, it means you haven't considered the pros and cons properly.

giraffe_lady 3y ago
Two thirds of people living in nyc rent their apartments. Their appliances are selected based financial considerations of landlords, not end user consumer preference.
- perryizgr8 3y ago
  Do renters have no say in the apartments they rent? If electric stoves are clearly better and that fact is important enough, apartments with gas stoves would find fewer takers, prompting the owners to fit them with electric stoves.
  - object-a 3y ago
    I think very few people make the decision primarily based on the stove provided.
    - perryizgr8 3y ago
      Ok then that means the type of stove is not an important issue. Again, that reinforces the incentive not to make laws about it.
faeriechangling 3y ago
I don’t remember that narrative honestly but I’m sure somebody said that.