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Comment by ch4s3 | Hacker News Reader

That sounds great to me, but I don’t see apartment buildings here in NYC being built with induction cook tops. The ones with electric ranges have the crappy ones under glass the switch on and off instead of having variable heat. They’re useless to cook on. This seem like another law written by people who own brownstones that will make life shittier for people who rent.

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> That sounds great to me, but I don’t see apartment buildings here in NYC being built with induction cook tops.

Very true for the average apartment.

Two (huge) obstacles for induction cooktops:

1) They're still more expensive than a non-induction electric cooktop. Might not be a big deal in a $1 million apartment buildout, but if someone is remodeling a block of apartments that are going to rent out no matter what they contain, the remodelers are going to get the cheaper non-induction equipment.

2) They depend on the type of cookware used. Again, not a big deal if you're a homeowner spending $$$ on a remodel and cookware to go with it. But it is a big deal if you're trying to rent out apartments to people who have cookware and you don't want to get constant calls about the fancy cooktop not working.

It's not realistic to expect the average NYC apartment to get fancy induction cooktops. They're just going to get the cheap electric units.

I don’t “buy” the cookware argument. A cast iron skillet, a pot, and a good saucepan are enough for most folks, can be acquired for under a hundred bucks.

> A cast iron skillet, a pot, and a good saucepan are enough for most folks,

There's a reason 99% of people have non-stick aluminum cookware. Everything else is horrible, and I say that from bitter experience. How often do you scramble eggs on your cast iron skillet?

That said...

> can be acquired for under a hundred bucks.

You can certainly get a small set of non-stick aluminum cookware with induction plates built in for under $100, however, it's not the easiest thing to find in the first place.

I hear your argument about the needs of tenants and don’t disagree about your general point. I just wanted to add that I’ve given up entirely on non-stick skillets. The finish inevitably comes off that I probably ate or it loses it’s non-stick properties (presumably from microscopic portions coming off that I probably ate) and I have to bin it.

So I actually do cook scrambled eggs (and omelets) in a well seasoned carbon steel pan. I’ve made eggs fried over easy in my cast iron. It requires butter and the pan has to be the right temperature (it sticks more if you start too cold), but it’s doable.

It does stick a touch more than non-stick, but it’s not difficult to clean by any measure.

I had the same experience as you. Thought I was doing something wrong and went with an expensive coated pan. Still lost its nonstick after a year. Have since changed to uncoated pans from tramontina. It took some time understanding temperatures with the pans as sticking and burning both can be avoided, but are much more apparent with these. I actually asked a salesperson to upsell me their expensive coated pans and the amount of work they laid out was basically the same as my uncoated pans, except that mine will not stop working because some proprietary magic dust isn't working anymore

We’ve been using All Clad non-stick pans (below) heavily for maybe 8 years and they haven’t lost their non-stickiness. We tried many others, including a different kind of All Clad non-stick that didn’t last even a year, we’re very happy with these.

https://www.amazon.com/All-Clad-E785S264-Anodized-Nonstick-D...

Ikea, $60. Or $15 for an even cheaper set.

Maybe this is because induction hobs are much more common in Europe.

https://www.ikea.com/us/en/p/annons-5-piece-cookware-set-gla...

I'm in the US. I went and checked the pots and pans in my kitchen. Out of five pots four are magnetic. And we have a cast iron pan. I assume that means they'd work on an induction stove.

>How often do you scramble eggs on your cast iron skillet?

Every time I make scrambled eggs. It isn't difficult. I don't even see what you are getting at with this question.

Same. “As often as I scramble eggs.”

> How often do you scramble eggs on your cast iron skillet?

Almost daily, through there are things one leearn. Butter is a must, especially in term of flavor, and if you fry bacon before then you need to let it cool down for a bit or the egg white will get bubbly.

I find the cultural aspect interesting. Non-stick teflon frying pans tend to degrade over time and as such, do not get passed down when people here move out. It was also not something that we used when I was young since they easily broke if misused. That is th part I suspect will change with time.

I cook on cast-iron twice a day, just about anything. Once you actually learn how to cook on it, there are zero problems with sticking or anything else. Tends to be healthier than cooking on a nonstick surface as well.

And yes we make quite a lot of eggs, scrambled and fried, works just perfectly without a mess.

Seasoned carbon steel woks are a lot better for most non-acidic foods then teflon; they are truly non-stick.

I ONLY use a cast iron pan. Every flatmate we've had have ended up scratching the shit out of our non-sticks (even after educating them on how to use it...).

Cooking on cast iron is great- you simply heat it on a low temp with some oil on the surface first, and scrambled eggs / ommelet is no problem.

It's pretty heavy to hold with one hand, but overtime I've gained stronger wrist strength and can handle it no problem now.

We're on our third non stick, but the cast iron is still going strong.

> Every flatmate we've had have ended up scratching the shit out of our non-sticks (even after educating them on how to use it...).

The rule is simple: those pans must never even be looked at by something metallic during use or cleaning. Wood or plastic are fine. I use wooden tools. Fingernails are not OK too.

Of course flatmates use to be quite anarchic and careless especially young ones.

What happens to wooden tools after they are used? In my experience they end up in the dishwasher where they get ruined.

Try bamboo. Can be soaked, it's great.

I put wooden spoons in the dishwasher. They don't last as long as they might, but they cost €1.

I'll handwash more expensive wooden tools.

I wash them with my hands. Dish soap and warm water.

Flatmates can also do bad things to cast iron, e.g. dump them in the dishwasher and let them rust. Can't tell you how many times I've had to reseason a pan. After a point I just stopped trying to educate them and said, "you buy your own stuff and feel free to ruin it if that's how you want to treat your stuff".

I don’t understand why carbon steel isn’t more popular in the US.

Other than heat retention, it’s as good if not better than cast iron in every way, and it’s way lighter to boot.

Agreed. We (US) own a couple carbon steel pans of different sizes. Incredible cookware for <$100 total. Far and away cheaper than our Le Creuset cookware and in many respects just as good

> There's a reason 99% of people have non-stick aluminum cookware. Everything else is horrible

Onyx pans are amazing in every way (nonstick, scratchproof, dishwasher safe, induction ready) but not yet sold in the US I think: https://onyxcookware.de/

There are similar ones sold on AliExpress that would presumably ship to the US, e.g.: https://a.aliexpress.com/_mr49PaC

cheap pans are 3 for $12, 8x as cost effective

Induction cookers are expensive today, but they aren't theoretically expensive. One day, they'll be cheaper than resistive heaters.

> They're still more expensive than a non-induction electric cooktop

I don't know where to buy cooktops in the US so I can't do a comparison, but on one of the biggest websites in the UK the cheapest induction hob is £105 right now, and the cheapest ceramic hob is £80.

> They depend on the type of cookware used.

You can buy a pad from amazon for less than $10 that will let you use any cookware on an induction hob. Most cookware _is_ suitable (I bought a new pan before the holidays and even the cheapest non stick pans had a stainless steel layer on the bottom)

While I was waiting for the electrician to add a new circuit for our new induction oven (replacing an aga), we bought a £35 plug in induction hot plate. 80% of our existing pans were induction ready too

It's also important to note that you likely don't need a new circuit if you already have a ceramic electric hob, only if you're installing a new one. I also just did a quick google and in the supermarkets around me, the only pan I could find under £30 that isn't induction compatible is a £10 wok from sainsburys. Everything else had a steel plate.

I now live in Asia, where almost everything built recently is induction. It's wonderful. Hardly an electric garbage stove to be seen anywhere.

Sf did a similar ban because gas infrastructure is leaky over time. Expensive to maintain, bad for your health, bad for the environment.

I'm not sure who these people are that sit around and scheme about how to craft laws who fuck over people they'll never meet.

> scheme about how to craft laws who fuck over people they'll never meet

No one, they just don't consider that effects on peoples' lives. Sure, natural gas isn't great for indoor air quality, but it's easily mitigated by cracking a window or some airflow. Getting stuck with a cheap electric cook top makes cooking a lot more miserable and unreliable and there's nothing you can do to improve the situation if every apartment is built that way.

I love cooking on my gas stove but it's also worth noting that Julia Child filmed The French Chef on electric coils. They are certainly not ideal but they are also far from the worst thing you could be forced to deal with in the kitchen.

Saying that one of the most famous chef's ever cooked on a crappy range is a poor argument for legally banning the alternative. You, as you've mentioned like myself prefer a gas range. I gladly acknowledge that induction is equally suitable. However banning gas in new apartment construction forces people by law to use the thing we both agree isn't very good, sine few building will be built with induction.

I honestly don't know all the tradeoffs here. I lived with electric coils for a few years when I was in a rental apartment and somehow we were still happy. It's not ideal but I can certainly picture criteria under which it's the optimal policy.

The point about Julia Child is that she was creating works of art using this supposedly unusable tool. If she can manage that, your average Joe should be able to bang together some burgers and saute some vegetables on one.

That doesn't really follow. An inferior tool may be prohibitively hard to use for a beginner while an expert effortlessly compensates.

It doesn't follow in the sense of being a formal logical syllogism, but it is nonetheless true. You can learn to cook on electric coils. Millions of people have. You can make both beginner and expert food on them. And Childs' use of them is evidence, but not proof, of this fact.

Hello, rdI*

r*d*l*?

I didn't know what the big deal was and thought it was silly until I actually lived in a place with a gas stove. Definitely motivated me to cook more. Induction also excellent. I'm not saying I physically can't cook with electric but it's unpleasant

A cheap gas cooktop is by far the worst possible stovetop out there, far far worse than electric. They are so slow, ineffectual pieces of crap. At least electric can always get really hot. But there are so many gas ranges these days that don't focus the heat in the right place by having bad grill designs. Id take the average cheap coil electric range over gas any day. And id take induction over that.

And by comparison, a nice gas range is significantly superior to all of the electric cooktops I've ever used. By nice gas range, I mean one of the 6-burner types on one side, griddle on the other, and double side by side ovens. I'd happily electrify the rest of the building if it was economical to do so (it's still not in many places), but having gas for cooking is the one hard, non-negotiable feature I have in a property.

I suspect the average lawmaker does not take cooking seriously, which I think is fairly sad.

I’ve read that gas cooking produces about twice as much PM2.5 as electric cooking.

Some of that can probably be mitigated with good fume extraction, but it’s a consideration.

Induction has huge advantages over gas, I’m seeing it increasingly used in newer high end homes. Gas wins out on lower end luxury builds given that a gas stove is much cheaper than an induction stove.

> but it's easily mitigated by cracking a window

Uh, the air pollution of a typical urban street is a _disaster_.

Not in NYC where the AQI hasn't been above 50 for more than 3 years and often hovers in the mid 20s. Your indoor air-quality is almost certainly worse.

Saying you can just open a window takes the problem too lightly, I believe gas stoves like the risk of childhood asthma by the realm of 40% [1]? I think we’re going to at least be talking about mandatory hoods over the range considering they contribute to a significant amount of all respiratory issues despite reasonable alternatives existing.

Gas sure bets induction especially when filling up a large skillet with food. People can adopt though. It really wasn’t very long ago when cooking was mostly done with wood.

Personally I would just impose a tax on new hookups and more regulations before I actually banned gas though, but there is justification for government intervention when people are pumping highly flammable toxic and environmentally destructive gases into businesses and residences for the sake of making a better omelette.

The only really strong argument I see for gas is that reducing heating expenses has a substantial effect on local poverty.

[1] https://academic.oup.com/ije/article/42/6/1724/737113

On one hand you got people that think the government is always scheming against them. One the other I have a couple of friends that actually served on various governmental boards. The latter think wealthy influential crooks are usually the ones scheming.

No, my claim was that city governments often pass laws without thinking about how ti might effect average people.

My claim is that's because you don't pay any attention to what your city government does and so you only notice when they mess up. But never when they don't.

I pay a lot of attention and do notice when they are effective, but that's mostly expected.

It doesn't get cold in SF.

I don't understand why people say things like this. According to a quick search, it's 8°C right now and is forecasted to be as low as 3°C later this week.

I know that it's not Montana, but the vast majority of people aren't walking around in T-shirts in almost-freezing weather. These temperatures are pretty objectively cold, if you ask me.

FWIW, I've been to SF, but have never lived there. I am from (and currently live in) a much colder city. Even during summers where I've been to SF, I've experienced significant wind chills which have forced me to wear a hoodie.

> I don't understand why people say things like this. According to a quick search, it's 8°C right now and is forecasted to be as low as 3°C later this week.

That's still above freezing, which some may not consider "cold".

For example, even 'basic' heat pumps, the ones that look exactly the same as AC-only boxes, can typically work down to 5C. However once you drop down freezing and into the negatives (C) you tend to need mini-split systems. That's what the GP may mean when the word "cold" was used.

It's not everyone else's job to work around someone using words incorrectly to make nonsensical comments.

What's a mini split system?

> Mini-splits are heating and cooling systems that allow you to control the temperatures in individual rooms or spaces.

* https://www.fujitsugeneral.com/us/residential/what-is-a-mini...

> A single-zone (also called a mini-split) ductless system allows you to control the temperature of one room by connecting an outdoor unit to an indoor unit, with no ductwork needed. An outdoor mini-split unit is placed outside your home and is connected to an indoor mini-split unit by small cables and a refrigerant line through a hole in the wall.

* https://www.trane.com/residential/en/products/ductless-syste...

> A multi-zone (also called a multi-split) ductless system connects an outdoor unit to an one or more indoor units, letting you control the temperature in several different zones of your home. Variable Refrigerant Flow (VRF) systems are a type of multi-zone ductless systems. VRF systems are energy efficient, and they can be used to heat one zone while cooling a different zone at the same time.

* https://www.trane.com/residential/en/products/ductless-syste...

Also SF is bad at infrastructure safety- https://missionlocal.org/2021/12/gas-lines-embedded-in-concr...

> That sounds great to me, but I don’t see apartment buildings here in NYC being built with induction cook tops.

Why not? Most new construction is "luxury" priced, as since the land/structure is expensive anyway, and it's only marginally more expensive to put in "premium" appliances that allow you to charge a significant rent premium, everyone does that.

Of course new apartments are going to be built with induction cooktops when gas isn't an option. Induction isn't even that much more expensive.

IME premium appliances often means new, stainless steel but still cheapest model. It's premium aesthetic not functionality.

> Most new construction is "luxury" priced

They aren't luxury, they are market rate and the people renting them are often definitionally rent burdened.

> marginally more expensive to put in "premium" appliances

Induction cook tops cost nearly $4k. A whole electric stove and oven for about $600.

> since the land/structure is expensive anyway

In NYC you need an expected profit margin of 5% to get a development loan, and that quite high for large real estate projects. Slapping and extra $3-$4k onto each unit just isn't going to work for most projects.

> Of course new apartments are going to be built with induction cooktops when gas isn't an option.

As of today, there are fewer than 20 apartments for rent in NYC that list induction cooktops in their listings. I've checked every major rental site, and some didn't seem to actually have them based on photos. Plenty of building have electric, but I've never seen a rental with induction or heard of anyone who has one at any price of unit.

> Induction cook tops cost nearly $4k. A whole electric stove and oven for about $600.

You are comparing a Tesla Model S to a Toyota Civic.

Here is a $500 36-inch induction cooktop

https://www.homedepot.com/p/Empava-36-in-Built-In-Electric-S...?

That's fair, but still the price of a whole electric of gas oven and cooktop.

Ok, but I'm addressing this argument:

> Induction cook tops cost nearly $4k. A whole electric stove and oven for about $600. In NYC you need an expected profit margin of 5% to get a development loan, and that quite high for large real estate projects. Slapping and extra $3-$4k onto each unit just isn't going to work for most projects.

the cost of the cooktop and oven is not increasing by $3600. It's actually only increasing by $500.

Also 5% of a 800k condo unit is 40k.

Also your 5% profit margin is a bare minimum. In reality, I doubt any developer would do start any project unless they expected at minimum 15% margin.

Induction cooktops don't start at $4K, more like $400.

> Induction cook tops cost nearly $4k. A whole electric stove and oven for about $600.

I can buy 5 Miele induction cooktops for $4k, what planet are you living on?

London banned gas stoves in apartments years ago. They did that to reduce the risk of fires. Citizens adjusted fine, no one went hungry and life went on..

While I agree with you the gas stove tops are better, electric ones work OK

> London banned gas stoves in apartments years ago.

Do you have a source for that? I have a gas stove, and so do many others I know, and I've never heard of a ban.

I don't believe it's true, it certainly isn't something London could bring in on its own. However, gas appliances over here for apartments do need to have flame sensors (so the gas gets cut off), and if you're a landlord, you're going to need to do annual safety checks on gas equipment (apartment or not).

So the equipment itself is slightly more costly for an apartment, and a landlord specifically has a strong incentive to have little/no gas, to save on the annual checks.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ronan_Point

Tldr; a tower block suffered a partial collapse as a result of a gas explosion in 1968. Changes to Building Regulations were made to mitigate against 'Disproportionate Collapse'

(Effect on legislation) 'Existing buildings were allowed to resist an explosive force of 17 kPa (2.5 psi), provided that the gas supply was removed and flats were refitted for electric cooking and heating.'

Such buildings with gas supplies today will have been constructed to comply with the amended regulations.

I'm calling shenanigans on this. I've never had an electric oven top while renting in London, and all flats have had gas heating. Looking online, I can also see new build flats with gas, so I really doubt this is a ban in London.

We don't exactly have a lot of fires caused by cooktops in NYC.

As someone who grew up somewhere without any gas supply (Norway), and hadn't seen a gas hob until I moved to the UK at 25, I find it hilarious when people say this. It's different to cook on, but it really does not make much difference for most people.

Electric cooktops are more expensive compared to the gas-equivalent ones, that counts, especially for middle- and low-income countries (even though I agree, in countries like Norway that might not seem like that much of a problem).

Also, in terms of resilience gas cooking beats electric cooking. In my experience (I live in an Eastern European capital city) gas delivery has been more constant compared to electric power, not to mention that even if both gas and electricity were to be cut off it's much easier to connect an existing gas cooktop to a small gas tank than it would be to connect an electric cooktop to an equivalent battery. In fact my parents still use gas tanks for part of their cooking (for the other part they use actual wood).

Norway used to be relatively poor. If anything too poor to consider building a gas supply network too. In that sense I guess Norway leapfrogged the issue. At the point building a gas supply might have been viable it just wasn't on anyone's radar.

As for reliance on electric supply, I haven't experienced any outage longer than a couple of minutes since the 1980s, but I get that will certainly depend on where you live.

Resilience of gas is important to consider as it eliminates the single point of failure, if your power goes out you still have a means of heat.

Many places the reliability of power is good enough that we're prepared to handle that by going to a hotel. It's been decades since I experienced more than a couple of minutes without power.

Meanwhile I've had gas boilers fail twice and had to resort to electric heaters while waiting for repairs.

I live in Canada.

Snow and ice storms are a reality that make self sufficiency highly desirable.

I grew up in Norway. Snow and storms were insufficient to give most people a reason to worry. Some homes will have a fireplace or wood fired stove as a last resort, but it's more and more rare. In rural areas having a fallback is slightly more common.

So I stand by what I said: Many places the power reliability is high enough. A long outage in Norway would be treated as a major national emergency.

Portable cassette gas stove is pretty common here in Japan. This is the best for emergency. https://www.amazon.co.jp/-/en/Iwatani-Cassette-feu-Master-Po...

I'm 57, and have been cooking on conventional electric stoves with time proportioning controls for my entire life. What am I missing? I could consider an induction stove, but running gas to my kitchen would require some pretty major surgery to the house.

There are recipes and sticky situations where having a near instant heat switch is a real convenience, if not a real life saver. That said, if you've made it this far you probably aren't going to get much out of them. I love gas because I love cooking with a direct flame, but I think from an environmental perspective we're going to have to start making due without them

Good points. I probably have a sixth sense for avoiding recipes that the stove can't manage.

I had no idea about the amount of leaking, but it makes sense. Unless you're actively checking every foot of gas pipe everywhere, chances are it's leaking here and there. But it's too bad. I learned while doing process control in a plant with steam heated processes, that you can run a lot of power down a gas pipe. I have a hunch that they could heat all of NYC from just waste heat.

Induction gives you most of the benefits of gas: instant heat control. It's even faster heating than gas, easier to clean, safer to use.

The hob itself costs more, and the cheapest pans aren't compatible. Gas is often cheaper to run.

Other than initial purchase price, a normal electric hob has no advantages.

Some desserts/baking and traditional woks can’t be done on electric. That’s about it. Also electric are more expensive and less reliable for the same quality

> They’re useless to cook on.

I'd say this is a bit of an overreaction. They're definitely terrible to time correctly, heat-wise. But they also can definitely cook. I've made a rib-eye steak medium rare just fine on a cast iron using reverse-sear between oven and the glass range.

The part I really hate is how careful I need to be not to damage the glass when using a heavy pan like that.

You've done a pretty good job listing all of the reasons that they aren't vey good. In a small apartment, with limited time, and space the extra aggravation really adds up.

OP specifically said "They're useless to cook on" and I provided an example of an excellent dish that uses an electric stove.

So, that would certainly seem to disprove their comment because I did in fact cook something, which implies it isn't useless.

I don't think that is an overreaction. When looking for a place to live. Gas stove and induction oven are a hard requirement

If it doesn't have that...pass immediately

Do you mean convection oven?

For the record most (all?) induction cook tops have a glass surface too. Also induction ones are not that much more expensive. Here in Finland the price difference is ~50e when compared to a ceramic ("glass") one.

And as for cooking experience I prefer induction. It heats up the fastest and can control the heat just fine.

Replacing a cooktop is a 1 hour job.

with a 3k price tag for the cooktop, and another 500-1000 for induction cookware?

This regulation effects rental units, renters aren't going to swap ovens and cookware every-time they move house.

> with a 3k price tag for the cooktop

Here is a 30-inch Samsung induction cooktop for $1100

https://www.homedepot.com/p/Samsung-30-in-Smart-Induction-Mo...

> and another 500-1000 for induction cookware?

Here is a $43 induction cookware set which includes both pots and pans

https://www.amazon.com/AmazonBasics-8-Piece-Non-Stick-Kitche...

I bought an induction cooktop for around USD 350 a few years ago. That was the premium unit of a cheap brand. They also had a cheaper one for around USD 200.

The cheap, government-controlled rentals in my town started switching to induction for all new cooktops a decade ago.

This is in Europe, though.

my electric coil cooktop can't even boil water

Buy an electric pressure cooker. You can cook 100% of your meals using one. I don't even use my oven or stovetop any more.

You can cook 100% of your meals in one. That sounds like some sort of ironic punishment I'd receive in the afterlife for a grave misdeed.

I don’t understand it. James Coco went mad in 15 minutes!

You can cook all your meals using a microwave too. But no one would seriously recommend that to anyone.

Mm, I love me some pressure cooker hamburgers.

You can use the saute mode in the place of a stovetop pan.

“Saute mode” is from a universal feature of electric pressure cookers, AFAIK.

It's also, while good for the particular use cases it is aimed at, not great general substitute for a proper set of stovetop cookware.

Most people mentioning electric pressure cookers these days are referring to the "Instant Pot" or similar. Check it out.

I have two Instant Pots and am quite familiar with their features, which is why after I mentioned that the feature was not universal to electric pressure cookers, also discussed the feature itself.

You could, but no one would every suggest that the city government should force you to do that.

Thumbs up to bland food

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