Another reason to stop using gas | Hacker News Reader

Another reason to stop using gas

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7 pointsj4mie15 comments

We just replaced our gas stove with induction. It is unbelievable how much faster it brings water to a boil. The moment I take the pot off, the glass is cool, so no risk of my kid (or I) accidentally touching it. It is also infinitely easier to wipe clean versus gas where stuff always fell below the metal piece holding things above the flame.

Zero regrets. I wish I’d done this years ago.

Every house I've ever seen that has a natural gas stove also has a over range hood fan. Could be a simple legislative / improvement to simply tie the fan operation to a heat sensor (for a little extra extraction after burner turned off) or simply just while any burner is on (and oven).

That being said electricity is so useful, and has the property of colocating emissions at the generation plant, that I don't see a lot of reason not to use it for all forms of heating and transportation at this point besides economic (it's expensive relative to mining energy stored from the past).

Normally concentrated emissions is an issue, but it's also the key for emissions technologies like scrubbers (which work well on concentrated streams, and not so well on dilute) .

>Every house I've ever seen that has a natural gas stove also has a over range hood fan

I have never seen that where I live, but I am in a City with many house over 100 years old.

That said, I like cooking with gas much better. But really it is time to move on from gas.

The author seems to be of the opinion that home range fans are not sufficient to keep the air clear:

>Whereas professional kitchens frequently have strong extraction over open burners and ovens, domestic kitchens often do not. And where extraction is present, it is often not used, and when it is used, it only covers burners and not ovens.

Anecdotally, our apartment came with a gas stove and and an extraction fan built into the microwave oven above (not a hood). The fans seem reasonably effective at extracting steam and smoke but only if I clean the filters every month or so. Even still, searing a steak on the cast iron with the fans on full blast can often set off the particulate fire alarms. So I don't have a lot of confidence it's extracting all the nox and nastiness produced by burning gas - we usually run the fan and open the windows and patio door when the burners or oven are running.

I'd be happy enough to ditch gas, but here in SF it seems almost every rental I've viewed comes with a terrible glass-electric cooktop, an empty void with a gas hookup, or a gas range.

I just posted this as a sibling to you. If you can, definitely upgrade to a vent that goes out of the house. And definitely keep cleaning it on a regular basis. It is very noticeable how much cleaner the house is now that we do both of those.

And yes, it takes effort to convince the family to basically always turn on the fans when cooking. Is worth it.

Thanks, our fans do vent out of the apartment, at least. Our setup looks a lot like the janky ones you hear about that just vent into a wall, but when you open the cabinet above the microwave there's a duct that merges with the dryer exhaust on the way out of the unit to an exterior vent. It's a bit annoying to hear it running every time I'm cooking, but I figure it's worth it to be inhaling a bit less toxic fumes.

I dont know about everywhere, but at least a few places i've lived it was required by law/code to have it vent outside if it was a gas stove.

I'll note my point is that it is not just the gas that makes you want this. The amount of grease you will be putting on everything in the house is... hard to really appreciate.

As someone that has been cleaning their range hood recently, I'm convinced there are more particulates from the food you cook than from just the range. So much grease in my range hood that it is kind of impressive/scary.

The crazy thing to me, is this is our first house that vents out of the house. Most just recirculated and our last was not good at that. I never realized that the grime we were cleaning out of our bathroom was mostly from the kitchen. Mind blowing to realize how much grease gets throughout the house if you are cooking with frying pans a lot. And really drives home why that used to be so heavily reserved for outdoor grilling.

Another thing we noticed going low-oil in our diet is how easy cleanup is. Imagine what that grease buildup looks like inside your arteries!

I'm hesitant to think too much in that direction, honestly. This implies that grease is somehow a fixed point for your digestive system, but I suspect that grease in is turned to other things inside your system. If that makes sense.

Now, I have no idea how that pans out, as it were. So, happy to hear of any studies that go into that.

> electricity is so useful, and has the property of colocating emissions at the generation plant, that I don't see a lot of reason not to use it for all forms of heating and transportation

Microwave ovens are fine for reheating take-out and commercially-prepared packaged processed food. For cooking your own meals a gas range is preferred. Electric is OK for a home baking oven.

Same with transportation. If all you're doing is putting around in the city electric vehicles are fine. The minute you're more than 100 km from the nearest suburban mall they're impractical, especially in temperate climates that have a winter.

Not only are the NOx levels much higher like the article states, PM2.5 particulates also go through the roof (>100-200, or way higher without ventilation, observed with a PM2.5 sensor) from the flame as well as the oil/nonstick pans heating up.

A lot of people don't even turn on their vent hood when cooking, or the hood doesn't have enough flow rate. After showing my parents the particulates that were emitted during cooking from the flame and oil heating, they turn on the hood at max speed every day and open the window when possible, and it makes a big difference.

I am fine with not using gas to cook because induction is nearly as good and way easier to cleanup but i am really not ok with government mandating stuff like this. Price the climate externality of carbon and let consumers make their own decisions.

This book

http://wilhelm-research.com/book_toc.html

claims that fumes from gas stoves cause color pictures to fade more rapidly.

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