Why are electric stoves more common than gas? And what's your preference? (glass, lights)
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In my part of Florida 95%+ of new homes use an electric heat pump for heating and cooling, and if you're doing that, it takes a very picky person to decide it's worth it to deal with the expense of a gas line just for stove, water heater, and/or clothes dryer. There's typically no huge difference between electric and gas dryers, so it comes down to water heater and stove.
As a result, it seems like you only end up seeing gas stoves in v. high end new homes down here.
I hate my gas stove. In complete contrast to what the knobs say, the burners have only two settings: HIGH and SUPERHIGH. It's virtually impossible to simmer anything. If anyone has any suggestions I'd love to hear them, otherwise I'll be buying an electric stove to replace it eventually.
Christina, we have the same problem, even on the small burners. Simmering food in a covered pot is impossible. You just reminded me that I promised DW to make an alcohol chafing burner for her, to give her an alternative. I've tried diffusers and elevating the pot slightly - no joy. Turning the burner flame adjustment down too much leaves them susceptible to blowing out. All I can suggest for you is buying a cheap hotplate.
I grew up cooking with gas (in the South), and I prefer it because it's easier to control the heat and more energy efficient.
Alas, our soon-to-be home in South Florida is in a neighborhood where no natural gas infrastructure is present. Most neighborhoods here do not have natural gas. Some people do have propane tanks and appliances that use propane, which are great for post-storm power loss. Maybe we will do that one day, but it could cost a lot to have all that piping put in.
In my part of Florida 95%+ of new homes use an electric heat pump for heating and cooling, and if you're doing that, it takes a very picky person to decide it's worth it to deal with the expense of a gas line just for stove, water heater, and/or clothes dryer. There's typically no huge difference between electric and gas dryers, so it comes down to water heater and stove.
As a result, it seems like you only end up seeing gas stoves in v. high end new homes down here.
You can also use natural gas for a pool heater, which is much less expensive to run than an electric. I live in South Florida and it is hard to find homes with NG lines here.
we cant get gas up to our house, theres no natural gas lines in the town at all, and zoning doesnt allow a propane tank...so its electric for us...
we grew up on gas, its the prefered ethod in the UK, but we got used to electric here.
i think most of it is simply using whats available and cheap, its cheaper to run electric nto a home than it is to run a gas line...so most homes get electric...
if you live in an area that has a good nat gas acess, then your more likely to be able to get gas.
the house im hopign to buy is natural gas but doesnt have NG in the kitchen, so itll depend on how much it would cost to bring it in to the kitchen as to whether or not i go electric or gas in the kitchen...
Many rural areas do not have Natural gas around the country. Also if you live on a mountain like I do, and with all the rock , it would work anyway. I am only 4 miles out of the city, but thats enough alone. I have had many problems with Propane over the years, it has lots of price ups and down, mostly up. I was quoted several thousand to run lines, and the would only put in 2 1000 gal tanks, all prepaid ! needless to say I went all electric. We have great rates as part of our local power comes from Hydro.., and coal which is delivered by freighter directly to the plant. Our rates are .07 cents. I paid 5,000 for the service to the house as I am the last one on the private road.400 amp was another 3,000 thousand., still cleaper than propane, not only to install but rate wise as well.
I prefer, and have, a gas range. In fact, my house is so old it has a gas stub-out on the wall behind the refrigerator space.
I grew up in an all electric house because my mom was convinced gas "made the walls sooty". Once I left home and was assigned to my first fire station, I relearned cooking on a huge Wolf range from the early fifties, and that hooked me.
I don't know about the rest of the country, but there once was a time in California when an all-electric home was considered a selling point, something to brag about in the sales literature. They even had a name and symbol for it: "The Gold Medallion All-Electric Home." That symbol and those words were the doorbell bezel on the Orange County tract home my parents bought in 1963.
Definitely depends where you're at. In the upper midwest (Pittsburgh through to Chicago, and even down to where I'm at now in Cincinnati) - NG is fairly common as a heat source, and if you're going to run the furnace off it anyway - its not hard then to use it for hot water heater/ clothes dryer and oven.
I grew up in a home that had all of that. Strangely, I found when we built our home in Cinci, even though they were running gas for the furnace/ hw heater -- the builder otherwise defaults to electric for stove/dryer.
If you're wondering why -- appliance manufacturers make more of the electric version, and so they are cheaper to buy.
We paid the upgrade charge to have the laundry area plumbed for gas, as well the stove area.
NG is so much cheaper as a fuel source than electricity, I can't imagine what our electric bills would be if we went away from NG completely!
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