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I"ve been looking at Realtor.com for houses for sale in areas we are interested in. My parameters are single family home, 250k-450k, 10 acres or more.
Almost every house I've seen has an electric stove. Now I realize that in the areas we are looking and considering the property size, most, if not all, of these homes are not on natural gas lines, but then most use propane for furnace and water heater. Are the new electric stoves so much better than gas that everyone wants one instead of hooking up the propane to the stove?
Consumer Reports had a write up a few years ago where professional chefs compared gas stoves to electric, and they generally admitted that electric today is better even though they somewhat preferred flame, because they like the instant on/off aspect of fire.
We finally bought our long term house a couple of years ago, and it came with electric range and fuel oil heating (though, there is natural gas at the street, so long term we could switch).
A modern GE glass-top stove heats up incredibly quickly, I have to admit. It does warm up the kitchen.
But this spring we finally got a cheap gas grill for the deck, and since then I basically do all the meat outside, and after we have accessorized a bit, we'll be cooking more veggies outside as well. It's a reasonable compromise. (And when this grill dies in a year or two, given that it was $88 from Walmart we'll spring for a Weber when we've saved up the $500, and that will carry us to retirement).
It's gas all the way for me. I have natural gas for heating here and the only downside is the cost is not anywhere near as cheap as it used to be. I don't have a gas stove (yet) since when I moved in there was a pretty high end ceramic electric cooktop and I hate its guts. Some time before it goes to sh*t stove heaven, I'm going to find out the cost of running a gas line for a real stove where you control the heat by turning the gas up or down. The ceramic top makes you play musical burners because this POS takes way too long to heat up and way too long to cool down, so in order to have any control, you have to move the pots from here to there. It's ridiculous.
I've had propane and it's fine, never tried induction, though if it's got controllable heat and doesn't take half an hour to pre-heat the oven, I'd be willing to give it a shot.
The last time I cooked on a gas stove was in the 70s. It was our first apartment together. The place was a dump and the gas stove was an old one. When we turned on the oven, we needed to use a match to get the flame going. One day we went out and the place reeked of gas when we go home. One of the pilot lights for the stove burners had gone out.
The next 4 places we lived in all came with electric stoves. When we traded up to a bigger house, the builder was putting in gas stoves. We asked if we could get electric and they said "yes". So...it was electric for cooking, gas for the heat and hot water and we got a wood burning fireplace. When it was time for us to sell and downsize, I worried if buyers would be turned off by the electric stove. I worried needlessly as the house sold in 6 days.
Now we are renting in a building with electric stoves with the glass cooktops. I agree---those cooktops heat up more quickly than the conventional stoves. Plus, they are easy to clean.
It's all a matter of personal preference. A few years ago, we toured a different apartment building that was new. It, too, had electric stoves. Out of curiosity I asked the leasing agent if a lot of people were put off by the electric stove. She said she found that it was 50/50 when it came to whether they preferred gas or electric. That surprised me as I thought that the vast majority wanted gas cooking.
I have a tiny galley kitchen so I welcomed the additional counter space that a glass-top electric stove provides. I also love how much easier it is to clean than those heavy black wrought iron grids on a gas stove.
I had gas at my previous residence and admit that I burned food less frequently on that stove because temperature adjustments were more accurate and immediate.
But because I am not much of a cook, and I use our microwave and toaster oven for 95% of meal preparation these days, I suppose I can't complain too much about my electric stove.
The last condo I rented had an old fashioned type coil range. However it would boil my water for tea in less than 5 minutes. Now I have a ceramic cooktop and it also boils the water very quickly. I remember the days of having to light the pilot on an old oven my mother had on Long Island. Scared the crap out of me every time because of that whoosh sound it would make.
The house we had in NC had propane gas for heating and I remember coming home from work one day and smelling the gas (well it was actually the stuff that is put in to make it smell so you know you have a leak.) My husband was helping the boys with their homework and none of them smelled a thing. We had to evacuate until the gas company came out. I hated that heating system; it had twin tanks and when one was empty it was supposed to switch over to the other one but there was always some issue with it. I'll take electric any day. A house fire scares me less than a house explosion.
Out of curiosity I just put 2 measuring cups of water in a stainless pan. It was a rolling boil in less than a minute. Knew it was quick, but had never timed it.
It's gas all the way for me. I have natural gas for heating here and the only downside is the cost is not anywhere near as cheap as it used to be. I don't have a gas stove (yet) since when I moved in there was a pretty high end ceramic electric cooktop and I hate its guts. Some time before it goes to sh*t stove heaven, I'm going to find out the cost of running a gas line for a real stove where you control the heat by turning the gas up or down. The ceramic top makes you play musical burners because this POS takes way too long to heat up and way too long to cool down, so in order to have any control, you have to move the pots from here to there. It's ridiculous.
I've had propane and it's fine, never tried induction, though if it's got controllable heat and doesn't take half an hour to pre-heat the oven, I'd be willing to give it a shot.
Induction is not available in an oven because the heat source is the pot/pan. However, since induction is still a high end cooking technology, most of the ovens are also higher end if you get a range and they’ll come with convection or some other technology to make the heating faster than you’d get with a traditional ceramic. I
We recently got a modern kettle (the type with a separate element in the base). This is the fastest technology I've ever seen for boiling water. Maybe it also uses induction? Anyway, between this and the propane grill, I've almost stopped using the stove entirely.
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we'll spring for a Weber when we've saved up the $500, and that will carry us to retirement).
