Natural Gas or Electric Cooking Range

[colt45]

My wife likes ours, gas burners, electric oven

[Prairiewolf]

My wife and I did a reno last year and the stove type was the biggest argument we had. We had an electric. She wanted induction. I wanted gas. I compromised to induction after hearing that cast iron will in fact work on an induction top.

I was wrong to push for gas - induction is awesome. Why:

*The range can boil water in about 2 minutes - amazing.
*The top is as easy to clean as wiping off the table. Further, these are NOT the same as an electric cooktop as they get nowhere near as hot and have spatters burn onto them like the electrics do.
*Ours emits a pleasant blue glow when on which gives me the feeling of using a gas top - gotta enjoy the little things.
*Our existing cookware was induction compliant - saved a bit of money there.

[Iron Brew]

Our new will be induction. We use a single burner induction we got from my folks to try out. Definitely good (gas would be a problem in the retirement house anyway). Was kinda funny. My mum was saying gas and I suggested induction. We have kind of an oil and water relationship. I was stunned when next we visited and she gave us the single burner induction and proudly showed off her new induction stove. When they downsized she went from gas to electric in the "new" place, and she renovated to induction. If she chose it despite me suggesting it, that is a huge statement to me (as in, you guys have NO idea huge)...

Oh - to check if the pots work, see if a magnet will stick to it

[Dean2]

On sale at CT for anyone that wants to give induction a try. 1800 Watt basic single burner hot plate, $60 down from 99


https://www.canadiantire.ca/en/pdp/m...-0431297p.html

[Arty]

Gas and electric can be used for a much wider range of cookware than induction. I used an induction plate a couple of times - no good with copper/stainless pans/pots or aluminum or pyrex glass.

Gas products of combustion (mostly water and CO2) get dumped straight into your breathing air, unless you have a high flow evacuation hood. And there will some deposits building up on the wall & ceiling above any gas appliance eventually (in addition to food grease) over time, unless you have some high air-flow environment. Depending on gas being available during a consumer electrical outage of course depends on whether the gas distribution pumping stations are also knocked out. As they're probably on different distribution branches one might be a good backup for the other.

Almost all people have domestic electricity, fewer have nat gas. OTOH using electric stove heat used to involve a bit of delay with old style range 'burners', and you had to think ahead a lot. New 'glass-top' electric ranges are much faster to heat up and cool down than the old ones were. So that disadvantage has mostly disappeared. And they are easier to wipe up spattered oil from to keep clean. Electric would get my vote for general consumer use. But if you are going to be dragging and scratching big pots across your glass-top, or boiling over food often or dropping it onto hot glass, best stay away from it.

With all that, if gas vs electric was still a toss-up, I'd look at quality of construction of the electric range or stove-top, vs gas, for the price. Paying 3 or 4000 for an occasional-use domestic range of any kind is ridiculous and outrageous. If a gas range at the 1000 dollar mark gets you a much better appliance, I'd go gas. That's one thing I haven't checked, and would be curious how that played out.

[amosfella]

I went through this mess with my parents when their old stove bit it, and they wanted a new one. The whole gas/electric/induction went on for about 6 months while mom cooked on an ancient camping range. We tried fixing the old one, but to no avail. The part needed was worth almost as much as the stove was new.

So, we bounced around the low/mid/upper price budgets. Dad didn't want gas as he says that he gets migraine headaches when he goes into other people's houses that have gas. After a while of chasing that one around the bush, that was out.

Mom didn't like that a salesperson and some stuff she read on the internet about continued boil overs damaging the tops of the regular electric glass tops. She's the queen of boil overs. Practically once + a meal in fact.

So, it wound up at induction. There were some good articles about which ones last better. A bunch are good. What I read said that and induction range with a separate oven is the most reliable. But she didn't want to do the renos required to install it that way. In the end it came down to service. Wolf was (from what we could find) the most reliable brand that had really good service in our area.

If the OP is looking for a range, if you search 'wolf range' on facebook, there a guy who buys old ones,takes them out of places being remodeled, etc., fixes them, and resells them. He's got gas, induction, and regular electric ones. Seems reasonable to deal with. A while back, he had a nice Wolf gas range, hood, etc for about $3k.

[badbrass]

Thanks for all you feedback! We went with the gas stove top and Electric oven!

[Okotok]

I've tried induction and it's pretty cool. Still wouldn't have it over my wolf gas rangetop. I can't put up with the fact that Gordon Ramsay would be telling me that if I went to an induction rangetop that I would be a #$%^&*#$%^&. The oven is an electric convection and works great.