Gas Vs. Electric Range

Parent Cafe
1

<p>Our electric is starting to give out - takes like 25 minutes to preheat and then doesn’t hold it’s heat well…it was a stove that was here when we bought our home 11 years ago.</p>

<p>So, I used to have gas in our old house and loved it. Am considering buying gas now, though we will also have to put a gas line in ($200ish extra dollars). </p>

<p>The new electrics have the smooth cooktop. I don’t love the looks of them, but may have to settle for one so I’m wondering about the cooking/cleaning/scratching etc. of these new cooktops.</p>

<p>Also wondering how those of you who have a gas w/griddle like that option. It is appealing to me cause we do a good amount of “breakfast” grazing on the weekends. Plus grilled sandwiches, etc. </p>

<p>How about the convection oven (built in fan inside the oven) option? It that helpful?</p>

<p>Finally, brands. I am always attracted physically (geez, sounds like I"m having an affair with an appliance!) to the LG appliances because of the clean, europian look. Just also looked at a really nice Samsung that had much of the same look.</p>

<p>I hate appliance deciding!!! I know I’m picky, but when I’m going to have an appliance for hopefully 10 years + I want to love it!!! (my husband doesn’t get that…a stove is a stove is a stove…)</p>

<p>Any help appreciated!!!</p>

2

<p>Look into Induction cooktops. Responsiveness of gas, clean lines of glass top. Absolutely love mine. Infact waithed to replace appl;iances until Icould find one (about 4 years ago). Many manufacturers now. Check out garden web for discussions.</p>

3

<p>I absolutely love gas for the cooktop (don’t care strongly one way or another about the oven part). I had always had gas, then when we moved to our current house it was all electric (there was no gas to our neighborhood). As soon as gas was available we had a line put in. Changed to gas heating immediately which probably paid for itself in a year. Waited a while to put in a gas cook top. Love it love it love it.</p>

<p>I was looking for a while at a cooktop that had a griddle. Wish I had got it. Can’t remember why I did not. I don’t recommend Maytag which is what I got. The dials (not what they are called - the things you turn to turn it on and increase/decrease temperature - my mind is blanking) have already all been replaced once because the plastic breaks. One of the replacement has already broken. Our old GE was 20+ years old and those never needed replacing.</p>

4

<p>I am an idiot who can’t cook on electric cooktops. I need to see the flame to know my temperature. Maybe if I grew up on electric I’d feel different.</p>

<p>Can’t help you with brands, I have a kenmore gas cooktop that is probably 25+ years old.</p>

5

<p>I have experience with a number of the things you mention. Now remember that I do not love to cook, but out of necessity, I do so. I grew up with electric,and I got used to the whole “shut it off before it is overcooked” method of cooking. Gas shuts right off, but if the burner covers are heavy metal ones, they do retain some heat, so this is still an issue, but a great deal less than electric. I think the great chefs all use gas, but this will never be my problem.</p>

<p>I had electric in my previous home of 15 years since it was all electric, and I got a new solid disk cooktop when I first moved in. It cleans up much easier than the open burner kind. THe type of cooking was no different than the open type. Someone managed to break the thing the knob sits on to one of the controls, and this was very expensive to fix. I am not sure how this happened because I do not believe that it just broke off, as I was told, and I was not there to see this happen. I think someone dropped something on it. THe controls were on the top front of the cooktop, which I do not recommend.</p>

<p>I had gas in several apartments, and I have a gas cooktop now. I like it better, although the clean up is more than the electric disk. We have the griddle too, and maybe we are not using it correctly, but it is a bear to clean up. It also got dark, which I think is normal. I prefer my good quality frying pan, but that is just me. I also have a convection oven (electric), and it is very good. Things cook faster because the fan blows the heat evenly or so they say. I did not pick this cooktop/oven out, it came with the place, so I just am learning to work with it. I like the electric oven, although I can’t objectively say why. I also have had gas ovens, and I never have liked the gas broiler. Maybe those just were cheap ovens, I’m not sure. I previously had a ge electric double oven which came with a temperature probe function, which was interesting for cooking meats by temperature. That was all digital, which I liked, but everyone else found confusing. My oven now just has knobs for controls, no digital, and no built in timer (which I did like.)</p>

<p>I also prefer a wall oven which is at waist height so that you don’t have to bend over, but my new place did not come with that model.</p>

<p>Good luck. Even though I don’t like to cook, I have spent considerable time in the kitchen anyway.</p>

6

<p>It just never seems easy to make these decisions - one model we really liked was electric, but they thought it came in gas too - great! we said - guess what - nope, doesn’t come in gas…</p>

<p>For ten years I"ve said, when it’s time to replace the electric, I wanted gas…now, finding a style, price and features I want seems difficult. Sigh.</p>

7

<p>abasket, I recently put in a Diva 365 Induction range. The cooktop has five induction elements while the oven is a conventional convection one. The induction cooktops give better control , heat up faster and to higher temperature than gas. You can Google Diva 365 for more info as not many appliance stores have them yet.</p>

<p>The downside is the price, abit under 10K.</p>

8

<p>We put in a GE profile gas cooktop. I love the gas for stovetop so I can really control the flame/heat. It is a bear to clean I am sure…luckily my housekeeper does it every week.<br>
We put in a GE electric oven. Nothing but problems with it. There was an earlier thread about problems with the GE profile electric ovens. Mine was particularly possessed and only misbehaved when the repairman wasn’t there.
It does have convection which I like. Really just means that you get more even heat inside if you are baking two pans of cookies simultaneously, etc.</p>

9

<p>I worked as a cook to pay my way through college - and as a result am really picky about stoves. When we did a major remodel of our kitchen in 2000, what I really wanted was a gas stove top and electric oven. We put in a Wolf Duel Fuel and I have never had a moment where I regretted it - that is, once the bill was paid. It does have a griddle option but I elected to get 6 burners which has been great at times like this upcoming Thursday. </p>

<p>For a griddle, I use a two burner lodge cast iron one that I got as a present. Works great as long as you give it some time to heat up.</p>

10

<p>We went with gas in our kitchen remodel and we love it. Downsides: it takes a long time for water to boil, upsides, copmplete control over the heat.</p>

<p>We also put in a convection oven - it is great if you roast or bake lots of cookies. we have a Kitchenaid that was affordable, and has been very durable. The Kitchenaid is also quiet, important if you use it a lot. we also put in a Kitchenaid Ultima high speed oven, whic hrequired a new circuit board just before the warranty went out - it has been excellent since then.</p>

11

<p>If I don’t go with a gas oven, I did really, really like a new Samsung model that was really attractive, had a warming drawer in the bottom and in addition to the self-cleaning, had a “steam” clean option. You put a cup of water in the bottom of the oven, press “steam clean” and in 20 minutes the oven steams stuff off the oven to wipe clean - a nice option between the actual self-cleaning.</p>

<p>I could always buy a seperate griddle to use…decisions, decisions…</p>

12

<p>I can’t (translation: won’t) cook with electric, because you have no control. As far as I can tell, on an electric range “High” means will-be-high-in-a-little-while-so-all-you-need-to-do-is-guess-when-that-will-be, and “Low” means will-be-low-a-little-later-but-meanwhile-be-ready-for-the-pan-or-its-contents-to-burn. With gas, what you see is what you get. </p>

<p>As to brand, I think you can go on price, looks and check ePinions or Consumer Reports re reliability.</p>

13

<p>I doubt this is what you’re looking for but you could probably just repair your current oven by just replacing the heating element - it’s usually inexpensive ($25-40) and easy for anyone to do.</p>

<p>We have an electric smooth top stove (GE Profile). My wife wanted it to be a smooth top to make it really easy to clean. It’s not an induction type so it works with any pan. It seems to work fine. However, it’s not a convection oven and my wife would really prefer one of those. She should have forced the issue when we got this one. The convection ovens are supposed to have more even heating and I noticed that they often have the heating element at the top so spills in the oven wouldn’t hit the heating element and it s/b easier to clean. Next time we’ll get one of these.</p>

14

<p>In addition to greater (better) control of temperature, Gas stoves are typically cheaper to operate than electric burners. Of course, for many people who are “typical” cooks, it may not make much of a difference. Also, if Gas is your choice, go with sealed burners. Easy to keep clean.</p>

15

<p>Gas cooktop- Yes! We heat our flour tortillas directly on the burner. Can’t do that on electric. Tortillas are popular in our house.
I also have convection. I have been happy with it.
Both cooktop and oven are Dacor about 13 yrs old. I have had the oven worked on several times. The repair bills for the Dacor are expensive.</p>

16

<p>also am a fan of gas, and I cook a lot!! Wolf duel fuel with gas cooktop and electric oven with convection is great. Convection is great if you like to bake, very even cooking for that. also have a thermador convection wall oven, which is nice because of the height.</p>

<p>The roasting feature is also very nice. As far as the built in griddle, I did not do the built in because always looks dirty, so i just use a large one that goes over two burners.</p>

17

<p>You’ll only ever find gas in a professional kitchen and in my own opinion you can never go wrong with gas. </p>

<p>Old school electric coil ranges are vastly inferior by nearly every measure. Induction is nice, but it does have its limitations and some don’t like the look of the flat cooking surfaces.</p>

18

<p>I remodeled the kitchen as soon as we bought our house and changed the cooktop from electric to gas. In our area, we always have a few electric outages in the wet winters so having gas means my family always have hot meals during bad weather.</p>

19

<p>One more vote for gas. I’ve got a cheap GE unit with the sealed burners - very happy with the unit.</p>

20

<p>Another vote for gas. I suspect most people prefer to cook on whatever type of stove on which they initially learned to cook. </p>

<p>I don’t have a griddle built in on my cooktop but do have a grill. Like someone mentioned with the griddle, it is a pain to clean up. One of my sibs purchased an electric, countertop type griddle because her family also loves to make breakfasts on the weekend. She loves it, and it does present a less expensive option.</p>