Future planning: Propane alternative to oil

That would be amusingly difficult on a modern bunded tank.

Reply to
Steve Firth
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Can't they just cut a hole in the outer and then screw a tap into the inner (I don't know enough about the tanks yet to know whether this is rubbish or not).

Reply to
Tim Streater

Local NFU man suggested says they heat up a scaffold pole and poke it through both layers of a plastic tank, leaving the excess to drain to ground.

AJH

Reply to
andrew

I think what is needed is a strong metal spiked fence all around the tank, 2 feet away from the tank. After all, by making it more difficult at one tank, the thieves will choose elsewhere. Tough on the neighbours I know, but it's worth several hundred quid as a one-off to protect £1500's worth of oil.

MM

Reply to
MM

Its a compromise, you need it to be robust enough to not break under normal use and to break under stress. I doubt a bird would break a wire glued to the surface, squirrels are a different game.

Reply to
dennis

Why bother when you can cut the feed pipe?

Reply to
dennis

I leak tested mine - it's a pretty obvious thing to do. Unfortunately the builders doing the extension didn't test the cut/join they did :-(. Replaced the ill-sized compression fitting they tried to use with a proper solder one, and all is good again.

One nice thing about a propane cylinder is on a quiet night you can hear it boiling gently when gas is coming out, even if just through a leak.

Reply to
Clive George

Get an induction hob. They're even better than a gas hob.

Everyone I ever showed ours to went out and got one themselves!

Reply to
Scott M

Specifically, in what way are they "better"? I use a ceramic hob, but I'm interested in a serious comparison of the various types.

Most of my existing pans are non-ferrous for a start...

Reply to
Frank Erskine

In message , Frank Erskine writes

Did you get them cheap from denise ?

Reply to
geoff

As far as I can tell, because the heat is generated directly in the bottom of your pan, rather than in the hob and then transferred by conduction to the pan. So things should heat more quickly, as less heat is wasted by never going into the pan. Also, when you remove the power, you haven't had to heat the hob up, so that heat is not wasted either.

In principle the hob is not hot at all, although it's gonna get some heat from the bottom of the pan being heated.

I've not seen one of these in action, so I've no idea whether the fact that it "ought to be better" actually makes it so.

Reply to
Tim Streater
[snip]

I'll put in a word if we can ever afford to redo the kitchen - but SWMBO may not be convinced.

Reply to
Tim Streater

The bottom of the pan forms a loop in which the induced current circulates. Iron is magnetic, ally is not. I can't remember if that means that you get a higher magnetic flux in the pan bottom, and hence higher current ( = more heating) or whether its to do with the skin effect - iron being magnetic means the current only flows in a thin outer layer of the pan bottom ( = more resistance, = more heating).

IIRC, the induction coil in the hob is not running at 50Hz, but at a much higher frequency, which is why the skin effect comes into it.

Reply to
Tim Streater

It's one of those things you have to make people try. Sadly take up of them is limited and they never have them in showrooms so it's hard to even see one, let alone play with one. It's a miracle anyone bothers selling them!

FWIW, I had a DeDietrich (ex-wife took posession in the divorce) which, although French, worked very well. The person we bought it from had upgraded to a five ring induction (four outer, one central large/Wok one) but the kitchen company wouldn't take the standard 4 ring back, so sold it unused. Woo!

Reply to
Scott M

I won't try and out-do Tim's physics piece (never my strong point) but the correct pan /is/ vital. A pan with an aluminium base[1] won't work at all.

Basically, anything heavy (ie steel/iron) you've already got is suitable. Light pans all tend to be aluminium so no good. Packaging on pans (and sometimes the bases themselves) come with a selection of symbols showing what they can be used on. Induction has a symbol of its own.

Oh, and you can even heat up roasting tins and the like to melt fat out of the bottom!

[1] There are some ally pans with induction suitable bases out there.
Reply to
Scott M

You can get induction hobs that work with non ferrous metals but not at a reasonable price. They do work by inducing currents but with ally pans the resistance is so low you need big currents and that means expensive electronics so it doesn't happen. With iron and steel they have a much higher resistance so the electronics can just be an on off triac with variable mark space ratio to control the power, really cheap. They also need a pan detector to make sure they only operate with the steel pans as the electronics go pop if you aren't careful.

You can see induction heating working with non ferrous metals if you go to a foundry where they have induction furnaces to smelt ally, etc.

I'm not so sure that's true on the cheap ones.

Reply to
dennis

Absolute nonsense. NOthing compares to a gas hob for cooking on.

Lemmings.

MM

Reply to
MM

Yeah, like all the professional cooks in the country, who use gas, are laughing at you!

MM

Reply to
MM

You've obviously not tried one.

Reply to
Scott M

The professional world and the domestic world are two completely different things.

Gas hobs are the only ones that'd survive in an industrial environment. Thumping great heavy pans of food around in a tearing hurry is going to wreck anything other than a gas hob since they're effectively just lumps of pig iron rather than being glass or ceramic. They've also got to cope with fluid being spilled all over them.

In a similar vein, professional cooks use uncoated pans. But, ask them what they recommend as a good purchase and they'll say non-stick. Reason being a Teflon pan wouldn't survive a week in a restaurant but that doesn't mean it's in some way inferior for home use.

You're obviously desperate to prove something but I have no idea why.

Reply to
Scott M

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