A neighbour claims that an electric cooker would be cheaper to run than a gas cooker (he's worried by the recent 35% increase in gas prices by British Gas). I'm not so sure but can't find a way to check. Anyone know for sure ?
TIA.
I'm not sure either but having had both I can believe that an electric cooker is cheaper. The key point is that gas cookers are ventilated as they need oxygen and so are lit and using gas for the whole duration of the cooking. Electric ovens can be heavily insulated and use a thermostat.
Guy
but i know i'd much rather cook on gas than lecky anyday, with gas you adjust the flame to get the heat you want, lecky it's on-off-on-off-on-off all the time to hover around the temperature.
we've had gas all our lives, moved into an all electric place earlier this year, and hated the lecky cooker, took longer to cook everything due to the increased warm up time, and not being able to instiantly stop something boiling over by turning the heat down took a lot of getting used to,
This was on a cheapo lecky cooker, nothing fancy like a halogen or induction hob, but i'll take gas anyday, even paying extra to use it if needs be.
BTW all the gas ovens i've used have thermostats, just they alter the gas consumption to meet the heat needs rather than turning on and off at full power all the time like a lecky oven.
Anyone know
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Just two points to add:
a/ Gas cooker produces water vapour so cooked items tend to be moister than in electic ovens - relevent to cakes etc
b/ Energy consumed by the average cooker tends to be orders of magnitude lower than central heating - so probably he shouldn't panic.
AWEM
Gas cookers require better kitchen ventilation than electric. So whereas with electric you can open the window or door, or use an extractor when needed, with gas you have to have a permanent bloody great hole in the wall. Loss of heat through that quite possibly (pure guess, no calculation) exceeds any possible saving of using gas.
AIUI there have been two approaches to gas ovens. One has the flame within the oven. In the other, the flame is in a separate space outside the oven. So in the former, the water vapour does indeed contribute to cake cookery, in the latter it is little different. (But good fan ovens tend to be much more even than any gas oven I have used.) Not at all sure if both types are still available?
So switch to a differnt gas/electic supplier, BG are one of the most expenisve out there. Note that BG profits may have fallen dramatically but those of their owners Centrica are through the roof...
Well the energy required to cook and pan of spuds is going to be roughly the same no matter where that energy comes from so look at the bills and see how much you pay per kwHr for electricty and gas. Almost certainly
But modulated down by the thermostat in the case of an oven or by the user turning the gas down on the hob.
Gas oven have thermostats as well...
Had gas cooking now for 40 years and *never* had a vent in the wall just for that - or had BG complain about one during their many annual visits.
Although BG did complain many years ago (1981 I think) when I blocked off the vent in a room where a Baxi back-boiler was fitted- it was a bloody cold winter-wind that year and the snow had drifted up to the upstairs windows of two-story buildings (still got the photos)!
Tanner-'op
So would I. Halogen still has a significant thermal mass to heat up and cool down. Not as bad a solid hot plates though, they are awful. Not played with an induction hob, that in theory should be more like gas for cook cook, cookabilty.
The bang bang control of an electric hotplate is terrible as well. You can't leave something alone on our hob set to the lowest setting for more than 10 mins otherwise it will burn. In this day and age WTF can't they have a linear control from full right down to almost nothing?
Quite, I don't think a normal cooker needs anything more than normal kitchen ventilation. Mr Seritt will be along shortly I expect.
Boilers are a different matter they do need a free flow of air, assuming they are not room sealed.
It's a shame he is not concerned enough to have ditched BG years ago when they started introducing price rises. The first one was 40%, then nother 40%, then 20%, now another
30+%. He would be better off switching to a company that charges less - not following the crap advice by Martyn Lewis and paying EXTRA to stay with an already expensive company when the rest of us switch and save. I always wondered who he was paid by! I have saved hundreds by switching to a cheaper supplier around 3 years ago and NOT following advice to stay with BG, pay their increases and pay them extra so they wouldn't raise it for 12months. My supplier only raised prices by around 3%, so I was paying HALF of what I would have been following the bad advice from Martyn Lewis!
A permanet "bloody great hole in the wall" is only required if the volume of the room is less than five cubic metres. If between 5 & 10 cubic metres then an openable door/window is required. if greater than 10 cubic metres then no permenant venelation is required.
I only know oil versus electricity. Divide oil price in litres by ten and compare with a unit of electricity..
If you can work out the price and energy content of a unit of gas, in KWH, you should be close anyway.
Gas is easier because of te fast response time: you need to plan ahead with electric. Howveer once you have learnt to do that, and to simply remove pans from the hob to stop them boiling over, it gets easier. In the end there isn't much difference except wok cooking: very hard to get hot SIDES to a wok on an electric cooker.
snip
My supplier only raised prices by around 3%, so I
Perhaps you will be kind enough to share with the impoverished the name of the Gas and Electricity supplier whose kWh rates are half that of others
Accepted that the internal/external and room sizes are important in defining the ventilation required. Was recalling a small, internal kitchen which had required extra permanent external ventilation.
Do you remember "the milk test"? (from Gas advertising on TV in the 1970's) Our induction hob easily passes it.
Of course the only thermal mass with induction is in the pans themselves and (minimally) in the glass top. They must be pretty well as efficient as you can get with electricity.
BTW having used induction for a few years, there is NO WAY we would revert to gas for numerous reasons.
It's not easy to do as there is an element of postcode lottery in the pricing of energy, what any given supplier charges varies by region. The best bet is to visit several of the switching web sites and see what they come up with. Ideally you need your energy consumption for the last twelve months. Also don't trust the figures shown check the tarrif details particulary in respect of standing charges (seperate or included in the first x units). I think there is only one true "standing charge free" tarrif out there from Ebico - Equipower but this is only really useful if your useage is fairly low as the cost per unit, though fixed for all units, is higher than the cheapest normal type tarrifs.
Answer: check you bills. Both Gas and Electricity are priced in pence per kWh. Once you get past the high cost of the first few kWh's gas comes out at between 3 - 4 pence per kWh and electricity is about 12p. So, simplistically, assuming it takes the same amount of energy to boil and egg - and that your cookers are like-for-like then gas still comes out cheaper. . Pete Lynch I have learned from my mistakes and . Marlow ... I am sure I can repeat them exactly .
How much? I pay 8.415p/unit for our power from Scottish Power and only
10.67p/unit on Equipower. The E7 Equipower *day* rate is only 13.18p/unit... (+ 5% VAT).
While it might be a touch higher (i'm with them for both gas and elec) it's nice to see that any excess left over (they're non-profit) in the kitty is dished out to support community housing etc.
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