I have a house in NY and a house in Alabama. Natural gas/Mobile and propane/NY. I don't do enough cooking while down South to be able to make helpful comparisons. What I can mention is that in upstate NY I have 2 rather medium sized propane tanks .. both stored in a lovely trellised sort of housing that's just about "invisibly" attached to side/rear of garage (attached to house).

I'm totally satisfied w/propane.

Most stoves lose some heat when burning propane. A few, like Bluestar, do not.

Excepting these propane specific models, you'll need a propane conversion kit for most appliances: doing without is potentially dangerous.

Check local ordinances regarding tanks-- not supposed to be installed within 10ft. of a building with electricity in my area. We are allowed to bury them, though you have to buy a special tank for that, as opposed to renting for next to nothing from the gas supplier.

Propane works as well as natural gas, as long as the stove is set up for it. They generally have to be special ordered (better) or converted (not quite as good), because propane only accounts for 5-10% of gas appliance sales. You will probably never notice a difference.

In my area, you are limited on tank size. In my area, it can be installed next to a house, but must be 10 feet away from an opening window. Local regulations are generally very strict on who can install the propane plumbing. It varies from county to county (in some places plumbers are OK, but not in others) but the propane companies can give you all these details.

Check with several propane companies, as the offers and prices seem to vary quite a lot from company to company. In my area, you got a break on propane price if you install three or more devices that use propane, and let me tell you, switching to a propane water heater can save you some real $$$, plus it heats up twice as fast as electric..

A large tank will not need filling as often, and is great for emergencies, like power outages, storms, etc. Most ranges can be lit with matches, but not all. Check this out too. In my case, the burners can be lit without electricity, but not the oven.

We have propane at our vacation home in the PA. mountains and natural gas at our residence in NJ. Our furnace, hot water tank and gas cooktop all run off our propane tank. We have a 1000 gallon tank buried in the back yard. It also heats the apartment over the garage. At home we have natural gas. I honestly cannot tell the difference between the amount of heat generated by the 2 different systems.

Both cooktops heat quickly and we've never noticed a lack of power. Our appliances were ordered for propane gas and there was no problem getting them in a timely fashion. They is no difference as far as servicing them either.

In addition to our wood burning fireplace we took advantage of the propane and installed a cute little Jotul gas stove in our bedroom.

With the addition of a small generator to power the refrigerator, water pump, furnace fan and some lights we're ready when the power goes out.

I learned here some ranges come either way as mentioned above and there is no loss of BTU's then. I did call some companies and they were able to tell us the loss of BTU's if the modification is necessary from a Natural gas to Propane and it varies from different companies. Wolf is another that does the range either way.

We just had a propane tank buried in our yard. 250 gallons; in addition to the range, it will also go to one of the fireplaces; could have also used it for the outdoor grill, but there were so many issues with the company, in the end I was just concerned about getting my range to work! Also, we're going to be putting in a patio next year and I didn't want to be wedded to where the grill would go. We used to have the ugly tank outside the window. Much happier now, even though it was kinda pricey. My range was purchased specifically for LP, BTW.

Mcmann & Coleen,
Please tell us the brand name of your LP ranges.
Thanks!

You might want to research induction cooktops....they are up and coming in the U.S. and work just as well if not better than gas. There is a lot of information about induction on this site. I am presently deciding between propane or induction since natural gas is not an option in my town. My friends who cook with propane think the performance is fine and really have no complaints. I personally think the asethetic looks of a gas cooktop with the grates and burners is much more appealing/charming. The pros for induction cooktops include ease of cleaning, no worries of explosion of a propane tank, good energy performance, less heat emitted into the room, precise simmer setting, quickly boils water...some say faster than gas...and lots more. There is a good website that I believe is called "the induction site" which has a lot of information. If you google induction cooking you are sure to find a lot of infomormation. Good luck!

The cooktop is a GE Profile 4 burner propane cooktop and we have a separate GE Profile 30" electric oven. Since we have a back up generator we could power the electric oven if need be.

Both models were purchased and installed in 1997 so I'm not sure if anything currently on the market would be comparable. The closest I could find on the GE web site for the cooktop was JGP970BELBB. We also have the telescoping downdraft since this is on our island. I would have no trouble purchasing another propane cooktop - I just wouldn't go with the black tempered glass - it shows every speck of dust.

The BTU rating on the propane cooktop is only 11,000 but it heats nearly as fast as our natural gas burners on our Dacor Epicure cooktop that are 15,000. There is a difference, it's just not that noticeable.

I have a Capital Precision; used to have a GE Profile dual fuel. The Capital is all gas (LP)