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jyl_gw

Gas or Electric?

2 years ago

For some appliances, we have the choice between gas and electric. Ranges, ovens, dryers, water heaters, even household heating.


Do you have a preference between gas and electric?


If so, why? Is it a cost thing, an environmental thing, a performance thing, etc? I realize it may depend on the location. By ”gas” I mean either nat gas or propane.



Comments (9)

  • 2 years ago

    Range/ cook top: induction!!!!!!!. You eliminate the fumes of open-burning gas, and the excess heat it gives off. You also gain far more responsiveness than radiant electric- I find ours equal to or more responsive than gas. It's also safer. No pan? No heat?. It's so easy to clean- nothing ever bakes on, nor do you have to lift and clean under heavy grates.

    I could go on. But I think you can see I'm a huge fan.

    John Liu thanked G W
  • 2 years ago

    That was supposed to be no pan? No heat. I no longer worry about my husband's bad habit of leaving dish towels on the stove top.

    John Liu thanked G W
  • 2 years ago

    The parents have had electric since the first house built in 1964 (after an apartment and a rental house which both were gas). I've always had electric (apartment, first house, second house). There's no natural gas in my current little subdivision outside town and the builder opted not to do propane. Two sisters have gas for cooking, neither for clothes dryer, one has gas heat, one has electric heat. The maternal grandmother had gas (range and space heaters) for her entire duration. I found the waste heat generated by the gas range to be outrageous, both during summer and winter but particularly during the summer (window A/C in the kitchen could not handle it).

    John Liu thanked dadoes
  • 2 years ago

    It all depends on too many factors. We’ve lived in places where natural gas was significantly cheaper than electric so we went with gas as much as we could. Right now we live in a place where electric is cheaper than propane (we have no natural gas option here) but we get winter storms with frequent outages and don’t want total reliance on electric, and even our generator has fuel options. For our tankless water heater, it’s a performance thing and gas is just better than electric. Too many factors to give one answer across the board.

    John Liu thanked skmom
  • 2 years ago

    So, we currently also live in an area with frequent electricity outages in the winter. But we are also in a mostly mild winter location. (On the coast of the PNW, but surrounded by mountains and can easily be stuck in our house for days or weeks at a time.) We went with propane for all of our cooking, and our water heater. We have individual, electric heaters for each room of the home because we opted for no central hvac system. We have no AC as it’s not needed here. We have a whole house generator that we can switch on if needed and we can have that hooked up to portable propane tanks. (Because gasoline won’t be easy to access during those times as we are too rural and the nearest gas station is over a mountain pass. We didn’t opt for one that can hook up to natural gas because we don’t have that available here.) We did not opt for wood burning stove (though our home was originally designed for it) because we discovered while building that my allergies were too intense for it. (What can I say... we never had it before and I grew up in Florida, so we didn’t know I’d have issues.) It can easily be added later if someone desires.
    I did seriously consider induction for cooking because the ease of cleanup appealed to me a great deal, but I’m really glad we went with propane instead. Last winter, our first winter in our home, we got stuck in one section of our neighborhood for 5 days due to an ice storm. (Steep hills, couldn’t get more than 3 houses down the street before it was too icy. No salt trucks here.) We were lucky in that we didn’t lose power for more than an hour or two at a time, and only a few times during that week. But I was glad that cooking was never hampered and that we didn’t need to fire up the generator.

  • 2 years ago

    We've historically had natural gas furnaces because they are much less expensive to run and I live where it's cold in the winter. If I had the choice I'd get gas hot water heater and dryer as well because of the less expensive fuel but we buy existing homes and take what we get. I used to require a gas cooktop until I discovered induction - now I'll never have gas again. With modern day electronics, some gas appliances won't work without electricity so that's not a factor for me. I did once benefit from a gas range during a three day power outage as I could use the cooktop though not the oven. Have since installed a whole house generator at that place.

    John Liu thanked 3katz4me
  • 2 years ago

    Electric range/cooktop - but only if it's induction. Since that's electric, the oven must as well be electric as well. I've got a heat pump rather than a furnace/AC, and that's electric too.....They're really efficient and effective, and I recommend it to anyone in the process of adding or replacing their HVAC system.

    I've always had natural gas heating in the past, not by choice but absolutely fine, but I now live in an area that doesn't have natural gas. And I don't miss it.

    John Liu thanked Toronto Veterinarian
  • 2 years ago

    I generally lean electric from an environmental standpoint. Our cars and lawn stuff (except large tractor) are all electric. New boats will be electric.

    That said...

    • Electric for clothes dryer. Gas can leave a smell.
    • Our furnaces and boilers (heating & DHW) are gas, electric would cost about ≈2x.
    • My studio is heated w/ in-floor (gas) + heat pump mini splits (elec)
    • Gas & Electric for cooking. Gas is better for some things. More: https://bamasotan.us/2020/12/the-kitchen/




    John Liu thanked opaone
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