Gas or Electric hob

Discussion in 'Just Talk' started by koolpc, Aug 27, 2022.

  1. koolpc

    koolpc Super Member

    Which is the better of the two when it comes to costs? Gas or Electric hob?

    Running costs and purchase costs.

    Any particular brand to go for?

    Plus, typical cost for connecting up a gas hob? Rough price.
     
  2. ramseyman

    ramseyman Screwfix Select

    Got to be gas. Boiling a litre of water in a kettle costs approx double boiling on gas hob ( 3p v 1.5p) before recent price cap increase, which moves the cost difference even higher, Takes ages on gas though so many more considerations, is there a gas/electricity supply adjacent to the hob position. Do you already have an existing gas or electric hob etc etc.....
     
  3. quasar9

    quasar9 Screwfix Select

    Plus - gas hobs rarely if ever go wrong, bar the igniters, but even these are infinitely more reliable than any type of electric hob. IMHO, all gas hobs are technically identical, nearly, the money goes into pan support etc. at low end you may get bent steel supports where as at the top end everything is heavy duty metal inc cast iron supports, solid knobs etc.

    Mrs also says gas hobs are infinitely controllable and can be set to simmer etc but electric ones not so good and control appears “chunky”
     
  4. kitfit1

    kitfit1 Screwfix Select

    If as an electric hob you choose an Induction hob. It will be cheaper to run than a conventional electric hob and a lot less to run than a gas hob.
     
  5. CraigMcK

    CraigMcK Screwfix Select

    Induction hobs are just as controllable as they don’t have any residual heat on the plates. They are much easier to clean and due to the lower heat build up you don’t get things burning to the hob itself.
    I had a gas hob for years, but when we replaced the kitchen a few years back we fitted an AEG induction hob. We would not go back to gas
     
  6. quasar9

    quasar9 Screwfix Select

    You are probably right as our experience of electrics are largely Airbnb, mostly old fashioned element type and occasionally halogen.
     
  7. robertpstubbs

    robertpstubbs Screwfix Select

    if you go down the induction hob route, check that your pans are compatible.
     
  8. FlyByNight

    FlyByNight Screwfix Select

    Or what about a gas/electric combination?

    The only difference would be if you have solar with battery storage ...
     
  9. Muzungu

    Muzungu Screwfix Select

    We bought the cheapest unbranded induction hob on the market, at the time; this was about 5 years ago. No bells and whistles, four "ring" with touch sensitive controls. £145 at the time. Wouldn't go back to gas mainly due to the ease of cleaning. It still looks new and just needs a gentle wipe over.

    As others have said the heat is not infinitely variable, but that is not an issue for us. Ours also has a slight "pulse", so on simmer it boils more vigorously in a 3 second or so cycle, again not an issue for us and possibly a function of how cheap it was. As others have also said, check your pans are compatible. Can be quite expensive if you have to replace the lot.
     
  10. koolpc

    koolpc Super Member

    Ok, gas or induction then.

    Fittings for gas and elec in place.

    Nothing there yet as new worktop so yet to cut out ready for hob.

    Thinking of going electric for the oven. That a good choice?
     
  11. ElecCEng

    ElecCEng Screwfix Select

    I would go elec/elec. Blah blah energy prices… Having used gas and elec in many properties over the years i’d avoid gas like the plague. Kettle takes a minute odd to boil. Gas sometimes won’t even generate a rolling boil. Same goes for ovens. Also do you want a flammable (semantics) and potentially explosive substance flowing through your house? What happens when President P turns the gas off?

    I second @Muzungu sentiment. We have a £150 induction hob and a £1000 oven. TBH the oven does no better than a £150 Argos branded one. Avoid anything with fancy bells and whistles (steam, self clean, ‘it’s also a microwave’ etc). Any of those things it tries to do well, it’s doing less well at ‘ovening’.
     
  12. koolpc

    koolpc Super Member

    Ok, will look into it a bit more then. Always had a gas hob and elec oven but open to change. Cost and running costs important for me.
     
  13. ElecCEng

    ElecCEng Screwfix Select

    Check out SIA and CDA brands. Cheap as chips and very basic but perform well and decent warranty. I have minor gripes about the controls but they are simple. My folks have some thousands of pounds German thing and the controls are more complicated than the space shuttle.
     
  14. koolpc

    koolpc Super Member

    Induction?
     
    ElecCEng likes this.
  15. Hans_25

    Hans_25 Screwfix Select

    Elec/elec for me, induction hob and fan oven.
     
  16. AnotherTopJob

    AnotherTopJob Screwfix Select

    We've always found a gas hob and electric fan oven to be the best combination.

    As for costs, gas is (or was) 5 times cheaper per kW than electricity so I'd think it has to be cheaper to run.
     
  17. techie

    techie Screwfix Select

    Definate induction for me. Gas just heats the room as well
     
  18. koolpc

    koolpc Super Member

    Lots of different views, obviously.

    Cost is important. Initial and running costs.
     
  19. robertpstubbs

    robertpstubbs Screwfix Select

    Gas was about 5 times cheaper, about £0.04 v £0.20. Now it is only 4 times cheaper and will become 3.5 times cheaper. Per OFGEM:

    upload_2022-8-28_8-57-13.png

    Gas cooking is less efficient. I don't know many gas kWh you need to heat the food as much as one electricity kWh.
     
  20. MGW

    MGW Screwfix Select

    I looked up price of gas, and it seems rather variable, but around 50 p per kWh for bottled gas, so much for price cap.

    As to efficiency, my daughter demonstrated to me how much faster one can boiler and electric kettle full to mark with water at 2.8 kW compared with gas hob at 5.5 kW the electric was at least twice as fast.

    I repeated the experiment at home, 2.8 kW kettle compared with 3 kW induction hob, and they took same time.

    The induction hob has turned the tables, controllable enough to melt chocolate direct in the pan, no need for a bowl in boiling water, it auto turns off when you remove the pan, which must also save power, it has no naked light which is a safety feature, it auto turns down if it reaches a high temperature and auto off if temperature is still raising, as well as the auto off when removing pan, it has a child lock which the grand children love to set as gran can never remember how to turn it off, the surface is much cooler so should one trip and touch the ceramic if you do get burnt it is a lot less, again safety feature, and the ceramic is a good surface so pans are less likely to get knocked off. If left on depending on setting used it will auto turn off, higher the setting the shorter the time it can be left on for, and as long as it has knobs not silly touch controls the human machine interface is very good, plus features like auto boil then simmer, no combustion gases so the cooker hood can just use a simple carbon filter, and of course it does not heat up the kitchen as much in summer, or pump heat outside with cooker hood in winter.

    So all in all today electric has to be far better than gas, in fact if the gas cooker was invented today it would likely be banned as too dangerous, in fact after the Ronan Point they are banned in many buildings as being too dangerous.

    There is to be fair, one thing where the gas hob is better, use of a wok, the wok for electric is too heavy, but this summer I have been glad we have electric cooking, it reduces the amount of my wife's sweat I eat, keeping a kitchen cool with gas is near impossible. God knows the cost of using gas if one was to use an AC to keep kitchen at same temperature as when using electric.

    However as with all cookers there are good and bad, and often nothing to do with fuel type, oven shelves which can fall out, ovens with steam option, ovens where you can heat from top, bottom, side or back (mainly electric and solid fuel) and my mothers induction hob was removed because she could not see the touch controls in a wheel chair, before buying anything with touch controls, bend down to child's height and can you see if hob is on, and can you turn off fast or would you need to lift pan with boiling milk for example.

    If there is a spill is it contained, the hob should be slightly lower than work top so and small spill is retained within hob area, if a pan boils over you don't want everything on counter top to get wet, mothers hob was about 1/8th inch higher than work top, what a silly idea.

    Isolators is another point, clearly you don't want to reach across the hob to turn off the isolator, however last gas hob I looked at, isolator totally missing, to turn off in case of fire it needed you to run outside find a key for gas meter cupboard and turn off there, no local isolator should you not be able to reach cooker controls. Seems wrong way around, as with electric no source of ignition so very unlikely to have a fire, but still local isolator, and with gas naked flames but no isolator.

    Of course same with solid fuel, mother kitchen had quarry tiled floor so you could drop fire bars and carry the fire outside without damaging floor, and you could brush ashes outside, no threshold at door. She also had louvred windows to let out smoke and heat, no double glazing back then. Why people still use range cookers I don't know, but the old coke type seem to have been replaced with oil fired.
     

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