Why do so many people hate electric stoves and love gas stoves?

[Jurrasic]

gas stoves are bad and electric stoves are good, because gas is not clean burning 100% of the time and emits toxins and can be dangerous if the windows aren't open / fan is not turned on.
I was watching HGTV and these people were looking for a house and said they didn't even want to buy the house because it had an electric stove. It's so weird, and it's not the only time on that show people turned down a house just because of the electric stove, but you'd think it would be the opposite thing, with the carbon monoxide risk of gas stoves?

 

[uby]

I can't speak for everyone, but electricity can cost much more than gas depending on your location. My gas bill is $5/month and I have a gas stove, water heater and HVAC heater. My electric bill, on the other hand, which is needed for the HVAC air conditioner, appliances, etc. can be nearly one and half orders of magnitude more expensive.

Cost aside, many electric stoves (the ones without resistive elements) utilize induction heating, which precludes the use of certain types of pans. Also, some cooks simply prefer to have a flame.

 

[phinds]

Your logic is totally flawed because you are focusing on energy savings. That's not what stoves are for. If you want to conserve energy, eat raw foods and do not use either one, or build a fire pit in your back yard.

Stoves are for cooking and gas stoves are MUCH preferred by many people for a number of COOKING reasons, and sometimes economic reasons (as uby said, electrics are WAY more expensive).

 

[turbo]

My wife and I both love to cook, and we only use gas stoves. The only time we have used electric stoves is when we were young and were moving around so I could chase construction jobs. Most apartments had electric stoves.

Electric cook-tops with conventional resistive coils heat up slowly and they cool down slowly, so you have to to watch them closely. Also, it's very easy for those coils to overshoot on warm-up, giving you more heat than you actually wanted. Gas burners are much more forgiving, and cool-down times are more a function of the mass of the pan, rather than the slow response of a burner.

 

[Matcon]

As long as you have gas in your bottle, you have heat. Electricity supply is subject to lengthy interruption, especially in winter in the area where I live.

 

[triden]

People who cook love gas. Its hotter and heats up quicker. You can boil a pot of water in about half the time of a regular electric range. Also, the factor of heat distribution comes into play. If your electric coil top or pan is not perfectly flat, you will get hot spots and could potentially burn some food. When you have a flame, the heat is evenly distributed and you get a nice even sear. Gas is much nicer to cook with.

 

[turbo]

People who cook love gas. Its hotter and heats up quicker. You can boil a pot of water in about half the time of a regular electric range. Also, the factor of heat distribution comes into play. If your electric coil top or pan is not perfectly flat, you will get hot spots and could potentially burn some food. When you have a flame, the heat is evenly distributed and you get a nice even sear. Gas is much nicer to cook with.

Yup, yup, and yup.

Gas is much nicer for people who have to (or just love to) cook. Visit a real kitchen (in the back of a $$$ restaurant) and see what the cooks are using. My wife and I love to cook, and when we bought our last house, we found a gas drop-in range/oven that would fit (NOT an easy thing!) to replace the cheap electric drop-in and never looked back. There was already a gas stove in this place when we bought it, but we wanted more burners and higher heat-capacity, so we upgraded. If you live in a rural area, it's pretty darned nice to be able to cook when the electricity is out for a day or two.

 

[Dale]

People who cook love gas. Its hotter and heats up quicker. You can boil a pot of water in about half the time of a regular electric range. Also, the factor of heat distribution comes into play. If your electric coil top or pan is not perfectly flat, you will get hot spots and could potentially burn some food. When you have a flame, the heat is evenly distributed and you get a nice even sear. Gas is much nicer to cook with.

We have had gas burners and electric and we liked the gas for the reasons that you cite but we liked the resistive electric for the ease of cleanup. So we now have an induction cooktop. It has all of the above advantages of gas with the easy cleanup of electric. I don't think that we will ever go back to either gas or resistive.

 

[Evo]

gas stoves are bad and electric stoves are good, because gas is not clean burning 100% of the time and emits toxins and can be dangerous if the windows aren't open / fan is not turned on.
I was watching HGTV and these people were looking for a house and said they didn't even want to buy the house because it had an electric stove. It's so weird, and it's not the only time on that show people turned down a house just because of the electric stove, but you'd think it would be the opposite thing, with the carbon monoxide risk of gas stoves?

Many people love electric stoves, I do. Electric stoves don't blow up and kill you. I had a very good friend that was blown up by a gas stove, his nose was blown off, his eyes seared shut, the flesh on his hands burned off, his mouth seared shut. He lived in an intesive care burn center for a couple of years, he looked like a creature from a horror movie, then finally died after years of the most horrific disfigurement and pain the mind can imagine.

 

[flyingpig]

Are electric stoves the ones where when you touch the stove it doesn't burn you, but it still heats? If yuo are, I love those because it's easier to clean. Also I have this constant fear of cooking near a fire...

 

[Newai]

One of the highrise apartment buildings I lived in was all gas stoves. I had to call the FD on my neighbor because he had turned on his gas but the pilot light was out. He was too out of it to realize that because someone busted up his face. We could smell the gas in the hallway.

I moved out that month.

 

[Insanity]

I prefer gas for cooking, you have much better control over the cooking temp with an adjustable flame then you do electric burner. Was always burning food on electric. Will probably never own an electric stovetop again. Most modern gas stoves and ovens don't have a pilot light anyways, they use electric ignition so there is much less danger of gas leaking when using them.

I have also considered building a fire pit in the back for cooking.

 

[tkav1980]

I've been in the restaurant industry for the past 16 years and held every positin except executive chef and owner. the answer is temperature control. Cooking as all about temperature control and ecectric stoves really suck at that. You won't find an electric stove in any restaurant kitchen.