Hacker News Reader

Comment by pdog | Hacker News Reader

Do you know what isn't bad for your health? Good, clean healthy home-cooked food. Which, in millions of homes, is cooked swiftly and efficiently on gas ranges.

Politicians and their media lackeys in the media need to stop trying to micro-manage peoples' lives.

View on HN

Both (A) and (B) can simultaneously be true:

(A) "Healthy, home-cooked Food" >> "whatever stove type"

(B) "induction stoves" > "gas stoves"

The entire world, in general, aspires to rapidly move away from hydrocarbons. To me, that consideration alone would justify the inequality in (B) when you can afford the choice. Other considerations are a nice bonus.

We're already seeing this play out with municipal regulations deemphasizing gas stoves in new construction.

This isn’t constructive on two levels:

- people with gas stoves need to know the risks to mitigate them. Like paying attention to ventilation, or really ventilate as soon as they put on the stove. All the more so if they don’t have the means or the right to replace their stoves: they’re probably also more vulnerable to health related fees.

- there has been so much advertisement of gas as “fine” that it needs a lot if counterbalance. People are still buying gas stove for new homes for bullshit reasons.

I am a big fan of electrification but an induction range to replace my glasstop is on the order of $3-4,000 (and not in stock anywhere anyway) so I can't blame anyone for sticking with an old reliable gas range.

I was able to get an induction glasstop for $300 on ebay (new), then needed to get it installed of course.

I use $30 single pot induction stove everyday. I cook for 3 people. It’s placed on top of old school electric one with spiral elements since we live in a rental. Sometimes I use both, but it’s my go to.

I spent a year and a bit raging at the electric hob in my rented flat every time I cooked something. Replaced it with dual ring plug in induction hob and it’s better in every way, I’m actually able to cook food in a controlled manner again rather than endlessly pulling pans on and off the hob to compensate for a lack of power control.

In Europe you can get 4 burner stoves for under €250. IKEA sell a portable single burner for €40. Why are they so expensive in the US?

Using 110V instead of 220V means 4x the current , so a high power appliance must be much heavier duty, needs to be installed by an electrician, etc …

The USA uses 220V for appliances like stoves.

Europe often uses 3 phase 220V or 1 phase 380V for heavy loads like stoves.

That's not quite right. In Europe three phase wiring is delivered via a 5 core wire: 3 phases, neutral and earth (ground). You can take any phase wire, and the voltage between that and neutral will be 230V. For higher power devices, the voltage between any two phases will be 400V.

My induction hob can be connected to 1 phase or 3 phase power, there's a dip switch on the back to switch it over. I'd imagine inside it changes the voltage and frequency to something completely different depending on what power level you set the burner to, so the actual supply voltage isn't that important.

In the US, most people are buying a range (freestanding stove+oven), while I understand in Europe people are buying cooktops (stove only)

Yes, I have one of these $50 portable cooktops and it works OK but still takes forever to boil water. The expensive ones are actually as good as gas and I was pricing out the freestanding stove+oven, thanks for backing me up xD

I haven't been in houses in all European countries, but I've seen both. I think a range is cheaper (one appliance, one electrical connection), so you find it in cheaper apartments, cheap rentals etc. It might also be the only reasonable option if the kitchen is small.

A separate oven and hob usually means the oven isn't at knee height, which is much nicer. Decent apartments and houses in Europe have this, but so does my relative's million dollar house in the US.

Our old induction cooker cost us €600 more than a decade ago. It’s our old one only because we moved and the kitchen in our new flat had a gas one and we’d need to rip all apart and rebuild to remove it. But otherwise we used it for 11 years without any issue, so I would call that reliable.

https://www.amazon.in/Pigeon-Stovekraft-Cruise-1800-Watt-Ind...

dunno about the US but in india we use these. converted to US$, its like $18. they last about 2-5 years with good usage and if you are really unlucky with your spillovers and frayed cables, maybe less but other than that these things are reliable as fuck..

why do you have to buy thousands of dollars worth of equipment?

I have one of these and it's good for a portable unit but it takes about 10 minutes to boil water, whereas a high end unit will do it in a fraction of the time. I was also looking at replacing the entire stove, not just a burner, so something like this:

https://www.bestbuy.com/site/bosch-800-series-4-6-cu-ft-self...

you do understand the boiling of water and basically everything done on an induction cooker is dependent on the energy needed? this one is at 1800W 220V so your high end machine might be 3x or 5x that.

I don’t know where you live but we literally just did this yesterday – we picked a modest $1,300 unit, but there were multiple options at most price points in stock at most stores here in the DC area. I don’t know if there are specific features or brands you require but it doesn’t seem like there’s a massive supply issue or one specific to induction hardware.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com