gas oven and electric range?

[Ole Anderson]

We have always had an all electric range, 40+ years now. When I recently remodeled the kitchen with all new appliances, I opted for the dual fuel range. Went with the mid level GE Café series. I love the grill in the middle. Often I just clean it with a paper towel in place. Converts to a 5th elongated burner by just changing out the griddle for the grate. So far I like it. How does the saying go? "Now we are cooking with gas!"? I was not comfortable with a gas oven so that portion needed to be electric. Now we have a dual oven, the smaller one on the bottom is a drawer that can be used for warming or cooking clean things as it is not self cleaning, top is a convection oven I WILL learn how to use. I am practicing now as our microwave in the RV is also a convection oven, and our only oven in the RV. 3 months a year in that requires that we learn how to use it. But I am not used to the combustion products when using the gas cook top so I just leave the range vent on low. We did install a 600 cfm Broam rooftop vented range vent. Considered a convection range, but decided I wanted to do more cooking now that I am retired so I went with gas. I was a bit persuaded as my son's lady friend is in culinary school at midlife and just redid her kitchen with a dual fuel setup and loves it. With fire you have heat in an instant, and when you turn it off, no more heat. Our oven still requires a 40 amp 220 volt service.

[Shawn Pixley]

I always thought the modern pinnacle of cooking was an induction cooktop (range, hob, whatever). I'm sure there are induction slide in units that include an electric oven to go with the electric (induction) cooktop. I know those cooktops pull some juice (40A breaker) but it will be my cooktop of choice when we renovate our kitchen.

We had a house that had an induction cooktop. I didn't care for it much. We couldn't use our stainless steel or copper cookware. Sort of a pain.

[Curt Harms]

We had a house that had an induction cooktop. I didn't care for it much. We couldn't use our stainless steel or copper cookware. Sort of a pain.

That's the downside. I've heard that if a magnet won't stick to the bottom of a pan, it won't work with an induction cook top so no glass type cookware either.

[Charles Brown]

Shawn, controlling for the type of cookware required, do you have any thoughts or comments specifically about the performance of the induction range? I've heard its as responsive as a gas range while being as easy to clean as an electric range without the poor-er performance associated with the common electric cooktop.

[Mike Cutler]

Okay, ya'll have got tell me why you would prefer an electric oven over gas. What exactly Does an electric oven do, that a gas cannot?
I've been living in houses with gas ovens and ranges for most of my life, 54 years. I have a Viking gas cooktop and an American Range gas wall oven. I personally would not want an electric range, or oven.

[Jason Roehl]

Okay, ya'll have got tell me why you would prefer an electric oven over gas. What exactly Does an electric oven do, that a gas cannot?
I've been living in houses with gas ovens and ranges for most of my life, 54 years. I have a Viking gas cooktop and an American Range gas wall oven. I personally would not want an electric range, or oven.

I have a gas oven, it works just fine (my Midwestern-farm-girl-wife does a fair amount of AWESOME baking--that's not just my biased opinion, either), but I believe there are a couple advantages of an electric oven. One is that an electric oven doesn't produce combustion byproducts into the house. Sure, it's mostly water and carbon dioxide, but as we all know, no combustion is perfect, and there's that few seconds from the time the gas valve opens until the igniter gets the whole burner lit. Second is that an electric oven is better able to maintain a constant temperature. Gas ovens cycle, which causes a temperature swing.

[Shawn Pixley]

Charles,

With the right cookware it work fine. The model we had was a first generation (came with the house). It was easy to clean and it did feel safer with younger kids in the house. Ours seemed to take longer to heat than the current models. The control was good although we has the touch controls which seemed over sensitive. It was a bit too easy to modify the setting by brushing against it.

I am told the new models heat much faster (some claim fater than gas with a larger burner).

My biggest frustration was that I couldn't use some of our existing cookware. I had a nice 7.5 gallon stainless steel wort tun for making beer, nice stainless steel skillets / saute pans and a few copperware pieces that we liked a lot.

[Brian Elfert]

I have a gas range with gas oven. It does seem like the oven takes longer than it should to bake things. I haven't checked the actual temperature in the oven to see if the thermostat is working. I only lived briefly in a place that had an electric oven and I don't remember how it worked.

The element in an electric oven cycles on and off just the same as the gas cycles on and off in a gas oven. Gas may cycle less often if it heats faster.

[Jim Becker]

Dual fuel is generally considered the "optimal" design with gas on top for cooking and electric down below for very controlled baking/roasting heat. At the time I was doing my kitchen, I was not willing to dole out the extra (large) chunk of cash for the dual-fuel option on our 48" pro-style range, but in hindsight, I can see why dual-fuel is considered optimal. I don't have the cook time issue that Brian mentions with our oven, but the larger one is also convection equipped.

"Range" is the whole schmegeggie (cooktop and oven), AKA, "stove".