Confession: I invested in a really nice gas stove ("cooker") last year after a salesperson, in full EU fashion, tried to convince me to buy an induction stove ("cooker") instead.
— emptywheel (@emptywheel) January 12, 2023
I will die earlier, I guess, but I will treat every use of that stove ("cooker") with joy.
The consistent reports on this problem (I first heard about it on NPR some months ago) is the risk it poses to children. That risk is increased in cases of poor ventilation, a problem that applies much more to low-rent housing than it does to a home where they can afford a Wolf range (all the rage 20 years ago; probably not selling at all now. What do I know?).And FWIW, I did have what I now understand to be a pretty nice induction stove in a rental for some months.
— emptywheel (@emptywheel) January 12, 2023
I still bought the gas.
And I'm still seriously confused why this isn't a problem for gas water heaters and gas furnaces. I have both, and neither has a special powered vent that lets the NO2 escape the confines of the house. There is a vent for the water heater, but it's just a draw flue similar to a fireplace chimney in function. The furnace is in the attic. (I grew up with one on the house proper). I can smell it everytime it fires up (rare here on the Third Coast, but still). It has no separate vent through the roof, as the water heater does. I don't know the properties of NO2: does it sink, rise, hover, dissipate easily? slowly? Ever? If it's a problem for a gas stove, why not for the other gas appliances?
I mean, I think burning natural gas in a house is an issue, but how much of one? I also have two space heaters in the bathrooms (one each). Same type I grew up with. They definitely were used in a closed space (the whole point was to trap heat in the bathroom, so you closed the door). They were our only source of heat for a week during the infamous February winter storm two years ago. Can't say as I suffered any real cognitive deficit because of my childhood, or after that week of keeping our bathrooms closed and warm.
I'm not saying this to draw conclusions, I'm saying I agree with the posture of the one director of the CPSC who raised this issue: study and research needs to be done. But I also agree with emptywheel: I grew up with an electric stove (induction didn't exist) and I got gas as soon as I could. I've seen induction cooktops. They're just electric stoves without the element ring, to me.
OTOH, I do turn on my ventilation fan whenever I turn on a burner. Didn't used to do that. On the other, other hand, when I was a child I had asthma. No, not from a gas stove (my mother insisted on electric); because my father smoked like a chimney. I have memories from childhood of standing in the den where the smoke from his pipe (he tried to give up cigarettes for a while) was a dense layer hanging at about the height of my head in the room. It was all of LA in a small space. I figure I survived that, I'll survive a gas range burning once in a while.
But study and research are the key.
That doesn’t mean we can’t have fun with it.The CRT came in through the open border! https://t.co/jDBjJmBvVA
— Norman Ornstein (@NormOrnstein) January 13, 2023
Our mother saw a house blow up due to a gas leak, in the city so it was probably natural gas, and as a result we were a combination wood-stove-electric range family. My brothers use gas. I use a pressure-cooker a lot to save on electricity. When my range goes, if I don't go first, I'll replace it with an electric hot plate.
ReplyDeleteSame potential problems with gas water heaters as well, but I think the contained nature of their combustion and standard venting directly to the outside mitigate the risk more than something that combusts right there in front of you (hood vents don't do enough, apparently). Even still, it is recommended that you have a carbon monoxide detector where your heater is.
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