"...your gas stove, your health and climate change"

[aurora]

Full title: We need to talk about your gas stove, your health and climate change

www.npr.org/2021/10/07/1015460605/gas-stove-emissions-climate-change-health-effects

[aurora]

This article came across my Twitter feed this morning. I admit I didn't realize just how quickly a gas stove can worsen my indoor air quality.

[sonrisa]

Oct 7, 2021 8:49:32 GMT -5 aurora said:

This article came across my Twitter feed this morning. I admit I didn't realize just how quickly a gas stove can worsen my indoor air quality.

Me neither. I wonder if this is part of why a neighboring town has banned all gas in new construction. 

[Bernadine]

We have propane. I’ve been wondering what it would cost to convert to all electric, but wow, $35,000 is out of the question for us right now.

[RitzyHeifer]

I heard most of this on NPR this morning. It definitely made me rethink adding gas to my current all-electric house. Learning to cook on an electric stove after having gas for so many years has been different but not impossible.

It also reminded me of this article I skimmed last summer, “In defense of electric stove tops, the surface most Americans use”:
www.washingtonpost.com/food/2021/08/30/electric-stovetop-cooking-gas-cooktop/

[pixy0stix]

We have a gas range. I'll have to be more vigilant about using the hood (vented outside) when we use it. We've been starting to talk about when we replace our appliances (which will be a while) to switching to electric. The largest thing to replace will be the furnace, which we replaced 5ish years ago. We went with the most efficient we could find at the time, though, so at least it's not an old relic using a ton of gas.

[breezy8407]

Oct 7, 2021 9:04:48 GMT -5 sonrisa said:

Oct 7, 2021 8:49:32 GMT -5 aurora said:

This article came across my Twitter feed this morning. I admit I didn't realize just how quickly a gas stove can worsen my indoor air quality.

Me neither. I wonder if this is part of why a neighboring town has banned all gas in new construction. 

Dealing with these new laws at work. I think commercially, gas is still acceptable for food service. But they are banning it for things like boilers, roof top units, etc. Its a big change for buildings that are designed with gas as their primary HVAC source. 

[Susie]

We have a gas range, as well as a gas furnace, fireplace, hot water heater, and dryer.  We're also planning to put in an outdoor natural gas grill (vs. propane) and a whole house generator in the near term.  Our house is especially heavy on natural gas reliance.  We only bought it 3 months ago, but I admit I do very much prefer cooking on a gas stove.  

We do have an externally vented exhaust fan over the stove, and it for sure makes me want to use it more.  I've also been meh on whether to move from all gas to dual fuel when we eventually replace our range.  We upgraded to dual fuel in our old house, and I can't say I saw that much difference in a gas oven vs. electric.  I don't mind the oven being electric though, and if that improves air quality without giving up my gas cook top, I'm good with that.

I'm also fine with converting some of our other gas appliances -- the unsexy ones that the "gateway" appliance leads to, like the dryer and hot water heater -- to electric in the long term.  Probably not until the existing ones die though.  

[Poppy]

We have an unvented gas stove and an indoor air quality monitor, and it definitely registers on there quite obviously any time we use the stove. The AQI shoots up and was very similar this summer to when the smoke would start blowing in (Colorado front range). I'll try to remember to screenshot the next time we cook.

[wildrice]

Interesting. We live in an all electric house, which I thought was a downside because it's more expensive. Like, our HVAC is electric, which seemed nuts to me when we moved in because I'd never even heard of that before. I guess I'm glad? We live in a center unit townhouse so our energy bills aren't that bad anyway ($110-130 typically).

[minzy]

It sounds like it’s a good thing that I’m a terrible cook and don’t use my stove that often and the oven, hardly ever!

[VillainV]

I read a similar article last year about gas stoves and indoor air quality/health units, and I’ll never buy a house with a gas stove again.

[bears]

Interesting. I think I'll start by venting my gas cooktop. We don't have an overhead vent, but it is between the burners, which impacts the flame. However, sounds like I should be using it whenever the burners are on.

I'm kind of hesitant to switch appliances energy sources due to the impact that natural disasters have on our local electric grid. We lost power for five days after Hurricane Michael and it would have been unbearable without hot water, the fireplace, and the cooktop.

[tacokick]

I’m surprised that only 35% of homes cook with gas.

We have a gas stove, gas water heater and a gas boiler for heat (we have cast iron radiators) like most of my city. We used to have a gas washer/dryer but we capped that off.

We’d need to completely re-do the electrical system to get more electric appliances and electric boilers for radiator heat and their installation is $$. We obviously don’t have existing air vents so it’s not as simple as just switching to a furnace.

Can the local grids handle areas that are largely gas powered switching to electric?

I get the environmental issues but I’m not sure where the money to make that kind of switch would come from for most people. It would be a lot more than replacing like with like. Gas appliances are a lot cheaper as well.

Do we get any points for not having air conditioning?

[jlt19]

This is really interesting. We have a gas cooktop with a fancy little hood that you press a button and it comes up from the island, but I'm pretty sure it's not vented to the outdoors. I do have a snake plant close to it, so hopefully that'll take on some of the gases...

Working in the electric utility business, I have a hard time reconciling what is going to happen over the next 15 or so years as the need for electricity is going to massively grow due to the pushes away from gas powered anything. The fossil plants are having to shut down (which I totally get) but they also produce the most amount of electricity out of all the renewables combined, for far less cheaper and are able to be stored unlike the solar, water and wind productions. And apparently a wind farm takes out a TON of trees and/or farmland to be productive for the demands so that sucks too. I don't have the answers but I'm fairly certain it's not going to be Americans willing to lower their energy consumption b/c if the past 18 months has taught us anything, it's that we're selfish assholes who only care about ourselves.

[plutosmoon]

I currently have a gas stove, it has a vent fan which comes on automatically when the oven has been on for more than a few minutes. I believe the vent is a state law when gas stoves are installed. I doubt my current 1930s rental would have it unless required. I mean the landlord won't even install a door lock I can lock from the inside.

I had an electric stove in my last house, I prefer the gas, but am fine with electric switching from one to the other requires adjustment. I probably should confess my last home had oil heat because I couldn't afford a gas conversion, let alone an electric conversion.

Everything surrounding the move to all electric in my area is cost prohibitive. converting mentioned in the article is 35k, then you have the high cost of electricity (I pay over 20 cents a kwh). Most houses here are 100 amp, so there is the added cost of increasing amps. So you try to mitigate the high electric cost by looking at solar panels, but the lease is more than what you pay for electric or you are looking at another 35k to purchase panels. The energy tax credits are not refundable last I checked, so not much help for low income families there.

Until the government gets serious about providing subsidies for low and moderate income families for solar panels, electric conversion and the cost of electricity, we won't see a change. Electric grids can't support current demand how will they support an increase? This is the bigger conversation that needs to happen.

[carmenere]

Oct 7, 2021 9:04:48 GMT -5 sonrisa said:

Oct 7, 2021 8:49:32 GMT -5 aurora said:

This article came across my Twitter feed this morning. I admit I didn't realize just how quickly a gas stove can worsen my indoor air quality.

Me neither. I wonder if this is part of why a neighboring town has banned all gas in new construction. 

There are multiple safety issues. Within the last year two apartment complexes here in the north Atlanta suburbs had gas leak explosions - one of which displaced all 300+ residents of the complex.

PSA: if you think you smell gas, call the gas company to check it out ASAP. It may feel silly to have them come out and not find a leak but better safe than sorry.

[sonrisa]

Oct 7, 2021 12:09:20 GMT -5 carmenere said:

Oct 7, 2021 9:04:48 GMT -5 sonrisa said:

Me neither. I wonder if this is part of why a neighboring town has banned all gas in new construction. 

There are multiple safety issues. Within the last year two apartment complexes here in the north Atlanta suburbs had gas leak explosions - one of which displaced all 300+ residence of the complex.

Yes. A decade ago there was a big explosion in the Bay Area that killed eight people and leveled 25 houses. So that would have also been on their minds. Plus the environmental impact of natural gas. But perhaps inside air quality also played a role.

[dirtyred]

Oct 7, 2021 12:09:20 GMT -5 carmenere said:

Oct 7, 2021 9:04:48 GMT -5 sonrisa said:

Me neither. I wonder if this is part of why a neighboring town has banned all gas in new construction. 

There are multiple safety issues. Within the last year two apartment complexes here in the north Atlanta suburbs had gas leak explosions - one of which displaced all 300+ residents of the complex.

PSA: if you think you smell gas, call the gas company to check it out ASAP. It may feel silly to have them come out and not find a leak but better safe than sorry.

We moved into an all-electric house two years ago.  My DH asked if I was okay with an electric stove, and I said I was fine with it because our house was no longer an explosion waiting to happen.  He googled natural gas deaths and something like 400 people die every year because of natural gas (leaks, fires, etc.)

[noodleoo]

I'm always in the minority in that I hate my gas stove. But our house is all gas everything. We recently bought a new stove and I really wanted to switch to electric, but we would need to have a high voltage plug put in and that is apparently a bigger project than I thought, so it will have to wait. I think eventually I want to get an induction cooktop. We have a grill outside with a side burner and H does a lot of our cooking on it instead of inside the house (mostly to avoid the smell/mess).

I used to complain about our gas stove all the time and everyone disagreed with me and told me I'd end up loving it. Twelve years later and I still wish I had electric.

[macmars45]

My H and I are almost completely electric. Only our oven which doesn't vent outside and a stove which we don't use and don't ever plan to except if we lose power in the middle of winter. Eventually we'll get a battery so we can keep some of our excess solar from our panels and we'll use that instead. Another long term goal is to switch our stove to electric. I will be calling a handyman to see about venting our oven outside though as it is on an outside wall of our house.

[Aloe Vera]

Great. Our house has all gas and and gas range doesn't vent outside.
Converting to electric would mean calling an electrician. I don't know how much it would cost. Maybe I'll rent one of these NO2 monitors and see how bad it is in my house.

[rubytue]

I lived almost 50 years before I was in a house with a gas stove (this one). Everything else has been all electric, minus a could places with oil heat. I think Maryland is far too far north for heat pumps/electric heat. But other than that, I had no issue with electric stoves.

Now you’ve got me thinking about our hood. It is not on an exterior wall, nor does it go outside. I am really weird in that I can stand fan noise, so I wonder if I would use it as much as I should.

[wawa]

when we bought this house and started our renovation (10+ years ago...) we looked very seriously into either adding propane or running gas from the main street.
every option was too much hassle, so we went with electric backup geothermal for the HVAC system (which also heats our water in the summer) and all the other appliances are just electric.

some day we'll do the kitchen (when my elderly oven kicks the bucket) and the news that keeps coming out along these lines definitely solidifies that we'll just stick with the electric - probably an induction stove. all our pots and pans are already induction friendly with the exception of my canning pot.

[msmerymac]

I guess my MIL made the right choice, going with induction vs. propane when she remodeled her kitchen.

[TBM]

Our previous house had a vent that didnt vent outdoors. I was always concerned about it, but nobody else seemed to be, and we never did anything about it.

Even before we remodeled the kitchen in this house, we knew we would be adding an lp cooktop, and had someone check the roof to see if it would work where we wanted to put the cooktop. It turned out that there was already ducting and a vent there, so that worked out well.

Our hood vent is apparently very strong. The county made us put in some kind of automatic intake, so in the event that all of the air was sucked out of the room it wouldn't form a vacuum or something. lol Better too much than too little.

[aurora]

Oct 7, 2021 10:50:33 GMT -5 tacokick said:

I’m surprised that only 35% of homes cook with gas.
...

I just thought it through, and of the five places I've lived for any real amount of time only one has had a gas stove. Unfortunately for this article it's our current one.

We don't always use our hood because the fan is really loud. I guess it's time to fix that, at least.

[aurora]

Oct 7, 2021 9:22:04 GMT -5 Poppy said:

We have an unvented gas stove and an indoor air quality monitor, and it definitely registers on there quite obviously any time we use the stove. The AQI shoots up and was very similar this summer to when the smoke would start blowing in (Colorado front range). I'll try to remember to screenshot the next time we cook.

This is very interesting. Maybe I should get an indoor air quality monitor.

[aurora]

Oct 7, 2021 10:53:46 GMT -5 jlt19 said:

This is really interesting. We have a gas cooktop with a fancy little hood that you press a button and it comes up from the island, but I'm pretty sure it's not vented to the outdoors. I do have a snake plant close to it, so hopefully that'll take on some of the gases...

Working in the electric utility business, I have a hard time reconciling what is going to happen over the next 15 or so years as the need for electricity is going to massively grow due to the pushes away from gas powered anything. The fossil plants are having to shut down (which I totally get) but they also produce the most amount of electricity out of all the renewables combined, for far less cheaper and are able to be stored unlike the solar, water and wind productions. And apparently a wind farm takes out a TON of trees and/or farmland to be productive for the demands so that sucks too. I don't have the answers but I'm fairly certain it's not going to be Americans willing to lower their energy consumption b/c if the past 18 months has taught us anything, it's that we're selfish assholes who only care about ourselves.

This is not true in general (I'm sure one could always find an exception). Wind farms are huge but the space between turbines is usually very compatible with farming or ranching. Wind farms are usually not located in forested areas.

[wawa]

Oct 7, 2021 14:54:07 GMT -5 aurora said:

Oct 7, 2021 10:53:46 GMT -5 jlt19 said:

This is really interesting. We have a gas cooktop with a fancy little hood that you press a button and it comes up from the island, but I'm pretty sure it's not vented to the outdoors. I do have a snake plant close to it, so hopefully that'll take on some of the gases...

Working in the electric utility business, I have a hard time reconciling what is going to happen over the next 15 or so years as the need for electricity is going to massively grow due to the pushes away from gas powered anything. The fossil plants are having to shut down (which I totally get) but they also produce the most amount of electricity out of all the renewables combined, for far less cheaper and are able to be stored unlike the solar, water and wind productions. And apparently a wind farm takes out a TON of trees and/or farmland to be productive for the demands so that sucks too. I don't have the answers but I'm fairly certain it's not going to be Americans willing to lower their energy consumption b/c if the past 18 months has taught us anything, it's that we're selfish assholes who only care about ourselves.

This is not true in general (I'm sure one could always find an exception). Wind farms are huge but the space between turbines is usually very compatible with farming or ranching. Wind farms are usually not located in forested areas.

you're out west, aren't you?  around here (thinking of PA mostly) they tend to be on ridge lines, and said mountains are still treed because they're smaller than yours.  

looks like this when freshly installed:
But I woudln't call this a TON of clearing...and they do tend to replant around them except for access road and right around the base.