Dual Fuel/All Gas Cookers

[Hysteresis]

Can anyone offer any advice regarding the Selection of Dual Fuel or All Gas Cookers
I see that most suppliers offer Dual Fuel as an option.
Why there is an option puzzles me because if you have gas to the hob it would seem obvious for power cost reasons to use Gas for the ovens, but I must be missing something here.

My question is that heating by Electric is approximately 5 times more expensive than Gas per kWh, therefore it seems to me that Gas ovens are the cheaper to run by a factor of 5.
I may be misunderstanding the power consumption of the two choices in that an oven cavity may typically be 1 kW. To provide this energy by electricity would cost five times as much as Gas, but of course this may not be the full story.
An electric oven will consume typically 1kW whilst heating up the cavity, but of course when up to temperature the Electrical supply will be switched off or at least modulated so that the energy actually being consumed will be only effectively the heat losses the oven radiates externally. This is the same for the Gas oven but as the power supplied is modulated, when up to cooking heat temperature the total power consumption in say 3 hours will NOT be 3 kWh but substantially less than this due to modulation of the power source.
If one considers a typical usage of an oven would be say 10 hours per week which equals 10kWh and therefore 500 kWh per year.
Typical costs for Electric power is 13p/kWh and gas 3p/kWh. the difference being 10p/kWh, the difference in cost for the supply of this energy would be around £50 per year which is not insubstantial. But if modulation is taken into account then the difference 'may' come down to maybe £20 per year which is more acceptable.
I have no idea what the Modulation Factor is for these devices and asking the question to manufacturers does not produce meaningful dialogue.

This begs another question which is:- Is the electrical power to an oven Modulated (similar to gas in that the gas supply is turned down as the oven heat up) or is the electrical power supplied either On or Off? i.e. Bang/Bang control

Has anyone any advice or figures relating to the cost of using an Electric oven to Gas oven.

The information would be very useful to me when choosing my next cooker.
I need to decide on fully Gas or Duel fuel and the Cost of use is the determining factor.

It would seem to me that if I have a gas Hob it would most cost effective to have Gas ovens also, but if I am right the Oven manufacturers would never produce Dual Fuel Cooker.

Hope this makes sense, but I need advice from some one who know about these issues as clearly I have no idea at all and can't get manufacturers to engage in a discussion.

 

[flameport]

Electric oven thermostats are either on or off. There is no modulation.

Manufacturers make what people want - gas ovens are unpopular because they are rubbish at cooking things properly.

 

[gasbanni]

Gas ovens are superb when the user becomes familiar with them, they all vary a little due to the allowable tolerances of the thermostat.
Professional cooks much prefer gas ovens. Nearly all prefer gas hotplates 2/3rds prefer gas ovens.


https://www.thedailymeal.com/cook/5-reasons-top-chefs-prefer-gas-cooktops

 

[winston1]

Wives seem to prefer electric ovens. They don't see the bills. They perceive electric ovens as cleaner as there are no products of combustion.

 

[JP_]

Funny, I just bought a dual fuel cooker from AO. We love gas hobs, but prefer electric ovens and electric grills.
What would be better maybe is to have one gas oven and one electric in a range. But not seen that.

 

[jj4091]

They perceive electric ovens as cleaner as there are no products of combustion.

Why should they burn more food with gas than electricity

 

[Harry Bloomfield]

Manufacturers make what people want - gas ovens are unpopular because they are rubbish at cooking things properly.

That is not my experience of gas ovens at all. Our choice here is gas oven and gas hob. We have it wired for both an electric and gas ovens & hobs. Gas ovens are not quite as economic as being one fifth of the Kw to run, because they have to have much more ventilation in the oven cavity. Our choice is also to have a gas hob, simply because they are more controllable, though electric hobs are now much better in this respect, than they were.

 

[bernardgreen]

For what it is a worth I have a two ring Neff gas hob and a matching two ring Neff induction hob. ( Domino range )

Both have good and bad points but on the whole I prefer to use the induction hob.

Oven is a Neff electric. The cooking cavity is sealed so flavour and aromas do not escape into the kitchen, ( unlike gas ovens which have to be vented to provide air for the gas to burn, )

 

[JP_]

I don't mind electric hob too much, but my wife burns everything. Without a flame she has no way to determine the heat of the ring. Apparently the numbers mean nothing. Gas it is!

 

[winston1]

Why should they burn more food with gas than electricity

They shouldn't but they do burn gas (a product of combustion). These products (of combustion) are vented into the kitchen.

 

[jj4091]

They shouldn't but they do burn gas (a product of combustion). These products (of combustion) are vented into the kitchen.

It was a joke Winston, hence the smiley.

 

[ericmark]

Electric has improved, and that includes oven and hob, gas is wasteful but cheap to start with, but to burn gas the air has to be renewed to get more oxygen so there is a constant change of air, and the hot air goes into the kitchen, so the kitchen needs extractor fans both to remove combustion produces and heat, cooker hoods need to vent outside there is no real option for using a simple carbon filter, so there is a lot involved with burning gas where for safety reasons it is still allowed, after Ronan Point it was not permitted in many buildings.

My electric oven has I think 4 elements arranged on a 12 way switch so you can select how the oven heats, top, side, back, with or without fan. Better ovens also have steam, and it is well insulated so although there is a cooling fan to keep outside cool, most of the heat is retained in the oven, there is no reason why a gas powered oven can't have a heat exchanger clearly oil and solid fuel ovens use a heat exchanger, so the flue gases are kept away from the food, may be there are some? but I have never seen any, I suspect you can get a gas fired range cooker? but personally I want to keep kitchen cool.

The induction hob has been the main change, the old electric hob was slow, and stayed hot long after it was switched off, and control was also slow, pre-induction I can see why people wanted gas, but the induction is faster than gas, safer than gas, and heats the kitchen less than gas, as to running costs likely on par, although gas is more wasteful it costs less to buy, but I have yet failed to find a gas cooker that auto turns off when pan is removed, or auto turns off at all, all the safety features found with induction are missing with gas, however will admit if using a wok then gas is better as pan can be lighter, and many an induction hob is spoiled by use of touch controls, induction can react very rapid, as the milk pan starts to boil like gas you can turn off rather than lift the pan, as long as the human machine interface (HMI) is also fast, a knob works great, many touch controls are simply too slow.

As to modulation v mark/space control, with old electric there was likely a minute between the mark/space, but with solid state control that has reduced, so one would find it hard to see the difference between modulation and mark/space now, to use multi elements with a 32 amp supply is great, but with a 13 amp supply it needs some time sharing, and I know my mothers built in oven may have had same features to our stand alone, but they time shared with the built in oven so did not work as well.

Some features like closed door grilling work very well, only need to turn bacon once as the fan heats under bacon as well as on top, however the problem is lack of cook books to tell you how to use it. Mrs Beeton lived just as gas was being experimented with, but there were not really any gas cookers when she was alive, so she would have used a range cooker, with the range cooker you have dampers to direct the flue gases so you can heat areas of the oven as you can now with electric, and I am sure there would have been instructions on how to heat oven depending on what food is being cooked, but buy a Mrs Beeton cook book today and it has instructions like gas mark 4, she never had gas, and even if she had one of the early cookers, it would not be calibrated as gas marks. They have clearly been rewritten and instructions for solid fuel removed and gas added.

I know my mother would either allow oven to raise or fall in temperature when baking as as yet not seen a programmable oven where you can set it to raise or fall in temperature while baking, unlike the solid fuel, I know some things the fire was allowed to burn out, as a boy I was told, don't put any coke on the stove, I am letting it burn out, but being a boy I was not taught how to cook.

I am sure if the gas cooker was invented today, it would be banned as not being safe.

 

[Hysteresis]

Thanks so Much Everyone for your Posts. They were useful and informative.
Good point regarding Gas Oven requirement for Air flow through the oven effecting the efficiency.
IS there any source of information on Energy consumption of Gas ovens. Electric oven details are available and typically 0.9 kWh but there does not seem to be the same statistic for any Gas ovens for Gas consumption. That number would be be definitive as it would take the leakage into the equation and make the financial statistics easy..
With that figure the decision resolves down personal preference.
Also The comments on Induction hobs is very useful. I think it is necessary to use Aluminium or Copper pans on such units, clearly Cast Iron pans are useless and steel not recommended.
The comments on safety Gas ovens is very relevant.
Thanks again for your posts.

 

[winston1]

I think it is necessary to use Aluminium or Copper pans on such units, clearly Cast Iron pans are useless and steel not recommended.

Wrong way round. Induction hops require ferros metal pans. Aluminium and copper don't work.

 

[Hysteresis]

Thanks for the correction Winston.
Clearly the Induction is Magnetic induction and therefore requires a Ferrous metal to work.
I must try harder.