Like the Romans used to drink from lead cups. Something like that.
(it appears that the moderator is removing any replies with which he disagrees. It might be a piefed issue. But all the removed replies are top level and upopular. Stranger coincidences have happened I suppose.)
Gas stove tops in houses.
Mitigations:
Use a range hood that vents outside, every time
This is the single biggest lever. A range hood vented to the outdoors at high fan speed captures 80–90% of NO₂ before it disperses into the rest of the home. Run it before you start the burner, leave it on the entire time you’re cooking, and run it for 5–10 minutes after you finish.
If your “range hood” recirculates (charcoal filter, no exterior duct), it does nothing meaningful for NO₂. Many over-the-range microwaves are recirculating-only — check the back of yours. Replacement with a true vented hood is the highest-value indoor-air upgrade most kitchens can make. [Editor’s note: replacing with an outdoor vent is expensive to very expensive, depending on where in the house the vent needs to be. Better to learn this when choosing a house to buy, local laws do not always require outdoor vented hoods over gas stoves.]
Open windows during and after cooking
If you don’t have a vented hood, the next-best move is cross-ventilation: open a window in the kitchen and another window or door across the home to drive airflow. This is less effective than a range hood (slower exchange) but still drops NO₂ by 50%+ during cooking compared to closed-house operation.
I got rid of mine and replaced it with an induction hob with power management. This way it can run on just 2.5KW but also on 7.5KW. Depending on your electrical connection.
I’ve found that 2.5 is plenty for me. No reason to change the electrical wiring.
It’s so much more pleasant to cook on than gas. It responds faster and also the cooking fumes go into the suction hood rather than all around it.
Gas produces a huge extra volume of combustion products and that ruins the efficiency of your ventilation system. Never mind the toxicity of the combustion products.
Just that it is easier to clean is enough for my lazy ass.
Induction is truly fucking amazing. I work with appliances and still every time I have reason to do a demonstration on induction cooking I feel a little bit like a wizard.
Gas is just bad all around imo. You lose a lot of the heat (that you are spending money on, more every day lately) to the room instead of the food. You NEED strong ventilation that goes outside to not just absolutely ruin your indoor air quality; which almost no one actually has because the people building houses generally really suck at their job. (at least in the US)
The money point is moot my dude. I have all gas appliances: dryer, hot water tank, furnace, stove. No air conditioning in the home. My gas bill in the summer is literally $30, which is $15 more than the minimum service delivery bill. You’re not losing any measurable amount of money by using a gas stove since it’s likely on for what, 15-30 minutes a day tops? Electric or induction is using power as well
Now in the winter it regularly gets to be around 200-300 or so for the furnace, but I did a lot of air sealing and insulation at the tail end of winter, should knock it down a bit. Very old home, from the 1870s. Either way, gas is still cheaper than electric. It’s why I love it.
A gas cooktop burner loses about 60% of the heat it produces to the room. Induction is 15% at most, depending on the pan because the heat lost is actually radiating from the pan.
Also, the original point of the topic is that it is very unhealthy, which gas is unfortunately.
Why would how much heat dissipates matter at all? The pan still gets as hot as you want it and the food cooks the same
If you vent a gas stove, no big deal.
Because in summer you’re then paying for the AC to get rid of that heat? It’s just wasted energy. If you don’t care about wasting energy then… Tell me you’re American without telling me you’re American ¯_ (ツ)_/¯.
Maybe you can switch to cooking with Clean Coal and really wrap yourself in the flag.
I don’t have air conditioning so that’s a sweet dig I guess
Also I’m not about to go ripping my house apart and running new 220v wires to save a buck. And I’m saying this as an electrician haha. There’s literally no access to underneath my kitchen where the gas lines for the stove and dryer run to the basement. They just put the (old growth) floor joists right overtop the dirt like you would a shed and cut a hole in the foundation to run utilities into that part of the house.
I don’t live in California where they’re tryin to outlaw natural gas. I live in Pennsylvania which is one of the biggest suppliers of gas so it’s not exactly going anywhere. To try what they’re doin out west would be like mass destruction to people’s homes in Pittsburgh. It’s a very old city, lots of lath and plaster walls, etc. Not something that’s easy to just plug in an induction stove like some of these comments are making it out to be
I suppose asking an American to do something to save the planet rather than save a buck would be a complete waste of time, so fair enough, you do you. Don’t worry, it’s everyone else that pays.
Gas stoves have powered vents.
Powered doesn’t mean the vent exits outside.
Vents that vent to the outside over gas hoods need to be required by law, otherwise, it may, or may not.
When I bought my house, I’d never seen a range vent that didn’t vent to the outside, so I didn’t know such things existed. I didn’t check, and mine doesn’t. It’d be at least $8K to have a hole cut in my roof for the vent to run to the outside.
I’m not in a hurry to replace my gas stoves, but I am aware of the risks of gas stoves, and am fully in support of requiring outside ventilation for any gas stove installation. I’ve also electrified the other things in my home (heat pump/electric auxiliary heat, electric water heater). But cooking on gas is pretty great, and I use a really strong vent hood when I’m cooking.
Of course, many of the same risks exist for candles, unvented electric stoves, and maybe even vented electric stoves, and things like toasters and ovens, so I wonder whether the magnitude of the risk will justify phasing out indoor electric stoves, toasters, and ovens, too.