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Cooking - gas vs. induction


brumster

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Anyone here got experience of induction hobs in comparison to gas? Someone who used to use gas, moved to or tried induction - what is your experience? I know I can read articles and watch plenty of Youtube videos that say it's the next best thing since sliced bread, and I do kind of think it probably is, but I'd still like to here some practical experiences from someone who tried it. What do you prefer? The advantages are all fairly obvious; any downsides other than having to swap your pans if they're not ferrous, and potential scratching/damaging of the surface if you're not careful...

edit: I should add, as a life-long user of gas, I utterly *hate* cooking on ceramic or halogen hobs, I find it nigh on impossible. I am hoping/understanding that induction is NOTHING like ceramic/halogen! Right?

Edited by brumster
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We had always had gas until we moved into the new house and we have a ceramic one now, it took some getting used to and learning what settings were required etc but its fine now we are used to it.  Having used induction in a couple of holiday cottages we've stayed in I would much prefer one though as they were much more user friendly.

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you will more than likely need to run a new circuit for it as most require 32A supply. Depends what you have oven wise, if you have a single oven that will run off your ring main and you can use cooker circuit for hob. 

 

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Guest jhfozzy

I've had induction hobs (on my third one) for about fifteen years now and as you've probably seen they are very useful.

Pros:

Boiling water in a pan is much faster than a standard 3000W kettle. Very controllable heat, mine has 15 stages and a boost function. It will switch itself off if it senses a pan boiling over. Separate cooking timers for each zone with auto off. No flames and the hob stays cool if accidentally switched on with nothing on it.

Cons:

Much more expensive than gas or ceramic for a decent one. The glass is fragile in relation to a metal gas hob (we've gone through two from dropped cups) and can possibly be scratched but we haven't scratched ours yet, touch wood. You need "special" pans but in reality, this just means no aluminium pans. It'll heat up more than just pans, foil & foil lined packets go up well 😮. They normally need a dedicated supply, ours is around 5000w IIRC so 20A minimum.

If I had the choice, I'd still go induction above anything else.

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  • 1 month later...

I have just moved house, after 43 years on gas we are now all electric (and oil heating) love oil heating!!!!!! Electric fan oven is also excellent. Ceramic hob is horrific. Never again!!! 

So it’s either gas and I’ll run it on a calor Gas 47 (wife is uk sales manager for calor so would be cheap gas) (and no I can’t get cheap bottles for other people 🤣🤣🤣) or an induction hob, induction heat is very controllable, very very efficient because it doesn’t let heat pass around the pan, by definition it is only capable of heating the metal and water in its field. It can heat alloy pans depending on frequency, we use induction melting pots at work to melt tonnes of aluminium alloy for remelt. 

 

One other note, in 2025 the ‘big 6’ are going to stop supplying gas to domestic premises. There is debate over them still supplying existing customers but NO new connections will be made. It’s down to the way you can’t scrub/clean the emissions in a domestic setting but you can burn it en mass and make clean electric whilst the volume makes scrubbing viable at source. Electrical distribution is extremely clean once it’s produced. And as the big 6 supply all the smaller subsidiary sellers they will have to follow suit. Expect huge gas price hikes. 

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10 hours ago, Mrbarry said:

One other note, in 2025 the ‘big 6’ are going to stop supplying gas to domestic premises. There is debate over them still supplying existing customers but NO new connections will be made. It’s down to the way you can’t scrub/clean the emissions in a domestic setting but you can burn it en mass and make clean electric whilst the volume makes scrubbing viable at source. Electrical distribution is extremely clean once it’s produced. And as the big 6 supply all the smaller subsidiary sellers they will have to follow suit. Expect huge gas price hikes. 

Really?! Is this like the 'no petrol engined cars by 2040' promise ie. *bleep*s? !

Will be interesting to see how our National Grid (already at 95% capacity or something) handles that, considering it seems to take them 20 years to build a single power station.

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Good to hear. Is it as controllable as gas then? Theory says it should be. With our hob at the moment you have to turn it on ten minutes before you want to cook so it can heat up, then off ten minutes before you want to slow the cooking down. Such a pita. 

Ten minutes may be an exaggeration by the way, but it doesn’t feel it some times. 

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No, I know what you mean. I sometimes have to cook for the inlaws at their house, which is halogen hobs. I utterly hate it. There seems to be no control between the lowest and highest settings; your main control of heat is just the size of the hob and that's it.

Our new induction hobs are totally as controllable as gas, and just as instantly (in fact, they warm up way quicker, for the technical reasons above).

About the only downside I have with them is the fragility; you can't clatter pans around on the jobs or shuffle them on the surface as you'll damage it, exactly as fozzy says above.

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Guest jhfozzy

For the fragility side of things, we now use a piece of kitchen towel underneath the pans, it prevents any chance of scratching and stops the clinking of the pan on the glass. It also keeps the surface a bit cleaner.

It doesn't burn either, even with stir frying etc.

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22 hours ago, Mrbarry said:

I have just moved house, after 43 years on gas we are now all electric (and oil heating) love oil heating!!!!!! Electric fan oven is also excellent. Ceramic hob is horrific. Never again!!! 

So it’s either gas and I’ll run it on a calor Gas 47 (wife is uk sales manager for calor so would be cheap gas) (and no I can’t get cheap bottles for other people 🤣🤣🤣) or an induction hob, induction heat is very controllable, very very efficient because it doesn’t let heat pass around the pan, by definition it is only capable of heating the metal and water in its field. It can heat alloy pans depending on frequency, we use induction melting pots at work to melt tonnes of aluminium alloy for remelt. 

 

One other note, in 2025 the ‘big 6’ are going to stop supplying gas to domestic premises. There is debate over them still supplying existing customers but NO new connections will be made. It’s down to the way you can’t scrub/clean the emissions in a domestic setting but you can burn it en mass and make clean electric whilst the volume makes scrubbing viable at source. Electrical distribution is extremely clean once it’s produced. And as the big 6 supply all the smaller subsidiary sellers they will have to follow suit. Expect huge gas price hikes. 

I thought that was just to do with banning installation of gas heating in new homes from 2025?

Edited by theduck
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I don’t go to the meetings I just hear stuff here and there same as we all do. That’s what I heard and what the meter reader told me independently. 

I told a friend at work that end of 2021 it will be illegal to burn wood in a domestic multi fuel burner (terrible idea anyway but that’s an other story) he was all irate and saying it couldn’t be true because he has just spent £3k having one installed. Insisted the fitter wouldn’t have certificated it etc. He couldn’t accept that the fitter wants cash and the ramifications where not his top priority. From 2021 it’s low sulphur smoke free fuel or nothing. That is something I am fully aware of because the wife sells coal from the same yard, calor isn’t just gas. I believe bonfires are to be outlawed at the same time. 

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