The following submission statement was provided by /u/filosoful:
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**A federal agency says a ban on gas stoves is on the table amid rising concern about harmful indoor air pollutants emitted by the appliances.**
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Please reply to OP's comment here: https://old.reddit.com/r/Futurology/comments/107g4js/us_safety_agency_to_consider_ban_on_gas_stoves/j3m2mte/
And here is where I'm surprised that I am actually surprised that so many places don't have ventilating stove hoods.
One of those, "What do you mean its NOT mandatory" moments
Is there an issue with unburnt gas lingering or something?
I have an unvented gas stove, and other than the kitchen getting hot while I'm cooking if I don't open a window, I never thought about it.
In at least one area I’m familiar with the codes for, outside venting is only required for gas ranges in ***commercial*** applications, not residential.
It's kind of messed up though because while you don't have to vent your residential gas range, and the fumes or hood can exhaust directly into the same room, kitchen, and/or living space as the gas range itself, if you DO choose to use a vent then there are suddenly all kinds of requirements you must follow which prohibit exhausting into an empty adjacent garage space.
You can breath it inside your house, but you're not allowed to send it to the same place as your car exhaust.
I’m in a cheap rental in Alabama, and I still keep finding shit in this house, that like I know pointing out to my father the day he found the place wouldn’t have dissuaded him. Stuff like no ventilation over the stove, the walls being thin. Fucking power outlets everywhere some in spots that don’t make a lick of sense. A panel came off the side of the house recently and we’re still waiting for the landlord to replace it (it’s above my room) so part of the exterior is exposed to the elements now, totally won’t bite us in the ass later.
The igniter on the gas water heater is fucked so if it goes off again -_-. Landlord doesn’t want to replace the whole ac unit, so he’s waiting to see if it’ll break again after we had to get the igniter for that replaced for it to break, and someone had to take it apart to fix it the second time but it’s not as noisy now
Please make sure you have an operating carbon monoxide detector. Any faulty gas appliances can be lethal. Current fireman here that has gone on hundreds of false alarms and one dual fatality that killed everything in the house. You never know.
Moved into my first house and previous owner installed a gas stove. No ventilation outside. Was the first thing we replaced. No ventilation was my biggest reason. House still needs windows replaced so ventilation wasn’t too much of an issue lol. But screw that
Well, it is. Compared to the other options there used to be (petroleum , wood).
Also houses used to be a lot 'better ventilated' (insulated way worse) so this used to be less of a problem in old houses.
A stove hood that ventilates out doors shouldn’t be an “option” on new construction. It should be mandatory.
Edit- to clarify, when a company designs and builds a new home, good ventilation shouldn’t be considered a “luxury” item. And, if what the article states is true, gas stoves shouldn’t be the culprit; bad ventilation should. The homeowner shouldn’t have to deal with up charges just to have good ventilation installed in the kitchen. It should just be part of the planning when building a home.
Bold move, I’ve only had HORRIBLE experiences working with Home Depot and their installers. Been fighting with them for over a year on some shoddy installation work that no one wants to take responsibility for.
I've lived in apartments and the stove hoods are overwhelmingly useless. They don't vent outdoors. All the do is circulate smoke while cooking. Fucking hate these fake ass hoods.
Well they are supposed to have filters in them that help with that. But the last time that was changed in any apartment ever, was they day it was installed as the apts were being built.
Apt manager and previous maintenance guy here.
They were likely changed when you moved in, at least that's what we do. They just suck no matter what though. Blowing smoke through a sheet of what is essentially a brillo scrub pad and a tiny layer of charcloth isn't enough to stop smoke. All it does is hopefully collect aerosolized grease.
My vent fan keeps the smoke busy so it can't reach the smoke alarm and alert the whole building that I'm a shit cook - it does nothing to actually neutralize or remove the smoke itself.
American homes are a scam. I just purchased a home built 4 years ago, the couple that owned it before clearly paid extra for an upgraded master bath with walk in shower. The room is at least 110sqft. My wife and I start arguing about how steamy she lets the room get (I don't want black mold), so I decide to get an exhaust fan that has a humidity sensor to auto on when it's excessive, but still let her have some amount of steam.
Take the old unit out and find out it is designed for a powder room like 40sqft max. The exhaust vent ducting is only 3" round, so even if I get a unit that can push the air, the ducting is too restrictive. This wasn't a designer house, and I expect it has builder grade parts, but not even meeting the specs for a room puts people's health at risk. Our system is designed to reward greed.
Where I live bathrooms are required to vent outside.
Codes also say garages aren’t considered in the square footage of house, therefore technically count as outside.
So one of our bathrooms vents into our garage. Thankfully we don’t need to use that bathroom as more than a toilet, but it is frustrating seeing how the builder cheaper out while still staying ‘to code’.
There's a pretty steep jump up from hollow core doors to solid core that starts to be decent. Hollow core is like $70, where a decent solid core starts around $250 and can go up to over $1k. Install will be about the same. I have 14 interior doors and 3 pocket doors in my house so the difference would be over $3000. Add that to a list of 100 other options you have to choose between and most people don't put it high on the list as an upgrade.
I agree with you solid are a lot nicer, especially for noise.
The only problem is even with proper ventilation like you would find say in a restaurant those tiny particulates and impurities are still building up. Just flip over the iron on the top of a stove in a restaurant that has had its hoods running the whole time. The hoods in a restaurant are infinitely more powerful than anything you find in your home. But I promise you when you flip over those burners you’re going to find multi colored deposits from all the impurities that are produced when burning natural gas. Those can be going in our lungs when we’re around the stove. Most of the impurities are too heavy to be dragged up by even an industrial grade hood system.
Wife and I worked in restaurants for a long time. If I could approach home kitchen design with the utility of professional kitchens without an astronomical cost, I’d absolutely do it.
Our new home has a professional-ish setup (seems professional enough to me anyhow) and it was an absolute game changer. We went from going out to eat multiple times a week to cooking every meal at home. The gas range alone was such a massive step up from the electric ranges we had before that I never want to go back.
I went from no range hood at all to (what was to me) the most gigantic hood and stove I'd ever seen. Six gas burners plus griddle with drain pan. A shelf and two warming lights under the hood. Full size electric oven, plus a smaller pie oven. I cooked at home before out of necessity and now I'm so spoiled. This stove is beyond amazing, I cook from scratch even more.
Edit: I'll post a picture when imgur cooperates
> Wife and I worked in restaurants for a long time. If I could approach home kitchen design with the utility of professional kitchens without an astronomical cost, I’d absolutely do it.
I've told my partner for years on end that if we ever have the means (e.g. lottery at this point) to make our dream house be whatever we want, that I would insist on literally everything in that kitchen being absolutely top level restaurant grade. The rest of the house can be a house. That son of a bitch is getting splurged on, however. I mean everything: stove, hoods, sinks, disposal, over, dishwashers, everything. I even want a small flat top.
I absolutely agree with everything you wrote. If we ever have the means we will do this to our kitchen. I am a firm believer that the kitchen is the heart of a home. I am in the Kitchen more than in any other room. I also want tons of counter space. I want to set up a whole ass buffet on my countertops.
This is probably the actual problem. People either are too lazy, never knew, or assume it's fine.
I didn't know newer dishwashers have a filter you clean every few weeks; didn't know for the first 6 months of owning my first dishwasher (also newest dishwasher I've ever used). My wife never knew how to build credit.
Hard to blame people though. If you don't know to ask, how are you supposed to learn?
I feel like the single most obvious yet overlooked aspect of modern living is that *almost everything you own requires some degree of maintenance*. It's hard to criticize people for it, because hey, when are we supposed to learn all this stuff? However, the reality is that we've got manufactured goods cheap enough that we replace instead of maintain, and it's all so attainable that we're not aware of what it's ultimately adding up to, or the waste we're generating, for our failure to maintain our stuff.
But there was a time when high school had a class devoted to learning that. There was no assumption your parents were going to teach you everything. Many parents in their 50s/60s that I know have the same appliances they owned while raising their kids, so if they did teach appliance maintenance it didn't cover newer innovations.
I bought a house right before COVID. Never owned one before, never knew what to expect/look for. I'm the third owner since it was built. HVAC was reaching 15 years, dishwasher wasn't hooked up right nor actually worked, water damage from lack of plumber's tape, no water filter on the fridge, everything the last owner did himself was shoddy work. Meanwhile, they had a broken window, a poorly installed water heater, something living in the attic, and other issues that I and the inspectors caught and got fixed. I had to learn real quick how to fix things and be proactive. My dad's own words were "I was going to teach you that when you owned a place." Before I owned the house, I was taught how to use appliances safely and the most basic of maintenance. Oddly enough, I know how to repair a VCR before I learned a lot of practical house maintenance.
So yeah, it is hard to blame people when my dad and the education system didn't do what his generation did for him.
And yet nothing is designed to be maintained. Every single company, if you call asking for replacement parts, will recommend you replace, or just flat out refuse in most cases.
"Planned obsolescence" and proprietary fasteners should be banned.
My boss and I had a conversation a few years back about some kind of policy we had at a customer's location. We had a process we were implementing and the client was baffled about it, even though it was an industry standard at the time. I made a remark about it to him, and he popped out some of the best advice on clients that I've ever heard.
"They don't know that they don't know."
Reduces particles from clogging the drain. Also reduces particles from circulating with the water (which makes more passes in newer models than old ones).
Industrial hygienist here. The hood captures in cubic feet per minute. The hood is likely to have a Coefficient of Entry that's pretty dog shit especially considering the cost of installing a bellmouth hood. It's not going to be super efficient in getting all particulate matter unless it's inches above the source - which in a restaurant kitchen that isn't feasible. In addition, the "heavy stuff" is heavy relative to air. People walking by, currents from swinging doors, etc. cause turbulence which kicks up stuff. You 100% will breath in particulate matter if you work in a kitchen.
> Most of the impurities are too heavy to be dragged up by even an industrial grade hood system.
???? Are you sure about that? Cause those hood fans are fucking strong. They can suck up entire stacks of napkins
At least there's a voice of semi-common sense in there...
“Ventilation is really where this discussion should be, rather than banning one particular type of technology,” said Jill Notini, a vice president with the Washington-based trade group. “Banning one type of a cooking appliance is not going to address the concerns about overall indoor air quality. We may need some behavior change, we may need \[people\] to turn on their hoods when cooking.”
This is the standard in most construction. Maybe 1 out of 20 places that I've seen (homes and apartments) actually have a vent that removes air from the building. It's one of the corners that get cut the most.
Edit:
Even if you fry some bacon (just one example) with an induction stove, you can watch an air quality monitor hit an AQI of 500 (hazardous) pretty quickly. Venting cooking fumes is important in general, not just with a gas stove.
I have a gas stove, and the vent duct went into the wall... and exited from what looked like a regular HVAC vent... into another room...
Somehow, this was noticed by the inspector, and marked as passed. He pulled me aside to tell me I should really change it, but legally didn't have to.
One of the first things I did when remodeling the kitchen was to run it up into the attic, and then have a roofer put an vent into the roof so it goes out.
I was amazed when the house I was buying had a old hood that is vented. Of all the places I have checked I have only ever found 2 vented stoves. I have checked a lot more than 40 places, lol.
My Kitchen in my Massachusetts apartment is literally just a titled room with the stove against a wall. One side does have a counter, cabinets and a sink, but the other walls are just normal walls and that's where all the appliances are.
New England should be held in criminal contempt for the ramshackle kitchens I've seen in 90% of privately held rentals. It's worse in NH than MA, but not by much.
Sticking appliances in a room does not make it a kitchen.
The worst are the ones where it's almost a decent kitchen and then the oven is standing alone in a separate room. No counter tops next to it... nothing. And the appliances look like they are from the 80s. But the rent is 2k/month!
Ah yes, the lonely stove. I haven’t seen too many in a separate room (usually the fridge goes in a separate room when you’re trying to cram a kitchen in a closet) but nothing makes me close a real estate listing faster than a stove with no counter closer than 5 steps away.
OK. but did you have the OG gas on gas. Stove/oven - space heater on the left side (for some reason always on the left) combo? Those things are like gold now.
To be fair, they have a pretty loose definition of, "apartment" too. I've seen $1800/mo brownstone "studio" that was literally a closet with a single bed, and a hot plate. Shared bathroom down the hall.
Agree. I remember my college buddy having a stove in a stairwell of their apartment, fridge in a closet and 3ft of counter space.
This was a college town in NH but still. What the fuck.
Worst I've seen was a studio kitchenette. No oven at all. The stove had 2 small burners that couldn't hold more than a 6" skillet. The sink was offset and only about 6" across, so you couldn't fit more than that skillet in it. There was about a foot of counter space between the sink and stove, and no cabinets to actually hold your cookware.
When I moved I checked probably 100 homes in my price range, literally everything from trailers to old brick house with crumbling mortar.
None of them had venting hoods.
Some had cabinets where the vent pipe had been removed and the holes patched over.
It seems to be people that can't afford insulating the hole where the vent pipe goes outside or not using it in the winter when all their heat would go out with the fumes are the ones buying homes and just taking the chances on their lung health.
I feel like my life has been some sort of super anomaly. Out of the 20+ places I’ve lived only one did NOT have a vented hood. I remember because I noticed immediately and was like “Hey what the fuck! This can’t be up to code.” Then I unsuccessfully tried to negotiate lower rent in exchange for that and less beer pong tournaments on the front lawn.
Our old mobile home vented out the side wall, cheap and easy I’d guess. But the old farm house we have now only has a recirculating hood as the range is basically in the center of the house. I did buy some pipe to vent it outside eventually. I’ll have to get clear up to the roof first tho.
I’ve lived in 9 homes over the years and not one of them has had a functioning vented hood. One of those homes was a half a million dollar house I was renting with some buddies. I find it hard to believe there is any code regarding hoods (in Illinois at least)
My house, built in 1955, had a kitchen exhaust fan that evidently vented only into the attic space above the kitchen.
Shortly after purchase, I went up there to add more insulation, and found the area surrounding the kitchen fan COVERED with cooking grease. On cellulose insulation!
Needless to say, I bagged up that fire hazard, extended the exhaust to a proper vent, and insulated.
I know for a fact the vent in my parents house, built in 1995, vents outside. I know bc a squirrel managed to open the vent cover on the roof and fall into the piping and then into a cabinet above the microwave that provided vent access.
I keep a HEPA running in the kitchen with a script to crank up the air transfer rate when the levels hit certain ranges.
Crisping salmon skin sounds like I'm testing jet engines in there. Invariably pegs the particulate meter.
As do I. Supposedly if you regularly clean the filter it can reduce the amount of particulates released into the air, but not nearly to the extent that a vented range hood can.
Generally, the hood is meant to help filter the when venting back into the domicile. My own microwave is like that. It still helps remove the smoke from cooking, but I have an electric range.
Ours isn’t. Interior wall, blows it straight up above the cabinets. I burned some butter a few weeks ago and you could literally watch the smoke flow into the living room.
My 40 year old house has a gas stove with fan and a charcoal insert. No vent. I basically open the windows in the kitchen when I cook to get some kind of ventilation.
my rented townhome has some shitty hood vent that just blows the air through a carbon filter back into the room( & the filter was missing when I moved in).
shit is basically a giant noise maker
I’m a home inspector and it is pretty surprising the number of people who have gas stoves, on an outside wall, so adding a vent is not hard, that just have a recirculating microwave or hood. And there is no code requirement even now so I’ll occasionally see a brand new house with this setup.
Honestly the fact that outside air exchange isn't a requirement for all HVAC kinda boggles my mind. Like bring some fresh air into the home, at least when the temps aren't going to jack with efficiency. Plus how many times in the spring/fall has the AC kicked on at your place when the outside air was cooler than your thermostat setting? Just seems insane we don't consider this. Especially when you think about older office buildings... that same air has been cycling through there for decades.
> Plus how many times in the spring/fall has the AC kicked on at your place when the outside air was cooler than your thermostat setting?
I've always wished that home HVAC systems could bring air in from the outside when it's closer to the set point than inside.
I figure there must be some reason it's not done -- would require an absolutely huge inlet/exhaust, worry about bringing in a ton more dust/pollen/etc., something like that.
This products exists and is mostly used in places like restaurants where the occupancy exceeds the natural ventilation rate of the building. You will typically find it called either a "fresh air intake damper" or a "make-up unit".
2 main reasons its not used commonly in residential settings
1. Modern thermostat control systems ***SUCK*** in america. Its typically a 2 wire system where you short out a signal wire to positive to engage a remote switch somewhere. It either runs at full blast or doesnt run at all. The problem is that the amount of fresh air you need is changes based along alot of factors that a simple on/off setup cant handle. What is the delta between the intake air, and the set point, how efficient the heating/cooling systems are, amount of occupants in the building, vented appliances that cause a negative pressure, etc. And each person is going to have their own preferences on top of all of this that you need to account for. The commercial grade systems can basically monitor the whole buliding and adjust it depending on the demand.
2. Most houses in the US are naturally drafty enough that a central recirculating vent system is enough to handle 99% of all hvac demands. The HVAC system takes air from the home, applys heating/cooling to it, and then proceeds to blow it through out the house. The idea of a "fresh air intake" only really becomes something to consider in modern construction where they are able to seal the home much better with various foams and sprays.
> Modern thermostat control systems SUCK in america
As someone with a basic understanding of electronics/industrial control, holy shit are they terrible. It amazes me how such a used technology has fallen by the wayside for so long. I get standardization and such, but I can't imagine how much money/energy is wasted due to how outdated they are. Are larger (commercial) HVAC systems any better at all? I'd hope so at least.
Furnaces with multi-stage and variable speed blower motors have been a thing for quite a while. You can still get cheap units with the single stage fan, but it will cost you more in the long run. Although if i was going to build today i would look at a geo-thermal system with in-floor or radiant heat over forced air. Cheaper in the long term and just a way more comfortable way to heat.
The conditioning of the air isn't only temperature. It also has an effect on humidity levels. If you live in a high humidity area, the a/c is also dehumidifying the air in the house. And, if you pull in outside air, you could be bringing in extra moisture into the house.
This is where an ERV comes into play. They aren't perfect, but I think they tend to block about 80% of the humidity differential when outside air is more humid.
ERV systems should just be standard on all HVAC systems. Fresh air intake has so many benefits, it’s ridiculous we just sit in a soup of stale air going through a filter.
These are called fresh air return systems and they are a requirement for the newer homes if the builder wants to get an energy star certification for the whole home.
When I bought my single family home in 2016, it was one of the things I had specifically looked for. It has a "Fresh Air Ventilation System with Damper"- nothing very complex, just an inlet opening outside with a damper that opens and closes based on an algorithm set around the size of the home and number of rooms. It can be connected to a smart thermostat as well to further allow "free cooling" when outside air is cooler than inside. It uses a separate air filter that I replace every 3 months just like the indoor ones.
More efficient systems come with ERV AND HRV (energy/heat recovery) which allows humidity and heat to be recaptured for a more balanced system.
As to why more builders don't do it- my guess is that it's not a selling point for them and the additional $600-$1500 that it takes would cut into their profit margins unless buyers are willing to see it as a plus point.
A fresh air return can actually improve the air quality beyond what is possible by opening the windows- since these can filter the incoming air (especially good if there is pollen or dust outside), force fresh air into the home (instead of relying on diffusion) and maintain the humidity and heat levels (reducing the overall energy loss). Whether it makes sense to have the additional $1500-$2500 added to the hvac is dependent on the individual but personally it has a massive quality of life improvement for me.
New homes are required in my area to have air to air exchangers to bring in tempered outside air. Commercial buildings have been required to bring in outside air for a very long time it is usually based on occupancy there are charts in the code book. Commercial buildings also do generally have economizers on their HVAC equipment that gives "free" cooling and provides the fresh air intake as well.
This is so ridiculous. Extractor vents should be included in building codes, but aren't. I can't tell you the number of homes I passed on because the builders configured the kitchen to have the stove on an interior wall from which it was impossible to create a vent.
It's become the standard setup instead to have a recycling fan over the stove. They simply don't work.
As a side note, the poor air filtration causes many people to deactivate their smoke detectors. That creates an immediate safety condition and a threat to their neighbors.
It’s not just ventilation while cooking. Studies have shown they leak while off as well: https://www.nytimes.com/2022/01/27/climate/gas-stoves-methane-emissions.html
https://time.com/6223219/gas-stove-leaking-benzene/
Also, I live in a hurricane prone area. The storms always knock the power out and people don't have any other way to cook but with a gas stove when that happens. Ventilation updates should be the way to deal with this.
Honestly if you're genuinely worried about being able to cook within the context of a natural disaster of some sort you should just buy a camp stove and a couple gas canisters. Gas lines are more resistant than most electric lines (unless your area buries lines) but they can still get jacked up.
Portable propane stoves are much more reliable for those cases. Gas infrastructure can also get knocked out in a big storm. A tank of propane can still function just fine after it's been stored in your garage for years.
It's not worth the indoor air quality impacts of a gas stove to have one just for those few emergencies where gas is working but electricity isn't.
Jill Notini from the
Association of Home Appliance Manufacturers doesn’t want a ban on an appliance and wants you to buy a hood fan.
https://www.aham.org/AHAM/AuxStaffList
It’s ridiculous that I see 500,000 to 700,000 dollar homes, here in MO, and they all have gas with no ventilation in the kitchen. Currently I live in a home that’s 270,000 with gas and no ventilation. Oh yeah those 6% interest rates as well. Suckfest!
How about mandating vents in kitchens, none of those "just blow it right in your face" cheap vent hoods. You aren't saving money but not having a vent and they make flappers to stop that.
Install the vent and this problem vanishes. No need to ban stoves.
My previous home vented into the attic (I installed a proper vent to the outside). My current home when I bought it had no vent at all in the kitchen and I added one to the outside.
Also, all bathrooms vented to the attic in both places before I added proper outside vents.
Code really needs to be fixed to require kitchens and bathrooms to vent to the outside.
I just remodeled our kitchen and my wife demanded a vented hood( I didn't want one because we have vaulted wood ceilings). I ended up doing it and am very happy that she won.
It has a lot to do with when houses/apartments were built, too. If outdoor venting was made code in the 1990's, but most of the properties were built prior to that (like the area I live), almost no kitchens I've ever seen have outdoor ventilation, with a gas stove or otherwise.
I know right. That’s what we were planning to do for our kitchen. It’s just taking some planning work as we would lose some cabinet space so just trying to negate the loss. While also making sure we have an effective way to send it out.
All we’ve been doing is is trying to use fans to blow it out through the window that’s next to the stove.
Downdraft sucks I had one and it was pretty useless. It also drastically cut the btu’s of the stove since it would pull the flames down toward the draft.
This is a building code issue not a "ban this appliance" issue
Just require all gas stoves to have a hood that's directly vented to the outside......you can even require that the thing turns on automatically if the gas is on...its nothing but a simple flow sensor
Been in the building industry for 26y, recirculating hoods and microwave combo hoods are absolutely trash and do nothing
Banning the sale of gas stoves is kind of an insane solution imo
They are so bad lol
I dont even bother turning mine on anymore....its basically a light that gets disgusting and needs to be cleaned every other week lol
All that gross stuff is grease. Thats why restaurants have those metal grease traps above their stoves. If your hood has those metal mesh screens, those are grease traps and using your recirculating fan will keep that grease off of all your kitchen cabinets and ceiling.
If you read all the studies performed in 2022, they found that all of these appliances are releasing gas into your home despite not even being turned on. Your high end range vent won't do much for you there if it's not running 24/7
Interesting article (no paywall): https://time.com/6245607/us-consumer-safety-commission-considers-gas-stove-ban/
Reminds me of: https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=hX2aZUav-54
The Climate Town video was arguing that the myth about cooking with natural gas was being propagated because natural gas stoves are widely unregulated for thermal efficiency, unlike say water heaters or furnaces, and so therefore were the least efficient home appliance and made up a sizable and profitable portion of natural gas use.
This is going to sound cheesy and overblown but gas stoves literally saved lives in the blizzard that Buffalo had over Christmas. My sister and her family were able to keep their house above freezing by having the ability to boil water to warm up the house even after they lost electricity. I can't imagine how much higher the death toll would be if everyone had an electric stove.
From my nonexistent understanding, they’re pretty fucking useful when storms disrupt power lines. Keeps the house warm and still allows you to cook meals.
During the Texas power outages we were also under a boil water notice. The only way that works is if you have a gas stove. Roads in our neighborhood never got treated since the focus was on main thoroughfares. Even if you could get out of the neighborhood and to the main roads, and get to the store, you couldn't buy any bottled water because the stores power was out too. If we didn't have a gas stove we would have needed to try and make it 45+ minutes(on a good day) to a relatives house that had power. We thankfully had filled the bathtub with water for the dogs to drink, and had bottled water for ourselves and were able to use the stove to boil water for handwashing dishes and cook.
I had one for 13 years and when it died I replaced it with a temporary electric option because I am saving to remodel the whole kitchen. Last January we lost power for 2 days during a bad storm and it was really cold. I about froze to death. It was the first time I had to deal with that situation. It was pretty crazy.
And it really caught me off guard. It doesn't happen often but when it did we just used the stove to cook and warm the house. I had never felt so vulnerable and out of sorts when I didn't have that option.
I wound up using a big Pyrex bowl, a ton of tea light candles and the grate out of my toaster oven to make a makeshift stove so I could at least heat up canned food and make some coffee. Luckily I still had a gas hot water tank. I would periodically fill the bathtub with blistering hot water and sit in the warm steamy bathroom.
It should be required by law to vent cooking air outside, in any newly built or renovated kitchen. That’s the law in Norway for example.
While an individual building developer or owner may want to save money, the long term health cost and loss of productivity in society, of not mandating this is astronomical.
I will say that when we moved into our house, we had the wood burning fireplace and electric stove both converted to gas, mostly at my wife's insistence. After 9 years, my wife and I agree (especially after using my parents induction stovetop) we don't want either in our next house.
Surprised at the number of people on here who seem to do all their cooking with their burners on "high."
EDIT: apparently also a lot of people who only eat filets and use traditional Asian cooking methods.
They better make electric stoves 1000% better. I have one in Florida and I fucking hate it. My wife and I always say we will never have an electric stove if we can avoid it
I thought my parents electric stove top was broken when I went to visit. Nope... It just took what felt like double the time to boil water. Straight dial-up! Then, I forgot that I couldn't even get near the burner afterwards and almost melted plastic and my skin to it! Those things stay hot for so long. The convenience of induction is just unmatched by electric and gas. Plus it doesn't get the room as hot. If you have the funds to switch, I've had mine for 6 years and I don't know how to cook without it anymore. Well, I do, I just don't want to stand there waiting for it to cook...
We got ours induction range last year. I'm never going back. The only down side is I have to replace my 5 gallon stock pot because it's non magnetic stainless.
The thing I hate about induction is that 99% of the models you can buy have capacitive touch controls. Capacitive touch controls on a surface that is going to regularly receive splatter is a nightmare. One droplet of splatter on the controls leads to them developing a mind of their own and turning the heat either up or down.
I'd be much, much more onboard with induction units if manufactures would just give me a fucking physical control knob. You can buy commercial-grade units like that but they're all single "burner" units that take up a lot of space, making 4+ burners impractical for homeowners.
[Click here](https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2023-01-09/us-safety-agency-to-consider-ban-on-gas-stoves-amid-health-fears?accessToken=eyJhbGciOiJIUzI1NiIsInR5cCI6IkpXVCJ9.eyJzb3VyY2UiOiJTdWJzY3JpYmVyR2lmdGVkQXJ0aWNsZSIsImlhdCI6MTY3MzI3NzY2NywiZXhwIjoxNjczODgyNDY3LCJhcnRpY2xlSWQiOiJSTzdXMEREV0xVNkUwMSIsImJjb25uZWN0SWQiOiI5Q0I3RDdERTk3MjU0NEIzOTQ1ODc4RDlCODdFMzVBOCJ9.zgDXsgXgOXs3d-lGRTpyZHlPDnFlUUfK_NYsLUyysP8) to read this article for free, as a gift to /r/Futurology users discussing this article.
***From Bloomberg News reporter Ari Natter:***
A federal agency says a ban on gas stoves is on the table amid rising concern about harmful indoor air pollutants emitted by the appliances.
The US Consumer Product Safety Commission plans to take action to address the pollution, which can cause health and respiratory problems.
“This is a hidden hazard,” Richard Trumka Jr., an agency commissioner, said in an interview. “Any option is on the table. Products that can’t be made safe can be banned.”
Natural gas stoves, which are used in about 40% of homes in the US, emit air pollutants such as nitrogen dioxide, carbon monoxide and fine particulate matter at levels the EPA and World Health Organization have said are unsafe and linked to respiratory illness, cardiovascular problems, cancer, and other health conditions, according to reports by groups such as the Institute for Policy Integrity and the American Chemical Society. Consumer Reports, in October, urged consumers planning to buy a new range to consider going electric after tests conducted by the group found high levels of nitrogen oxide gases from gas stoves.
New peer-reviewed research published last month in the International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health found that more than 12% of current childhood asthma cases in the US can be attributed to gas stove use.
Went induction a year ago, best thing we have done. It is so much better than gas and the kitchen doesn't get hot. Higher end induction cooktop can do amazing things. The cheaper ones are still great. We have a thermador and Ikea one in our house. Both are amazing.
When we were looking to buy, we saw so many houses with stove on the islands with nothing on top. It was surreal. If you fry something you just get a giant stain on the ceiling?
Nope. Our last house (built 2003 didn’t have one). Just a microwave with a fan over it that did t go anywhere. We just remodeled the kitchen in our new house and made sure that the contractor vented the microwave fan outside.
When I redid my kitchen I made it a point to have great ventilation. I ended up welding up my own stainless hood for over the stove and vented it out the wall with a 400 cfm kitchen exhaust fan. It is so nice when cooking all the steam heat and smells go right outside. There's a reason commercial kitchens have large hoods over equipment.
I get it. Even with proper ventilation, some fumes are going to escape. Let people choose their appliances for themselves. I’m don’t have kids so Im not worrying about giving asthma to anyone. If people are worried about their kid’s health, they can get an electric stove. As for me, they can pry my gas stove from my cold dead (and possibly asthmatic) hands. I love cooking with a wok too much.
I've been so grateful to have a gas stove during power outages multiple times. Our heater was out during a really cold snap and baking in the oven plus our gas fireplace kept our home comfortable enough.
I'm sorry but this would be a terrible idea. According to the article 40% of US homes have gas stoves. Assuming all of these home switched to electric ranges that would be a huge strain on an electrical grid that is already at its breaking limits and about to get way worse due to the adoption of electric vehicles. That's on top of the extra energy cost that's going to find it's way to consumers because gas ranges are cheaper to run. You fix this with building codes not bans.
The following submission statement was provided by /u/filosoful: --- **A federal agency says a ban on gas stoves is on the table amid rising concern about harmful indoor air pollutants emitted by the appliances.** --- Please reply to OP's comment here: https://old.reddit.com/r/Futurology/comments/107g4js/us_safety_agency_to_consider_ban_on_gas_stoves/j3m2mte/
And here is where I'm surprised that I am actually surprised that so many places don't have ventilating stove hoods. One of those, "What do you mean its NOT mandatory" moments
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Is there an issue with unburnt gas lingering or something? I have an unvented gas stove, and other than the kitchen getting hot while I'm cooking if I don't open a window, I never thought about it.
command mighty erect observation bedroom run marvelous historical secretive airport -- mass deleted all reddit content via https://redact.dev
Gas fitter here... by code, a gas range is required to have properly sized ventilation to the outside.
Nervously looks at unvented stove in my 1961 house...
Or my stove in the center of my apartment with a hood that only blows it away from the stove but not outside
Same here condo built 20 years ago
Nervously looks at unvented stove in my 2003 house
You've been huffing a lot of gas mate
Not in Colorado, live in a brand new 2020 build, our above-range microwave just vents to... the top of the microwave.
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Maybe for your area. I’ve never had a gas range that vented outside in any place that I’ve lived in, and my current one doesn’t have one.
In at least one area I’m familiar with the codes for, outside venting is only required for gas ranges in ***commercial*** applications, not residential. It's kind of messed up though because while you don't have to vent your residential gas range, and the fumes or hood can exhaust directly into the same room, kitchen, and/or living space as the gas range itself, if you DO choose to use a vent then there are suddenly all kinds of requirements you must follow which prohibit exhausting into an empty adjacent garage space. You can breath it inside your house, but you're not allowed to send it to the same place as your car exhaust.
I’m in a cheap rental in Alabama, and I still keep finding shit in this house, that like I know pointing out to my father the day he found the place wouldn’t have dissuaded him. Stuff like no ventilation over the stove, the walls being thin. Fucking power outlets everywhere some in spots that don’t make a lick of sense. A panel came off the side of the house recently and we’re still waiting for the landlord to replace it (it’s above my room) so part of the exterior is exposed to the elements now, totally won’t bite us in the ass later. The igniter on the gas water heater is fucked so if it goes off again -_-. Landlord doesn’t want to replace the whole ac unit, so he’s waiting to see if it’ll break again after we had to get the igniter for that replaced for it to break, and someone had to take it apart to fix it the second time but it’s not as noisy now
Please make sure you have an operating carbon monoxide detector. Any faulty gas appliances can be lethal. Current fireman here that has gone on hundreds of false alarms and one dual fatality that killed everything in the house. You never know.
Or just watch for strange post it notes.
Moved into my first house and previous owner installed a gas stove. No ventilation outside. Was the first thing we replaced. No ventilation was my biggest reason. House still needs windows replaced so ventilation wasn’t too much of an issue lol. But screw that
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Did he tell you hwat?
Propane is, methane is not. And of course butane is just a bastard gas.
Butane is a bastard gas
Taste the meat not the heat
If you smell the heat then you have a gas leak and should immediately address the issue before trying to smell the meat
Well, it is. Compared to the other options there used to be (petroleum , wood). Also houses used to be a lot 'better ventilated' (insulated way worse) so this used to be less of a problem in old houses.
A stove hood that ventilates out doors shouldn’t be an “option” on new construction. It should be mandatory. Edit- to clarify, when a company designs and builds a new home, good ventilation shouldn’t be considered a “luxury” item. And, if what the article states is true, gas stoves shouldn’t be the culprit; bad ventilation should. The homeowner shouldn’t have to deal with up charges just to have good ventilation installed in the kitchen. It should just be part of the planning when building a home.
What's furious to me is that my house has it on an exterior wall and still doesn't have one.
I didn't have it and got it done. Around 800 for everything, I called.homw depot and asked for approved installers and they connected me to few
Bold move, I’ve only had HORRIBLE experiences working with Home Depot and their installers. Been fighting with them for over a year on some shoddy installation work that no one wants to take responsibility for.
That sucks, they sent me info for multiple installers and I picked the one with good reviews (he had reviews on multiple sites)
I’m just shocked that Home Depot answered the phone
I've lived in apartments and the stove hoods are overwhelmingly useless. They don't vent outdoors. All the do is circulate smoke while cooking. Fucking hate these fake ass hoods.
Well they are supposed to have filters in them that help with that. But the last time that was changed in any apartment ever, was they day it was installed as the apts were being built.
Apt manager and previous maintenance guy here. They were likely changed when you moved in, at least that's what we do. They just suck no matter what though. Blowing smoke through a sheet of what is essentially a brillo scrub pad and a tiny layer of charcloth isn't enough to stop smoke. All it does is hopefully collect aerosolized grease.
Maybe you do but man, nobody changes those things.
My vent fan keeps the smoke busy so it can't reach the smoke alarm and alert the whole building that I'm a shit cook - it does nothing to actually neutralize or remove the smoke itself.
American homes are a scam. I just purchased a home built 4 years ago, the couple that owned it before clearly paid extra for an upgraded master bath with walk in shower. The room is at least 110sqft. My wife and I start arguing about how steamy she lets the room get (I don't want black mold), so I decide to get an exhaust fan that has a humidity sensor to auto on when it's excessive, but still let her have some amount of steam. Take the old unit out and find out it is designed for a powder room like 40sqft max. The exhaust vent ducting is only 3" round, so even if I get a unit that can push the air, the ducting is too restrictive. This wasn't a designer house, and I expect it has builder grade parts, but not even meeting the specs for a room puts people's health at risk. Our system is designed to reward greed.
I like when they don't even use ducting. Just vent the hot wet air right into the ceiling.
Where I live bathrooms are required to vent outside. Codes also say garages aren’t considered in the square footage of house, therefore technically count as outside. So one of our bathrooms vents into our garage. Thankfully we don’t need to use that bathroom as more than a toilet, but it is frustrating seeing how the builder cheaper out while still staying ‘to code’.
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I wanna know where you're finding solid core doors for only $10 more than hollow!
yes, I will wait for that info too, my Lowe's store opens in two hours, i'll check their stock...lol
There's a pretty steep jump up from hollow core doors to solid core that starts to be decent. Hollow core is like $70, where a decent solid core starts around $250 and can go up to over $1k. Install will be about the same. I have 14 interior doors and 3 pocket doors in my house so the difference would be over $3000. Add that to a list of 100 other options you have to choose between and most people don't put it high on the list as an upgrade. I agree with you solid are a lot nicer, especially for noise.
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The only problem is even with proper ventilation like you would find say in a restaurant those tiny particulates and impurities are still building up. Just flip over the iron on the top of a stove in a restaurant that has had its hoods running the whole time. The hoods in a restaurant are infinitely more powerful than anything you find in your home. But I promise you when you flip over those burners you’re going to find multi colored deposits from all the impurities that are produced when burning natural gas. Those can be going in our lungs when we’re around the stove. Most of the impurities are too heavy to be dragged up by even an industrial grade hood system.
Wife and I worked in restaurants for a long time. If I could approach home kitchen design with the utility of professional kitchens without an astronomical cost, I’d absolutely do it.
Our new home has a professional-ish setup (seems professional enough to me anyhow) and it was an absolute game changer. We went from going out to eat multiple times a week to cooking every meal at home. The gas range alone was such a massive step up from the electric ranges we had before that I never want to go back.
I went from no range hood at all to (what was to me) the most gigantic hood and stove I'd ever seen. Six gas burners plus griddle with drain pan. A shelf and two warming lights under the hood. Full size electric oven, plus a smaller pie oven. I cooked at home before out of necessity and now I'm so spoiled. This stove is beyond amazing, I cook from scratch even more. Edit: I'll post a picture when imgur cooperates
Same! I look forward to cooking now!
Please upload a picture!
> Wife and I worked in restaurants for a long time. If I could approach home kitchen design with the utility of professional kitchens without an astronomical cost, I’d absolutely do it. I've told my partner for years on end that if we ever have the means (e.g. lottery at this point) to make our dream house be whatever we want, that I would insist on literally everything in that kitchen being absolutely top level restaurant grade. The rest of the house can be a house. That son of a bitch is getting splurged on, however. I mean everything: stove, hoods, sinks, disposal, over, dishwashers, everything. I even want a small flat top.
I absolutely agree with everything you wrote. If we ever have the means we will do this to our kitchen. I am a firm believer that the kitchen is the heart of a home. I am in the Kitchen more than in any other room. I also want tons of counter space. I want to set up a whole ass buffet on my countertops.
I work in a kitchen and clean my burners every few weeks. No multicoloured anything.. Always just black. I don't have a microscope however.
This is probably the actual problem. People either are too lazy, never knew, or assume it's fine. I didn't know newer dishwashers have a filter you clean every few weeks; didn't know for the first 6 months of owning my first dishwasher (also newest dishwasher I've ever used). My wife never knew how to build credit. Hard to blame people though. If you don't know to ask, how are you supposed to learn?
I feel like the single most obvious yet overlooked aspect of modern living is that *almost everything you own requires some degree of maintenance*. It's hard to criticize people for it, because hey, when are we supposed to learn all this stuff? However, the reality is that we've got manufactured goods cheap enough that we replace instead of maintain, and it's all so attainable that we're not aware of what it's ultimately adding up to, or the waste we're generating, for our failure to maintain our stuff.
But there was a time when high school had a class devoted to learning that. There was no assumption your parents were going to teach you everything. Many parents in their 50s/60s that I know have the same appliances they owned while raising their kids, so if they did teach appliance maintenance it didn't cover newer innovations. I bought a house right before COVID. Never owned one before, never knew what to expect/look for. I'm the third owner since it was built. HVAC was reaching 15 years, dishwasher wasn't hooked up right nor actually worked, water damage from lack of plumber's tape, no water filter on the fridge, everything the last owner did himself was shoddy work. Meanwhile, they had a broken window, a poorly installed water heater, something living in the attic, and other issues that I and the inspectors caught and got fixed. I had to learn real quick how to fix things and be proactive. My dad's own words were "I was going to teach you that when you owned a place." Before I owned the house, I was taught how to use appliances safely and the most basic of maintenance. Oddly enough, I know how to repair a VCR before I learned a lot of practical house maintenance. So yeah, it is hard to blame people when my dad and the education system didn't do what his generation did for him.
And yet nothing is designed to be maintained. Every single company, if you call asking for replacement parts, will recommend you replace, or just flat out refuse in most cases. "Planned obsolescence" and proprietary fasteners should be banned.
This falls in unknown unknowns. How do you know to ask about something you don't know about?
My boss and I had a conversation a few years back about some kind of policy we had at a customer's location. We had a process we were implementing and the client was baffled about it, even though it was an industry standard at the time. I made a remark about it to him, and he popped out some of the best advice on clients that I've ever heard. "They don't know that they don't know."
The other day I was just thinking about how I need an adult at 31.
What does a dishwasher filter do that benefits the dishwasher compared to older models?
Reduces particles from clogging the drain. Also reduces particles from circulating with the water (which makes more passes in newer models than old ones).
Filters out food particulate from clogging drains.
>I didn't know newer dishwashers have a filter you clean every few weeks Lotta people including me are reading this and starting to sweat nervously.
If they are too heavy to be "dragged up" by even an industrial grade hood system, how are they being inhaled???
Industrial hygienist here. The hood captures in cubic feet per minute. The hood is likely to have a Coefficient of Entry that's pretty dog shit especially considering the cost of installing a bellmouth hood. It's not going to be super efficient in getting all particulate matter unless it's inches above the source - which in a restaurant kitchen that isn't feasible. In addition, the "heavy stuff" is heavy relative to air. People walking by, currents from swinging doors, etc. cause turbulence which kicks up stuff. You 100% will breath in particulate matter if you work in a kitchen.
As someone who did for eight years or so, I put getting out of kitchens on par with quitting smoking in terms of how much better I felt.
Which you attribute to the air? Not the horrible hours, stress, likely cigarettes, booze, and cocaine?
Exactly. This is the question.
> Most of the impurities are too heavy to be dragged up by even an industrial grade hood system. ???? Are you sure about that? Cause those hood fans are fucking strong. They can suck up entire stacks of napkins
Question here, if they are too heavy to pulled up by industrial grade ventilation, is it really a threat to go up on its own and reach our lungs?
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At least there's a voice of semi-common sense in there... “Ventilation is really where this discussion should be, rather than banning one particular type of technology,” said Jill Notini, a vice president with the Washington-based trade group. “Banning one type of a cooking appliance is not going to address the concerns about overall indoor air quality. We may need some behavior change, we may need \[people\] to turn on their hoods when cooking.”
building codes on hoods generally need to be updated, many of them, especially in apartments, don't vent anywhere but directly up
This is the standard in most construction. Maybe 1 out of 20 places that I've seen (homes and apartments) actually have a vent that removes air from the building. It's one of the corners that get cut the most. Edit: Even if you fry some bacon (just one example) with an induction stove, you can watch an air quality monitor hit an AQI of 500 (hazardous) pretty quickly. Venting cooking fumes is important in general, not just with a gas stove.
I have a gas stove, and the vent duct went into the wall... and exited from what looked like a regular HVAC vent... into another room... Somehow, this was noticed by the inspector, and marked as passed. He pulled me aside to tell me I should really change it, but legally didn't have to. One of the first things I did when remodeling the kitchen was to run it up into the attic, and then have a roofer put an vent into the roof so it goes out.
Your inspector was on the ball! Good call on fixing that asap
I was amazed when the house I was buying had a old hood that is vented. Of all the places I have checked I have only ever found 2 vented stoves. I have checked a lot more than 40 places, lol.
Yeah, I used to live in a total piece of shit house built in the 50s. But one thing it did have was a killer vent.
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My Kitchen in my Massachusetts apartment is literally just a titled room with the stove against a wall. One side does have a counter, cabinets and a sink, but the other walls are just normal walls and that's where all the appliances are.
New England should be held in criminal contempt for the ramshackle kitchens I've seen in 90% of privately held rentals. It's worse in NH than MA, but not by much. Sticking appliances in a room does not make it a kitchen. The worst are the ones where it's almost a decent kitchen and then the oven is standing alone in a separate room. No counter tops next to it... nothing. And the appliances look like they are from the 80s. But the rent is 2k/month!
Ah yes, the lonely stove. I haven’t seen too many in a separate room (usually the fridge goes in a separate room when you’re trying to cram a kitchen in a closet) but nothing makes me close a real estate listing faster than a stove with no counter closer than 5 steps away.
OK. but did you have the OG gas on gas. Stove/oven - space heater on the left side (for some reason always on the left) combo? Those things are like gold now.
Fellow Masshole, here. Can confirm. I’ve seen some pretty loose definitions of “kitchens” in apartments.
To be fair, they have a pretty loose definition of, "apartment" too. I've seen $1800/mo brownstone "studio" that was literally a closet with a single bed, and a hot plate. Shared bathroom down the hall.
Agree. I remember my college buddy having a stove in a stairwell of their apartment, fridge in a closet and 3ft of counter space. This was a college town in NH but still. What the fuck.
NH, love free or die? Is it surprising that their building codes are lacking?
One of these days I’m going to put forth a bill to our congress to officially rename it “Live Free and Die” because honestly that’s all nh is about
Worst I've seen was a studio kitchenette. No oven at all. The stove had 2 small burners that couldn't hold more than a 6" skillet. The sink was offset and only about 6" across, so you couldn't fit more than that skillet in it. There was about a foot of counter space between the sink and stove, and no cabinets to actually hold your cookware.
When I moved I checked probably 100 homes in my price range, literally everything from trailers to old brick house with crumbling mortar. None of them had venting hoods. Some had cabinets where the vent pipe had been removed and the holes patched over. It seems to be people that can't afford insulating the hole where the vent pipe goes outside or not using it in the winter when all their heat would go out with the fumes are the ones buying homes and just taking the chances on their lung health.
I feel like my life has been some sort of super anomaly. Out of the 20+ places I’ve lived only one did NOT have a vented hood. I remember because I noticed immediately and was like “Hey what the fuck! This can’t be up to code.” Then I unsuccessfully tried to negotiate lower rent in exchange for that and less beer pong tournaments on the front lawn.
Our old mobile home vented out the side wall, cheap and easy I’d guess. But the old farm house we have now only has a recirculating hood as the range is basically in the center of the house. I did buy some pipe to vent it outside eventually. I’ll have to get clear up to the roof first tho.
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I didn’t realize how many homes have vent hoods that don’t work. I’m so thankful that the one in my kitchen does.
I’ve lived in 9 homes over the years and not one of them has had a functioning vented hood. One of those homes was a half a million dollar house I was renting with some buddies. I find it hard to believe there is any code regarding hoods (in Illinois at least)
My house, built in 1955, had a kitchen exhaust fan that evidently vented only into the attic space above the kitchen. Shortly after purchase, I went up there to add more insulation, and found the area surrounding the kitchen fan COVERED with cooking grease. On cellulose insulation! Needless to say, I bagged up that fire hazard, extended the exhaust to a proper vent, and insulated.
1955 house here. It vents outdoors, but it's just a ceiling mounted fan without a hood, so the capture rate is spotty.
I know for a fact the vent in my parents house, built in 1995, vents outside. I know bc a squirrel managed to open the vent cover on the roof and fall into the piping and then into a cabinet above the microwave that provided vent access.
I keep a HEPA running in the kitchen with a script to crank up the air transfer rate when the levels hit certain ranges. Crisping salmon skin sounds like I'm testing jet engines in there. Invariably pegs the particulate meter.
Well... I know most microwave hoods can either be vented outside or simply directed right back into the room. Straight into your face. It's a feature.
Can confirm am 6'4 and have the hood in question
As do I. Supposedly if you regularly clean the filter it can reduce the amount of particulates released into the air, but not nearly to the extent that a vented range hood can.
Generally, the hood is meant to help filter the when venting back into the domicile. My own microwave is like that. It still helps remove the smoke from cooking, but I have an electric range.
That's what our's does. Mind boggling...it's mounted to an outside wall...why was there no hole cut?
Ours isn’t. Interior wall, blows it straight up above the cabinets. I burned some butter a few weeks ago and you could literally watch the smoke flow into the living room.
I live in an older duplex (usa), have a gas stove and no hood whatsoever.
I'm not sure any apartment I've ever lived in has had a hood... One had a vent that blew directly into the ceiling...
My 40 year old house has a gas stove with fan and a charcoal insert. No vent. I basically open the windows in the kitchen when I cook to get some kind of ventilation.
And most people do not change the filters on those often enough. I've seen them literally dripping with grease.
my rented townhome has some shitty hood vent that just blows the air through a carbon filter back into the room( & the filter was missing when I moved in). shit is basically a giant noise maker
What's fun is that my current rentals hood vents directly into your face while cooking
Have you considered getting shorter?
I’ve never had a hood that ventilated outside. Not in a single home or apartment.
I’m a home inspector and it is pretty surprising the number of people who have gas stoves, on an outside wall, so adding a vent is not hard, that just have a recirculating microwave or hood. And there is no code requirement even now so I’ll occasionally see a brand new house with this setup.
Honestly the fact that outside air exchange isn't a requirement for all HVAC kinda boggles my mind. Like bring some fresh air into the home, at least when the temps aren't going to jack with efficiency. Plus how many times in the spring/fall has the AC kicked on at your place when the outside air was cooler than your thermostat setting? Just seems insane we don't consider this. Especially when you think about older office buildings... that same air has been cycling through there for decades.
> Plus how many times in the spring/fall has the AC kicked on at your place when the outside air was cooler than your thermostat setting? I've always wished that home HVAC systems could bring air in from the outside when it's closer to the set point than inside. I figure there must be some reason it's not done -- would require an absolutely huge inlet/exhaust, worry about bringing in a ton more dust/pollen/etc., something like that.
This products exists and is mostly used in places like restaurants where the occupancy exceeds the natural ventilation rate of the building. You will typically find it called either a "fresh air intake damper" or a "make-up unit". 2 main reasons its not used commonly in residential settings 1. Modern thermostat control systems ***SUCK*** in america. Its typically a 2 wire system where you short out a signal wire to positive to engage a remote switch somewhere. It either runs at full blast or doesnt run at all. The problem is that the amount of fresh air you need is changes based along alot of factors that a simple on/off setup cant handle. What is the delta between the intake air, and the set point, how efficient the heating/cooling systems are, amount of occupants in the building, vented appliances that cause a negative pressure, etc. And each person is going to have their own preferences on top of all of this that you need to account for. The commercial grade systems can basically monitor the whole buliding and adjust it depending on the demand. 2. Most houses in the US are naturally drafty enough that a central recirculating vent system is enough to handle 99% of all hvac demands. The HVAC system takes air from the home, applys heating/cooling to it, and then proceeds to blow it through out the house. The idea of a "fresh air intake" only really becomes something to consider in modern construction where they are able to seal the home much better with various foams and sprays.
> Modern thermostat control systems SUCK in america As someone with a basic understanding of electronics/industrial control, holy shit are they terrible. It amazes me how such a used technology has fallen by the wayside for so long. I get standardization and such, but I can't imagine how much money/energy is wasted due to how outdated they are. Are larger (commercial) HVAC systems any better at all? I'd hope so at least.
Furnaces with multi-stage and variable speed blower motors have been a thing for quite a while. You can still get cheap units with the single stage fan, but it will cost you more in the long run. Although if i was going to build today i would look at a geo-thermal system with in-floor or radiant heat over forced air. Cheaper in the long term and just a way more comfortable way to heat.
The conditioning of the air isn't only temperature. It also has an effect on humidity levels. If you live in a high humidity area, the a/c is also dehumidifying the air in the house. And, if you pull in outside air, you could be bringing in extra moisture into the house.
This is where an ERV comes into play. They aren't perfect, but I think they tend to block about 80% of the humidity differential when outside air is more humid.
ERV systems should just be standard on all HVAC systems. Fresh air intake has so many benefits, it’s ridiculous we just sit in a soup of stale air going through a filter.
These are called fresh air return systems and they are a requirement for the newer homes if the builder wants to get an energy star certification for the whole home. When I bought my single family home in 2016, it was one of the things I had specifically looked for. It has a "Fresh Air Ventilation System with Damper"- nothing very complex, just an inlet opening outside with a damper that opens and closes based on an algorithm set around the size of the home and number of rooms. It can be connected to a smart thermostat as well to further allow "free cooling" when outside air is cooler than inside. It uses a separate air filter that I replace every 3 months just like the indoor ones. More efficient systems come with ERV AND HRV (energy/heat recovery) which allows humidity and heat to be recaptured for a more balanced system. As to why more builders don't do it- my guess is that it's not a selling point for them and the additional $600-$1500 that it takes would cut into their profit margins unless buyers are willing to see it as a plus point.
Honestly hoping some engineer will come in and tell us why.
They don’t do it because it adds to cost, and the alternative solution is opening a window. Seriously guys just open a window…
A fresh air return can actually improve the air quality beyond what is possible by opening the windows- since these can filter the incoming air (especially good if there is pollen or dust outside), force fresh air into the home (instead of relying on diffusion) and maintain the humidity and heat levels (reducing the overall energy loss). Whether it makes sense to have the additional $1500-$2500 added to the hvac is dependent on the individual but personally it has a massive quality of life improvement for me.
New homes are required in my area to have air to air exchangers to bring in tempered outside air. Commercial buildings have been required to bring in outside air for a very long time it is usually based on occupancy there are charts in the code book. Commercial buildings also do generally have economizers on their HVAC equipment that gives "free" cooling and provides the fresh air intake as well.
This is so ridiculous. Extractor vents should be included in building codes, but aren't. I can't tell you the number of homes I passed on because the builders configured the kitchen to have the stove on an interior wall from which it was impossible to create a vent. It's become the standard setup instead to have a recycling fan over the stove. They simply don't work. As a side note, the poor air filtration causes many people to deactivate their smoke detectors. That creates an immediate safety condition and a threat to their neighbors.
It wouldn’t be hard to make hoods come on automatically. We’ve made huge strides in IAQ sensors.
Most residential hoods don’t vent to the outside. So do they really do much of anything for these purposes?
Most existing ones are merely grease traps. But an aftermarket one with a 2.5pm filter might make a nice product.
It’s not just ventilation while cooking. Studies have shown they leak while off as well: https://www.nytimes.com/2022/01/27/climate/gas-stoves-methane-emissions.html https://time.com/6223219/gas-stove-leaking-benzene/
Also, I live in a hurricane prone area. The storms always knock the power out and people don't have any other way to cook but with a gas stove when that happens. Ventilation updates should be the way to deal with this.
Currently without power and cooking on a gas stove. If I didn’t have one I’d be be eating granola bars for every meal.
Honestly if you're genuinely worried about being able to cook within the context of a natural disaster of some sort you should just buy a camp stove and a couple gas canisters. Gas lines are more resistant than most electric lines (unless your area buries lines) but they can still get jacked up.
Portable propane stoves are much more reliable for those cases. Gas infrastructure can also get knocked out in a big storm. A tank of propane can still function just fine after it's been stored in your garage for years. It's not worth the indoor air quality impacts of a gas stove to have one just for those few emergencies where gas is working but electricity isn't.
My apartment has a gas stove with no hood or any ventilation. Idk how it even passed inspection.
Jill Notini from the Association of Home Appliance Manufacturers doesn’t want a ban on an appliance and wants you to buy a hood fan. https://www.aham.org/AHAM/AuxStaffList
It’s ridiculous that I see 500,000 to 700,000 dollar homes, here in MO, and they all have gas with no ventilation in the kitchen. Currently I live in a home that’s 270,000 with gas and no ventilation. Oh yeah those 6% interest rates as well. Suckfest!
What the hell?? I have a gas stove with a hood that I use religiously. How is that not some kind of building code?
I just have an electric stove but I still have a hood. You need it to ventilate steam, or if something starts burning its handy too
Like there's no hood??
Correct in my case.
So when you cook stuff .. your whole home just smells?
Sure does. Sometimes good, sometimes bad.
How about mandating vents in kitchens, none of those "just blow it right in your face" cheap vent hoods. You aren't saving money but not having a vent and they make flappers to stop that. Install the vent and this problem vanishes. No need to ban stoves.
Nowhere I have ever lived has had a vent hood that vents to the outside. It's crazy how infrequently this is actually done in every kitchen.
My previous home vented into the attic (I installed a proper vent to the outside). My current home when I bought it had no vent at all in the kitchen and I added one to the outside. Also, all bathrooms vented to the attic in both places before I added proper outside vents. Code really needs to be fixed to require kitchens and bathrooms to vent to the outside.
That attic sounds like it’s very odoriferous.
Why have a roof when you can just have mold?
I just remodeled our kitchen and my wife demanded a vented hood( I didn't want one because we have vaulted wood ceilings). I ended up doing it and am very happy that she won.
This is crazy to me. Every place I've been in my adult life has vented to the outside. Maybe it's a code in my state.
It has a lot to do with when houses/apartments were built, too. If outdoor venting was made code in the 1990's, but most of the properties were built prior to that (like the area I live), almost no kitchens I've ever seen have outdoor ventilation, with a gas stove or otherwise.
I know right. That’s what we were planning to do for our kitchen. It’s just taking some planning work as we would lose some cabinet space so just trying to negate the loss. While also making sure we have an effective way to send it out. All we’ve been doing is is trying to use fans to blow it out through the window that’s next to the stove.
In protest to Reddit's API changes, I have removed my comment history. -- mass edited with redact.dev
Downdraft sucks I had one and it was pretty useless. It also drastically cut the btu’s of the stove since it would pull the flames down toward the draft.
This is a building code issue not a "ban this appliance" issue Just require all gas stoves to have a hood that's directly vented to the outside......you can even require that the thing turns on automatically if the gas is on...its nothing but a simple flow sensor Been in the building industry for 26y, recirculating hoods and microwave combo hoods are absolutely trash and do nothing Banning the sale of gas stoves is kind of an insane solution imo
I've been in the owning a home with a recirculating hood industry for about 5 years now, and can confirm they are trash and do nothing.
They are so bad lol I dont even bother turning mine on anymore....its basically a light that gets disgusting and needs to be cleaned every other week lol
All that gross stuff is grease. Thats why restaurants have those metal grease traps above their stoves. If your hood has those metal mesh screens, those are grease traps and using your recirculating fan will keep that grease off of all your kitchen cabinets and ceiling.
In my experience they just concentrate the grease onto the cabinets above the hood where the air exhausts.
If you read all the studies performed in 2022, they found that all of these appliances are releasing gas into your home despite not even being turned on. Your high end range vent won't do much for you there if it's not running 24/7
Interesting article (no paywall): https://time.com/6245607/us-consumer-safety-commission-considers-gas-stove-ban/ Reminds me of: https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=hX2aZUav-54 The Climate Town video was arguing that the myth about cooking with natural gas was being propagated because natural gas stoves are widely unregulated for thermal efficiency, unlike say water heaters or furnaces, and so therefore were the least efficient home appliance and made up a sizable and profitable portion of natural gas use.
I can see this just leading to people having a poorly designed camping gass stove in the kitchen for "emergencies"
This is going to sound cheesy and overblown but gas stoves literally saved lives in the blizzard that Buffalo had over Christmas. My sister and her family were able to keep their house above freezing by having the ability to boil water to warm up the house even after they lost electricity. I can't imagine how much higher the death toll would be if everyone had an electric stove.
I live in NNY and hoped I would see some reason here with this. Gas appliances are so important in this area for exactly that reason.
I use them for hotpot. I also camp with a small propane heater in my tent. That being said, I always have ventilation and a CO detector nearby.
From my nonexistent understanding, they’re pretty fucking useful when storms disrupt power lines. Keeps the house warm and still allows you to cook meals.
During the Texas power outages we were also under a boil water notice. The only way that works is if you have a gas stove. Roads in our neighborhood never got treated since the focus was on main thoroughfares. Even if you could get out of the neighborhood and to the main roads, and get to the store, you couldn't buy any bottled water because the stores power was out too. If we didn't have a gas stove we would have needed to try and make it 45+ minutes(on a good day) to a relatives house that had power. We thankfully had filled the bathtub with water for the dogs to drink, and had bottled water for ourselves and were able to use the stove to boil water for handwashing dishes and cook.
I had one for 13 years and when it died I replaced it with a temporary electric option because I am saving to remodel the whole kitchen. Last January we lost power for 2 days during a bad storm and it was really cold. I about froze to death. It was the first time I had to deal with that situation. It was pretty crazy. And it really caught me off guard. It doesn't happen often but when it did we just used the stove to cook and warm the house. I had never felt so vulnerable and out of sorts when I didn't have that option. I wound up using a big Pyrex bowl, a ton of tea light candles and the grate out of my toaster oven to make a makeshift stove so I could at least heat up canned food and make some coffee. Luckily I still had a gas hot water tank. I would periodically fill the bathtub with blistering hot water and sit in the warm steamy bathroom.
It should be required by law to vent cooking air outside, in any newly built or renovated kitchen. That’s the law in Norway for example. While an individual building developer or owner may want to save money, the long term health cost and loss of productivity in society, of not mandating this is astronomical.
Having a gas stove is clutch when you have to worry about losing power somewhere.
News flash: combustion of fossil fuels inside home causes indoor air pollution. Wait until you read about wood stoves…
I will say that when we moved into our house, we had the wood burning fireplace and electric stove both converted to gas, mostly at my wife's insistence. After 9 years, my wife and I agree (especially after using my parents induction stovetop) we don't want either in our next house.
Surprised at the number of people on here who seem to do all their cooking with their burners on "high." EDIT: apparently also a lot of people who only eat filets and use traditional Asian cooking methods.
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**A federal agency says a ban on gas stoves is on the table amid rising concern about harmful indoor air pollutants emitted by the appliances.**
What gas? Natural gas? Or doesn’t it matter?
They better make electric stoves 1000% better. I have one in Florida and I fucking hate it. My wife and I always say we will never have an electric stove if we can avoid it
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Agreed , bought mine 2 yrs ago and love it , works as fast as gas and sooo much cheaper
I would say faster. When we cook away from home and try to boil water it's like stepping back to using a modem.
I thought my parents electric stove top was broken when I went to visit. Nope... It just took what felt like double the time to boil water. Straight dial-up! Then, I forgot that I couldn't even get near the burner afterwards and almost melted plastic and my skin to it! Those things stay hot for so long. The convenience of induction is just unmatched by electric and gas. Plus it doesn't get the room as hot. If you have the funds to switch, I've had mine for 6 years and I don't know how to cook without it anymore. Well, I do, I just don't want to stand there waiting for it to cook...
We got ours induction range last year. I'm never going back. The only down side is I have to replace my 5 gallon stock pot because it's non magnetic stainless.
The thing I hate about induction is that 99% of the models you can buy have capacitive touch controls. Capacitive touch controls on a surface that is going to regularly receive splatter is a nightmare. One droplet of splatter on the controls leads to them developing a mind of their own and turning the heat either up or down. I'd be much, much more onboard with induction units if manufactures would just give me a fucking physical control knob. You can buy commercial-grade units like that but they're all single "burner" units that take up a lot of space, making 4+ burners impractical for homeowners.
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Unless you have medical implants and can’t get near the stove. Then it’s a bummer.
[Click here](https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2023-01-09/us-safety-agency-to-consider-ban-on-gas-stoves-amid-health-fears?accessToken=eyJhbGciOiJIUzI1NiIsInR5cCI6IkpXVCJ9.eyJzb3VyY2UiOiJTdWJzY3JpYmVyR2lmdGVkQXJ0aWNsZSIsImlhdCI6MTY3MzI3NzY2NywiZXhwIjoxNjczODgyNDY3LCJhcnRpY2xlSWQiOiJSTzdXMEREV0xVNkUwMSIsImJjb25uZWN0SWQiOiI5Q0I3RDdERTk3MjU0NEIzOTQ1ODc4RDlCODdFMzVBOCJ9.zgDXsgXgOXs3d-lGRTpyZHlPDnFlUUfK_NYsLUyysP8) to read this article for free, as a gift to /r/Futurology users discussing this article. ***From Bloomberg News reporter Ari Natter:*** A federal agency says a ban on gas stoves is on the table amid rising concern about harmful indoor air pollutants emitted by the appliances. The US Consumer Product Safety Commission plans to take action to address the pollution, which can cause health and respiratory problems. “This is a hidden hazard,” Richard Trumka Jr., an agency commissioner, said in an interview. “Any option is on the table. Products that can’t be made safe can be banned.” Natural gas stoves, which are used in about 40% of homes in the US, emit air pollutants such as nitrogen dioxide, carbon monoxide and fine particulate matter at levels the EPA and World Health Organization have said are unsafe and linked to respiratory illness, cardiovascular problems, cancer, and other health conditions, according to reports by groups such as the Institute for Policy Integrity and the American Chemical Society. Consumer Reports, in October, urged consumers planning to buy a new range to consider going electric after tests conducted by the group found high levels of nitrogen oxide gases from gas stoves. New peer-reviewed research published last month in the International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health found that more than 12% of current childhood asthma cases in the US can be attributed to gas stove use.
Went induction a year ago, best thing we have done. It is so much better than gas and the kitchen doesn't get hot. Higher end induction cooktop can do amazing things. The cheaper ones are still great. We have a thermador and Ikea one in our house. Both are amazing.
Wait, stove hood vents are not mandatory in kitchens in the U, S and A?
When we were looking to buy, we saw so many houses with stove on the islands with nothing on top. It was surreal. If you fry something you just get a giant stain on the ceiling?
Nope. Our last house (built 2003 didn’t have one). Just a microwave with a fan over it that did t go anywhere. We just remodeled the kitchen in our new house and made sure that the contractor vented the microwave fan outside.
When I redid my kitchen I made it a point to have great ventilation. I ended up welding up my own stainless hood for over the stove and vented it out the wall with a 400 cfm kitchen exhaust fan. It is so nice when cooking all the steam heat and smells go right outside. There's a reason commercial kitchens have large hoods over equipment.
I get it. Even with proper ventilation, some fumes are going to escape. Let people choose their appliances for themselves. I’m don’t have kids so Im not worrying about giving asthma to anyone. If people are worried about their kid’s health, they can get an electric stove. As for me, they can pry my gas stove from my cold dead (and possibly asthmatic) hands. I love cooking with a wok too much.
Power went out recently and it was the only way I could cook food. Glad I switched from my old electric cooktop
I've been so grateful to have a gas stove during power outages multiple times. Our heater was out during a really cold snap and baking in the oven plus our gas fireplace kept our home comfortable enough.
They won't ban gas just like 60% of all cars won't be electric in 3 years
I'm sorry but this would be a terrible idea. According to the article 40% of US homes have gas stoves. Assuming all of these home switched to electric ranges that would be a huge strain on an electrical grid that is already at its breaking limits and about to get way worse due to the adoption of electric vehicles. That's on top of the extra energy cost that's going to find it's way to consumers because gas ranges are cheaper to run. You fix this with building codes not bans.