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0 pointsrsynnott2y ago0 comments

Yeah, ovens last more or less forever, and haven't had significant efficiency gains in a long time. They're probably the thing you're least likely to want to replace. There's often far more of an incentive with, say, fridges; if you have a 20 year old one, the replacement will likely pay for itself in a few years in power savings.

> The obvious safety mechanism to turn off the gas if the burner isn’t lit? Nonexistent.

... Wait, surely these are mandatory ~everywhere by now?

EDIT: Huh. Apparently they are _not_ required in the US (except maybe in apartment buildings) and are not common there. Weird; they're not very expensive.

Maybe it's an American Rugged Individualism thing. While I find the flame failure devices in my gas stove extremely irritating (they're particularly conservative, and won't reliably acknowledge that there's a flame until about 5 seconds after it's lit) I recognise that they are for my own good; this is probably very European thinking, though :)

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amluto2y ago

Wow. I have literally never seen a flame failure device on a residential stove in the US.

I’ve seen them on gas fired ovens with pilot lights. (Don’t get a gas fired oven with a pilot light. As far as I can tell, they have no redeeming features unless you like the broiler hidden under some of them. They make for pretty bad ovens, and they suck for indoor air quality.)

rsynnottOP2y ago

For whatever reason, while gas stoves are fairly common in Ireland (I think they are in decline now, as induction offers most of the same advantages, along with its own), gas oven are practically non-existent; haven't seen one in years.

Didn't realise they were still a thing in the US, though it makes _sense_, I suppose; on a 110V system an electric oven is going to be a more expensive wiring job than on a 230V one.

sokoloff2y ago

I'm trying to think how I would reliably prove flame in a way that would resistant to annoying false negatives in the face of a very low simmer. (Somewhat ironically, this is probably the most important setting for which you'd need it. I'm not in any real danger of having a full-bore gas burner go out. I am in danger of having the lowest possible simmer blow out undetected.)

Over a long enough period of time, a sufficiently sensitive raw temperature sensor is probably good enough, but that's not likely to be cheap nor reliable/long-lasting.

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