Gas cooking is still much better. I have both. Induction just isn’t as enjoyable and you can’t do things like move your pan and have it keep heating like with a flame. Not to mention, induction is rough on pans. Banning things is aggressive and uncalled for.
It's not much better. It's slightly better at specific things and worse at most things. I've had plenty of gas hobs. I think I'd prefer normal electric over them just for being easier to clean and not having to deal or worry about gas. You learn to deal with the shortcomings of electric. Induction is great though. When we remodeled our kitchen we went from electric, gas for 3 months, induction. Life has improved.
The only thing I don't like about induction are those cooktops where they put the controls as touch buttons on the surface. I'm glad we rented a place in the past with that to learn how stupid it is so as to get one with proper knobs that don't you can't accidentally get hot.
jfim · 2h ago
Gas cooking doesn't really have good temperature control though. Using a temperature probe, I can set my stock pot to 98°C on the induction cooktop and it'll stay exactly there for hours with no worrying about the burner set too high or low for the stock to gently simmer.
There's also no worrying about combustion gases in the house.
harvey9 · 1h ago
You described a completely different requirement from the post you replied to. A kitchen could accommodate both by having more than one hob type, or a gas hob and a plug-in dedicated slow cooker gadget.
jordanb · 1h ago
Inconsistent heat is never good for cooking.
seanmcdirmid · 2h ago
China has a bunch of induction hobs that are wok shaped designed for high heat precise heat control wok cooking. I think they want to replace propane eventually as the primary stir fry cooking energy, which matches their moves to replace ICEs with EVs.
bradlys · 10h ago
What’re you doing to move the pan all the time? If you’re working with a wok and doing a lot of fast paced work you’d find in a restaurant, I’d understand because induction wok surfaces are hard to come by in the US.
But I don’t get it otherwise. I’m rarely moving the pan so much that induction wouldn’t be usable.
archagon · 10h ago
FWIW, most high-end restaurants rely on induction these days. (Sometimes, though not always, exclusively.)
I've seen it first-hand, too. Pastry chefs in particular seem to appreciate the stability and evenness of low heat that high-end induction brings to the table. You can often see Cedric Grolet use an induction burner on his channel, for example: https://www.instagram.com/cedricgrolet/
aeternum · 9h ago
Yes, liberal used to be about increasing freedom, now it seems to be more about bans and penalties for non-conformers
dietr1ch · 2h ago
I don't see the biggest difference being about freedom, but what to maximise, individual or society as a group.
Individuals excel when there's absolutely no rule stopping them, but enough to not make others a threat, and groups excel when there's rules to prevent individuals from taking an advantage over the rest, be it not paying their fair share on maintaining society, ignoring costs that society pays as a whole.
Here the idea is that natural gas is a greenwashed technology and that society would be better off moving away from it, so through this ban you'll start the migration away from natural gas.
The individual standpoint is that natural gas is probably cheaper, so fuck the planet if that gets you a better price.
Are there other things to change if you care about the planet? Sure, but that's not the point and doing only one of them isn't going to make a dent on the upcoming climate catastrophes.
ZeroGravitas · 13h ago
Totally sensible policy that the average American thinks is crazy because their overton window is so skewed.
In Australia they're looking to identify larger areas to remove from the gas grid at the same time. Otherwise the few remaining on gas bear the entire cost of upkeep of the grid.
thegrim33 · 12h ago
The overton window is skewed? Do you think people 20 years ago would be more likely to agree or disagree with this policy, compared to people today? What about 40 years ago? What about 60 years ago? 80 years? If anything, the window has moved so far in the direction of your ideology that this is the first point in history where such a policy would have any chance of being implemented.
TimorousBestie · 11h ago
During the post-war period in the states, natural gas displaced coal and oil for domestic consumption in part because it burnt cleaner. So yes, people in the past did agree with displacing inconvenient fossil fuels for modern alternatives.
archagon · 10h ago
What are you even talking about? Not everything has to be interpreted in the context of some cataclysmic battle of ideologies. And this sort of policy is not uncommon in other parts of the Western world.
MisterSandman · 12h ago
I’m guessing you’ve never been to SF? The quality of housing in SF is really poor, with most affordable homes being decades behind in renovations and upkeep. This requirement adds unnecessary costs in an already overheated market.
No comments yet
Eavolution · 13h ago
To be fair in houses it's relatively easy to run a gas cooker on bottles of propane, mains gas isn't necessary for this.
No comments yet
tlogan · 13h ago
The very big issue in San Francisco is the severe lack of affordable housing. When renovations become significantly more expensive, those costs inevitably get passed on to renters: making the crisis even worse.
If regulations like these are necessary, they should be applied in areas without a housing affordability crisis. But somehow, it’s always the high-cost cities that get hit with even more burdens.
refurb · 4h ago
Sometimes the Overton window is in the right place.
Just add it to the pile of detrimental policies that California has created over the past few decades.
tlogan · 14h ago
This is an excellent way to solve the housing crisis in San Francisco: sarcasm fully intended.
Stories like this just reinforce the obvious: the housing crisis is a problem of our own making. Wealthy residents and NIMBYs consistently show they have no interest in helping the poor, the homeless, or working-class people who simply want a place to live. The ones hit hardest are usually younger generations.
This should not be a political issue. Whether on the left or the right, rich people will always find a reason (legal, aesthetic, environmental, religious, etc.) to avoid fixing the housing problem. The excuses vary, but the outcome is the same.
danans · 5h ago
> This is an excellent way to solve the housing crisis in San Francisco: sarcasm fully intended.
At least for new dwellings, building without gas piping is _cheaper_ than building with it. It's very cheap to run additional 240V/60A lines from the load center to the kitchen and laundry/utility room.
Depending on the renovation, it can be even cheaper to go all-electric, for example, if the kitchen/laundry/heating is being moved.
However, renovations don't have much effect either way on the housing affordability crisis in San Francisco, because renovations don't generally increase housing capacity. Most renovations in SF are done for the purpose of converting existing lower end homes into higher end homes.
seanmcdirmid · 2h ago
This doesn’t have much to do with the cost of building housing. If it did, the south east where natural gas is non existent through out much of it wouldn’t have such cheap housing. Yes, they have propane (king of the hill style), but this wouldn’t get rid of propane cooking outside either.
cocoa19 · 11h ago
> The ones hit hardest are usually younger generations
Reminds me of prop 13. If you challenge grandma having a $3M house paying peanuts for property taxes you are a monster.
If you defend young people that are ready to start a family, "they can kick rocks and move to Bumfuck, Middle-Of-Nowhere, no one is entitled to live in the Bay Area".
linotype · 11h ago
Both are unfortunate situations. Neither should be priced out.
seanmcdirmid · 2h ago
Everyone one who wants to live in SF should be allowed to live in SF regardless of their means. I don’t know how this could work in practice, however.
burnt-resistor · 10h ago
CA Prop 13 was an unfortunate, short-term bandaid in 1978 that didn't address excessive property taxes for elderly, disabled, and poor people who came after them. It truly was another boomer selfishness moment. The solution is to expand Prop 13 to all who meet low income requirements to make property taxes progressive rather than unreasonable "flat" taxes that punish the poor far more than the rich and moderately rich.
PS: I grew up in south San Jose, graduated from Leland, but can't afford a home anywhere near where I grew up because rich people from all over the world gentrified the Bay Area and boomers went full NIMBY on new developments.
dnissley · 9h ago
boomers were just coming of age politically when prop 13 passed in 1978. the main culprits were actually the silent generation and older greatest gen homeowners—think postwar suburbanites who had bought in cheap and were now watching their property taxes spike in a period of wild inflation + ballooning home values. boomers were still mostly renters or too young to own, especially in california’s pricey metros.
dehrmann · 13h ago
I won't go that far, but it's a distraction from larger problems, and it makes housing more expensive. These are the same cities charging $0.10 for paper bags at grocery stores because marginal environmental benefit?
adrianwaj · 5h ago
> Wealthy residents and NIMBYs consistently show they have no interest in helping the poor, the homeless, or working-class people who simply want a place to live.
What if there was a way to help the poor and boost a crypto coin at the same time? Win/win. See this idea for "WordPay" .. giving people funds with a few words.
How exactly is forcing owners to actually improve their house supposed to make the housing problem worse?
You think it’s going to put house outside of the market at their current price? It’s an insignificant dent in the profit margin.
JumpCrisscross · 9h ago
> How exactly is forcing owners to actually improve their house supposed to make the housing problem worse?
This law makes renovations more expensive. That means use conversions, expansions and safety improvements all happen less frequently.
> It’s an insignificant dent in the profit margin
Limited supply means suppliers own the cards. There is zero chance these costs are born by landlords.
archagon · 10h ago
When I was looking for an apartment in SF, it seemed like half the places we viewed smelled a bit like gas in the kitchen. And then the apartment we ended up renting turned out to have leaking gas pipes basically throughout the entire plumbing run. (Fortunately, the landlord was able to coordinate a brand new gas line installation in a matter of days.)
I think a lot of people live with gas leaks without even knowing, especially in older buildings. This is a good change from a public health and safety perspective.
burnt-resistor · 8h ago
And that's why dozens of homes go boom every year. My dumbass aunt nearly blew up her 100+ year old house because of 60+ year old under-maintained gas lines that caused a minor fire.
thehappypm · 12h ago
How do San Francisco homes get heat? As I understand it, it gets cool enough in SF to require heating a lot of the time. If gas is banned, a lot of people switch from gas to electric heat? Straining an already strained grid?
burnt-resistor · 7h ago
While SF has microclimates, the weather goes from barely cold to barely warm. It doesn't really need heating or A/C very much. The thing though is that PG&E's (traditionally) lower costs for natural gas than electricity incentivize(d) the consumption and use of gas water heaters, clothes dryers, and stoves. If the city-county of SF or state wanted to address this as a policy level, they could slap a tax on natural gas. The thing though is they should help people afford the change to electric and on-going higher costs of electricity because people on fixed incomes cannot afford any changes.
duskwuff · 10h ago
> As I understand it, it gets cool enough in SF to require heating a lot of the time.
Definitely not "a lot of the time". The coldest it gets is maybe 40°F on a particularly chilly winter night - with a well-insulated house you hardly even need central heat.
No comments yet
bradlys · 10h ago
Heat pumps are very efficient form of heating. The nice part is that you can use them to cool the home too.
sugarpimpdorsey · 14h ago
They could easily get more public support if they pushed this as a seismic retrofit initiative rather than continue to gaslight the public and doubling down on their environmental foolishness. A direct-vent natural gas-fired water heater is probably the simplest, most reliable appliance you could own. It requires no electricity. And now bureaucrats (not plumbers) made them illegal.
SF is probably the only place in the country where this makes sense, solely because of the earthquake problem. (Do you know how to shut off your gas meter in an emergency? Probably not.)
Yet same people who insist hopscotching amongst piles of human feces is part and parcel to living in the city, not the public health hazard it is, want you to believe your gas stove is killing you.
As a wok owner, I'll take that chance.
mcswell · 13h ago
"A direct-vent natural gas-fired water heater is probably the simplest, most reliable appliance you could own. It requires no electricity." I won't address the legality issue, but: First, I'm not sure about the no electricity; if the heater has a pilot light, then I suppose no, but otherwise it requires electricity at least for the igniter.
Second, you're missing another reason for getting a heat pump water heater. We just last week replaced our 13 year old (and therefore on its end of life) gas heater with a heat pump water heater. It requires no gas :). One reason for doing that is that using electricity to run a small heat pump is far cheaper where we live than gas. (We have solar panels, which makes it still cheaper--in fact, free.)
The only things remaining in our house that use gas are the stove and a gas log fireplace. We've used the latter twice during the 13 years we've lived in the house. If we replace the stove (which we'll need to do some day, it's almost 25 years old) with an electric one, then I'd be easily persuaded to turn off the gas fireplace, and end the delivery charge on gas.
As an electric appliance owner, I'll take that chance.
seanmcdirmid · 2h ago
Is the water heater just in time? I’m guessing not because the heat pump would need some time to startup? Also is it 120V? I have a gas JIT hot water heater that will need to be replaced in a few years and I’m wondering where the tech is at right now.
thehappypm · 12h ago
I had a hybrid electric heat pump water heater, and I didn’t like that it made my house cold in the winter. In winter I’d switch to purely resistive mode. Later on, I moved into a house with a gas water heater and at least for me the gas operating cost is lower.
viraptor · 12h ago
What do you mean it made your house cold? Did you place it inside the house?
thehappypm · 7h ago
Yes, everyone has it in their house in cold climates you’d be crazy to have it somewhere not climate controlled
viraptor · 3h ago
Ok. I was confused because mine's in a service room, attached to the house and enclosed, but now open to the house air.
paradox460 · 10h ago
Generally the electricity for the safety and other minor electrical parts is generated by a thermocouple, and a battery or capacitor provides automatic reignition, with a piezo style BBQ igniter as backup
bradlys · 10h ago
With electricity hitting rates around $0.70/kwh with PG&E - gas isn’t usually a more expensive way to heat water.
PG&E in CA is criminally expensive. If you’re lucky to be in one of the cities in the bay that isn’t on it, you get incredibly cheap energy in comparison.
There are plenty of water heaters that use a pilot light. I’ve been in many homes where they all use pilot light based gas water heaters.
tlogan · 13h ago
I’m not sure where you live, but in my case, I wasn’t even able to get home insurance without an automatic gas shutoff valve. Our policy also required an automatic shutoff for water. So in that sense, earthquake safety is already being addressed through insurance requirements.
Ultimately, mandates like this just make housing even more expensive. Which, frankly, seems to be the real goal. God forbid home prices actually decline or even stop rising.
pengaru · 12h ago
That's not really sufficient for seismically active regions like the SF bay area. The mains are more likely to develop leaks from the frequent tremors and no amount of at-home shutoff valves will change that.
If you allow new construction dependent on existing natural gas distribution lines, they increase the pressure to accommodate the increased demand. This makes explosions from pipes leaking/catastrophically failing more likely.
I thought it was obvious the long-term goal was to reduce if not completely eliminate the need for natural gas distribution _especially_ in these regions.
There are induction heated woks in more civilized countries. But again, in the US you're fucked with the third-worldian 120Volts.
_aavaa_ · 3h ago
The us is on 240v, but it’s split phase.
Even from a 120V you can get a 1300W induction plate that will transfer heat faster than all but the biggest range burners.
sugarpimpdorsey · 5h ago
Cookers run on 240 Volts in the US.
LargoLasskhyfv · 4h ago
Only if they have fixed wiring, or specially wired sockets with the according plugs going into them. I should know, because I had my house partially remodeled, including ripping gas pipes out of living-, kitchen-, and bathing rooms. To be replaced by that.
That may be different for professional gastronomic equipment, but I have no experience with that. I think a pizza-oven or larger cooking range could have some sort of thick CEE-plug/coupling like you sometimes see on construction sites.
In Germany that fixed wiring for stoves was/is at 380/400Volts.
Since this was about a Wok initially, I assumed mobility and no fixed installation.
Why this matters in daily life(If you don't want to have gas anymore), everything takes longer to heat(with standard mains electricity), even boiling water for brewing coffee or tea in the US.
Leading to such strange contraptions like induction cooking tops with integrated Liion-battery, to at least be able to compensate for a while for the lack of oomph.
This isn't necessary, or the case in Germany.
whateveracct · 13h ago
I'm in another state with a liberal, climate-oriented govt, and I just got a fresh gas range and new gas car. Felt like my last chance to do so given how long I hold onto such things. Carpe diem.
burnt-resistor · 7h ago
Given that (the better) EVs are cheaper to operate, cheaper to maintain, accelerate faster than ICEVs, and don't create as much net pollution, these should be the preferred option rather than using the sky as a sewer. The problem right now is most of America is fixated upon ancient and harmful technologies and isn't do enough to incentivize buying EVs. And it's actually limiting consumer choice by slapping giant tariffs on international EV options that are surpassing the capabilities of domestic ones. EVs should be (re)incentivized such that they are significantly cheaper to buy than ICEVs.
whateveracct · 2h ago
But I like driving ICEVs! Always have, and they're still more fun to drive and deal with. Figured I'd get one last hurrah. Mileage is good and this car will probably last me the next 10-15y. Zoom zoom til 2040, buddy :)
The only thing I don't like about induction are those cooktops where they put the controls as touch buttons on the surface. I'm glad we rented a place in the past with that to learn how stupid it is so as to get one with proper knobs that don't you can't accidentally get hot.
There's also no worrying about combustion gases in the house.
But I don’t get it otherwise. I’m rarely moving the pan so much that induction wouldn’t be usable.
I've seen it first-hand, too. Pastry chefs in particular seem to appreciate the stability and evenness of low heat that high-end induction brings to the table. You can often see Cedric Grolet use an induction burner on his channel, for example: https://www.instagram.com/cedricgrolet/
Individuals excel when there's absolutely no rule stopping them, but enough to not make others a threat, and groups excel when there's rules to prevent individuals from taking an advantage over the rest, be it not paying their fair share on maintaining society, ignoring costs that society pays as a whole.
Here the idea is that natural gas is a greenwashed technology and that society would be better off moving away from it, so through this ban you'll start the migration away from natural gas. The individual standpoint is that natural gas is probably cheaper, so fuck the planet if that gets you a better price.
Are there other things to change if you care about the planet? Sure, but that's not the point and doing only one of them isn't going to make a dent on the upcoming climate catastrophes.
In Australia they're looking to identify larger areas to remove from the gas grid at the same time. Otherwise the few remaining on gas bear the entire cost of upkeep of the grid.
No comments yet
No comments yet
If regulations like these are necessary, they should be applied in areas without a housing affordability crisis. But somehow, it’s always the high-cost cities that get hit with even more burdens.
Just add it to the pile of detrimental policies that California has created over the past few decades.
Stories like this just reinforce the obvious: the housing crisis is a problem of our own making. Wealthy residents and NIMBYs consistently show they have no interest in helping the poor, the homeless, or working-class people who simply want a place to live. The ones hit hardest are usually younger generations.
This should not be a political issue. Whether on the left or the right, rich people will always find a reason (legal, aesthetic, environmental, religious, etc.) to avoid fixing the housing problem. The excuses vary, but the outcome is the same.
At least for new dwellings, building without gas piping is _cheaper_ than building with it. It's very cheap to run additional 240V/60A lines from the load center to the kitchen and laundry/utility room.
Depending on the renovation, it can be even cheaper to go all-electric, for example, if the kitchen/laundry/heating is being moved.
However, renovations don't have much effect either way on the housing affordability crisis in San Francisco, because renovations don't generally increase housing capacity. Most renovations in SF are done for the purpose of converting existing lower end homes into higher end homes.
Reminds me of prop 13. If you challenge grandma having a $3M house paying peanuts for property taxes you are a monster.
If you defend young people that are ready to start a family, "they can kick rocks and move to Bumfuck, Middle-Of-Nowhere, no one is entitled to live in the Bay Area".
PS: I grew up in south San Jose, graduated from Leland, but can't afford a home anywhere near where I grew up because rich people from all over the world gentrified the Bay Area and boomers went full NIMBY on new developments.
What if there was a way to help the poor and boost a crypto coin at the same time? Win/win. See this idea for "WordPay" .. giving people funds with a few words.
https://www.reddit.com/r/oasisnetwork/comments/1m5bu1y/what_...
You think it’s going to put house outside of the market at their current price? It’s an insignificant dent in the profit margin.
This law makes renovations more expensive. That means use conversions, expansions and safety improvements all happen less frequently.
> It’s an insignificant dent in the profit margin
Limited supply means suppliers own the cards. There is zero chance these costs are born by landlords.
I think a lot of people live with gas leaks without even knowing, especially in older buildings. This is a good change from a public health and safety perspective.
Definitely not "a lot of the time". The coldest it gets is maybe 40°F on a particularly chilly winter night - with a well-insulated house you hardly even need central heat.
No comments yet
SF is probably the only place in the country where this makes sense, solely because of the earthquake problem. (Do you know how to shut off your gas meter in an emergency? Probably not.)
Yet same people who insist hopscotching amongst piles of human feces is part and parcel to living in the city, not the public health hazard it is, want you to believe your gas stove is killing you.
As a wok owner, I'll take that chance.
Second, you're missing another reason for getting a heat pump water heater. We just last week replaced our 13 year old (and therefore on its end of life) gas heater with a heat pump water heater. It requires no gas :). One reason for doing that is that using electricity to run a small heat pump is far cheaper where we live than gas. (We have solar panels, which makes it still cheaper--in fact, free.)
The only things remaining in our house that use gas are the stove and a gas log fireplace. We've used the latter twice during the 13 years we've lived in the house. If we replace the stove (which we'll need to do some day, it's almost 25 years old) with an electric one, then I'd be easily persuaded to turn off the gas fireplace, and end the delivery charge on gas.
As an electric appliance owner, I'll take that chance.
PG&E in CA is criminally expensive. If you’re lucky to be in one of the cities in the bay that isn’t on it, you get incredibly cheap energy in comparison.
There are plenty of water heaters that use a pilot light. I’ve been in many homes where they all use pilot light based gas water heaters.
Ultimately, mandates like this just make housing even more expensive. Which, frankly, seems to be the real goal. God forbid home prices actually decline or even stop rising.
If you allow new construction dependent on existing natural gas distribution lines, they increase the pressure to accommodate the increased demand. This makes explosions from pipes leaking/catastrophically failing more likely.
I thought it was obvious the long-term goal was to reduce if not completely eliminate the need for natural gas distribution _especially_ in these regions.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/San_Bruno_pipeline_explosion
Even from a 120V you can get a 1300W induction plate that will transfer heat faster than all but the biggest range burners.
That may be different for professional gastronomic equipment, but I have no experience with that. I think a pizza-oven or larger cooking range could have some sort of thick CEE-plug/coupling like you sometimes see on construction sites.
In Germany that fixed wiring for stoves was/is at 380/400Volts.
Since this was about a Wok initially, I assumed mobility and no fixed installation.
Why this matters in daily life(If you don't want to have gas anymore), everything takes longer to heat(with standard mains electricity), even boiling water for brewing coffee or tea in the US.
Leading to such strange contraptions like induction cooking tops with integrated Liion-battery, to at least be able to compensate for a while for the lack of oomph.
This isn't necessary, or the case in Germany.