What's the Deal with your Gas Stove and the "Ban" Rumors

And our personal electrification journey

I’m sure you’ve heard the rumors: “The Big, Bad Government is COMING FOR YOUR GAS STOVE!” 

On one hand, I find this manufactured hysteria from the right hilarious, but also find it super dangerous. Regardless of the truth, it perpetuates a simple narrative that just catches on for everyone regardless of political leaning. And in this case, it has caused folks like Joe Biden, who is a proponent of clean energy solutions to seemingly backtrack on some promises. I’m not sure if it’s an actual backtrack, but it at least pauses a potential federal solution to a climate issue. Aside from the federal hemming and hawing, it has also raised an important issue around the lack of good communication around climate crisis issues that are known to the climate-informed for a long time before they make their way to the mainstream outlets. Oftentimes they make their way to the mainstream through some kind of controversy. Case in point: folks caught wind of a government “ban” on gas stoves and the oversimplification and knee-jerk resistance catches on like wildfire. 

The supposed “ban” on gas stoves is one of those examples and shows that there is still a very big gap between policy-makers and the general public and, perhaps, there should be better issue-explainers out there. The environmental and health issues with gas stoves are not new. What’s new is that the federal government has said they want to do something about that to protect people and the planet.

Because of this recent controversy, it seemed like a good time to write about it. Because, here’s the thing, we have a brand-new induction range sitting in our garage ready for electricians to come and help us replace our perfectly fine gas range currently in our kitchen. This is something that had been in the works for awhile in our household. We knew the environmental and health implications, but more recent science helped convince us to speed up the electrification process. So I thought it would be helpful for you all to hear about our electric/induction stove conversion process. 

Some of the latest headlines about gas stoves

What’s the Deal with Gas Stoves?

The avid home cooks out there are especially confused by all of this because for the longest time, gas has been considered the Queen of Cooking. You have more control over the heat and the flame, when the stove is turned off, it’s turned off. And a bonus is you can even char the outside of some of those veggies to add a little smoky flair to your dishes. Plus, gas ranges just look so fancy.

On the other hand, those electric stove tops take forever to cool down. My little sister burned her tiny little palm on one of those hot coils when she was very young and the memory of the raging blisters on her hand still haunt me. And if you had a glass top surface, food spills would just burn and crust itself on the surface and become impossible to clean. We had a glass top electric stove in our house in Baltimore and every time I cooked I dreamed of a beautiful gas stove. When we moved into our little house in Portland, I was thrilled that it came with a brand-new gas range. But I discovered the downsides almost immediately. I was nine months pregnant when we moved in and every time I leaned over the stove just a little bit, my belly would turn a knob by accident and a few minutes later I’d smell wafts of natural gas (and thanks to good ‘ol government regulation that gas does have a smell to it). A few months later when Finch was sa tiny baby, I came home from being out with friends while the kid and the husband asleep and the entire house wreaked of natural gas. My husband who doesn’t have a sense of smell had no idea. He had unknowingly turned a knob. I went from room to room making sure they were all breathing and opened all the damn windows. So we were just more careful (it was the fault of the brand), and besides, the stove was still super fun to cook on.

Then, as I was working on a project for Oregon Metro to help conduct a study for their toxics reduction strategy, I came across studies about the impact of indoor air quality from natural gas appliances. It was a small part of the overall study we carried out (see p. 41 if you want to read more about it), but it opened up a question in my own mind about my own gas stove. Recent research found that around 13% of child asthma cases in the U.S. are attributed to gas-powered cooking appliances. I also learned through the research about policies being created to encourage a transition away from gas. California–which is often the leader on such environmental policies and, due to its size, often has the effect of shaping the industry as well as federal policies–was considering banning gas stoves for all new construction in the state. It was the first time I had heard that scientists and the government had long known about the negative health impacts of gas stove cooking.

While as of now there are no statewide bans on gas stoves, regional bans are starting to take root and most recently the Los Angeles County Council voted to ban all gas appliances in new homes and other construction. Cities like New York, San Francisco, and Seattle had already laid the groundwork with similar bans. 

But back to our gas stove journey. We eventually moved to a new house and started cooking on another new-to-us gas stove. By this time, I was already wary of gas cooking. Not only was I aware that when I turned on the stove, I was effectively poisoning myself, it also made my kitchen unbearably hot during the summer and the home cook in me could never find a way to get the pan evenly heated. But I wasn’t sure what the alternative was. I hated electric stove tops even more.

Because I was already informed about the topic, whenever the subject of gas stoves was discussed in the news, my ears perked up. Enter, a 2021 Sporkful podcast episode that presented a potentially better alternative: induction cooking. The Sporkful–one of my favorite podcasts–recently re-aired the episode because of the recent firestorm about the issue, so you can listen to it now. The host, Dan Pashman, a proponent of gas stove cooking had also been aware of the research and set out to learn more about induction stoves and their benefits, specifically from chefs.

The episode reminded me of a visit to a friend who had moved into a house with an induction stove. An avid home cook, she regaled me with her enthusiasm about it even though she was dubious of it (and almost replaced it with a gas stove) when she moved in. My sister had the same experience (my sister initially thought hers was broken because she unknowingly had the wrong kind of pans). The conclusion: induction stoves are awesome! They cook evenly, they bring your water to a boil super efficiently, all the heat they produce goes directly to the pot so it doesn’t make your kitchen super hot, and the surface doesn’t stay hot so you don’t risk burning hands or food that spills over. The downside: induction ranges are incredibly expensive and you have to make sure your pots and pans are compatible as the induction cooker conducts heat through magnets so your pots must be of magnetic material (read: No aluminum or copper). I also recently learned at a canning class I took (more later on this) that induction isn’t great for canning. So we were convinced, but weren’t quite ready to take the plunge. At this point we wondered whether it was environmentally sound to get rid of a perfectly good appliance and weren’t exactly ready to make that financial commitment.

And then, boom, in early 2022, even more research came out that found that not only was your gas stove poisoning you while it was on, it was also releasing methane gas while it was OFF! That sealed the deal for me and Cory. Even though our gas stove was in fine shape, it was worth getting rid of both for the environment and for our health.

So What Do I Do About My Gas Stove?

Now that we had made the decision to get rid of the stove, next came the process of figuring out what to do. It’s not a matter of just buying a new stove and plugging it in. It’s a whole thing. We have to get brand new wiring and adjust our panel to support the amperage of the new range. 

It also required a whole lot of research to find a range that would fit and wasn’t exorbitantly expensive. Induction ranges (especially the 36” ones that we had to fit in our space) are not cheap. And the ones that were on the lower price spectrum had a space age-y look that we just weren’t down with. We also found out that Consumer Reports and Wirecutter–our go-to product review sites had woefully inadequate information about induction ranges. They had some reviews for ranges and quite a few more about the small plug-in induction stoves, but not much about the products we were looking at. So we were going off of customer product reviews from the top products we were looking into. (Although I wonder if this recent uproar might actually change that as having this so widely in the news may actually be a boon for induction stoves).

The other part was paying for it. Not only did we have to buy a super expensive range, we had to spend thousands of dollars on electrical work. All while this was happening in our personal world, the federal government had just passed the Inflation Reduction Act which had a whole bunch of clean energy incentives included in the package. So, in theory, come 2023 we’d be able to offset the cost of the additional electrification and get some money toward the induction stove itself. As an aside, we’re also getting an electric vehicle in 2023 (also included in the IRA) and therefore are adding the install of the plug into this as well.

Here’s the thing, we still don’t know how we’re going to get that money. We still have to front the full cost of the electrical work and the stove purchase with no guarantee that we’ll get the incentives. While I’m excited about these new incentives, the federal government does move at a glacial pace and it also requires states to figure out how they’re going to distribute these incentives as well. As such, we were very conscious about making the purchases in 2023 (versus in 2022) so that the likelihood of getting a tax rebate was higher. I know that a lot of people are going to be hesitant to make these big purchases until we actually know how they will get the incentives. With each month, that information is getting clearer. In fact, there’s now a clearer White House webpage all about how you can take advantage of these tax incentives at https://www.whitehouse.gov/cleanenergy/ (thanks to AOC posting about it on Instagram recently, more people have this info). Also those in the clean energy industry are staying as up-to-date as possible on what the IRA means for their clients. One of my clients is in the solar energy sphere and their policy wonks have a good handle on what’s happening and they can lead their commercial clients through the process seamlessly. That’s harder for those of us individual homeowners and renters. But more is coming.

For those of you in Portland, Electrify PDX is a local organization that is working to provide the best, up-to-date homeowners and renters about what is available to them. Another organization I work with, Families for Climate, sees home electrification as one of their top priority issues and they’re working to fill in that gap for individuals here in Oregon. 

In the meantime, I’ll keep you posted on this whole electrification journey for us. If anything, keep an eye out on Instagram for the update after my induction range will eventually be installed. I’ve never been more excited to boil water.

Are you considering an induction range? What are your concerns? Curious to know where others are in their home electrification process.