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Generally, we think of ranges or cooking stoves to have two parts, a cook top and an oven. Ranges most often use electricity or gas as a fuel. Commercial kitchens almost always use gas because the cook can quickly and finely control the burner temperature of a gas stove. Home kitchens in Seattle most often have an electric range.
Electric ranges offer safety over gas stoves because they don't show anopen flame and because they don't produce carbon monoxide. However, that doesn't mean that a gas stove is dangerous; one merely needs to cook more carefully on it.
There are no energy efficiencies to be gotten in deciding to buy one electric range over another. The only way to get better value out of the energy you use to cook is to use the energy in a conscious way.
- When using the cook top put your cooking pan on the right sized burner. On an electric stove heat gets transferred through direct contact between the burner and the pan. When you put a small pan on a large burner, you waste a bunch of energy.
- Keep the reflectors under the burners clean.
- Cover pots so as to keep the heat in.
- If you're baking a small dish, use a toaster oven rather than the oven in your range.
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For more information from Seattle City Light on appliances, please e-mail rescons.scl@seattle.gov or call 206.684.3800.
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