We get a gas engineer out every autumn to get the gas boiler checked up to get ready for winter, but this year, but this time we asked him to do a couple of other things: to disconnect and remove the gas heater and the gas hob.
The gas heater on the living room wall (where the fireplace must have been when the house was built in the 1950s) was there when we moved in. I turned it on on the first night I spent in the house, and turned it off almost immediately because of the overwhelming smell of gas. That was the last time it was turned on, and it stayed there cold, sort of like an unattractive ornament on the wall.
The gas hob also came with the house, and it’s been my wish for some time to replace it with an induction hob. You see, my parents in Japan has been living in an all-electric house for years, equipped with an induction hob. I think they got it primarily for fire safety reasons, but it was easy to use, easy to clean, and attractive to this owner of an ancient and half rusty gas hob. I’d read in the British press that induction hobs are quite power hungry, and that switching from gas to induction would mean a hefty rise in energy bills, but since the solar panels and the battery were commissioned, they had taken a massive chunk off the bills, so it seemed like a good next step.
The cooking duties mostly fall on my husband, and he was reluctant at first. To him cooking on electric meant the coiled rings in the rented flats from his student days – slow to heat, impossible to control and even harder to clean than a gas hob. I explained that induction was a completely different thing, that I’d used it before, and that he’d love it once he used it. And I was right.
The induction hob I chose had the same footprint as the old gas hob and fitted neatly into the existing hole in the kitchen worktop, but unlike the one my parents have, this one is basically just a sheet of glass once in place, the change is pretty dramatic. With no knobs or buttons or controls sticking out, the whole space is transformed. And easy to clean. The hob works just as well as gas, and even easier to control. As I predicated, Keith was converted after cooking one meal on it.
In terms of CO2 emissions, the footprint of gas cooking is miniscule compared to gas central heating, but there have been reports in the US on the risks it poses on health due to indoor air pollution, with some States moving to ban it. Cooking on gas generates nitrogen dioxide, which can cause respiratory diseases such as asthma.
Impact on health is not limited to during cooking; research has found that, even when turned off, gas hobs leak. What we call ‘natural gas’ is mostly made up of methane, which is one of the main greenhouse gases. Although the main culprit of global warming and climate change is carbon dioxide, methane has become a major concern in recent years as its warming effect is 28 times more potent than that of CO2. While the focus is primarily on leaks from fossil fuel extraction sites and gas pipelines as well as farm animals, leaks from cooking appliances cannot be ignored if you consider how many of them are in homes and restaurants.
Now that the gas heater and the gas hob is gone, the only gas appliance left in our home is the combi boiler. Replacing it is not going to be a simple job even with the help of the government grant, but it’s definitely something we are going to get done – watch this space!