Is the government lying to us about gas stoves?

by philg

From the Environmental Protection Agency:

We have an Italian natural gas range of doubtful quality. It is 15 years old. I am willing to bet that it has not been adjusted at any time in the past 5 years and, very likely, not at any time since its 2008 installation. I spent $200 on a low-level CO meter with 0.1 ppm resolution (not for this project, but to verify proper sealing of the piston-powered airplane’s heater). The meter arrives pre-calibrated at least at the 5 ppm level, which is supposedly the minimum we can expect near our health-destroying kitchen appliance, and says it has a range of 0-100 ppm.

What did it read parked right next to the range with two burners going? 0.0 ppm. Maybe it was broken. I walked around to various other parts of the house and got readings between 0.1 and 0.3 ppm. I went to the garage and started a car without opening the door. Within about 10 seconds the meter began to register 5 ppm then the alarm went off at 10 ppm (a home CO detector will trigger quickly at 400 ppm; see below from Kidde).

The garage air hit about 50 ppm in less than 60 seconds of running the car without the door open and the meter then showed a gradual downward trend after the was shut off and the door opened.

The EPA says that we should have expected a best case of 5-15 ppm in our kitchen, where two burners of the stove had been in use for an hour or so. We were reading 0.

Readers with CO meters: can you please test your house? How can we account for the discrepancy between what Science (the EPA) says and what a humble engineer measures?

Note: I would support a tax on non-induction ranges, both electric and gas, to fund hospital burn units and if I were building a house I would choose induction rather than a showy faux-commercial gas range. [Update: After the reader comment below regarding pacemakers and insulin pumps, I might have to reconsider my love for induction (or wear foil-lined garments once I reach pacemaker age?). It would be a horrible shame to have to convert from induction back to an old-school electric cooktop. On the the third hand, https://acadiacenter.org/hot-topic-dispelling-the-myths-about-induction-stoves/ says “There has never been a recorded instance of pacemaker interference with induction cooktops.” Maybe this is superstition like booster seats for 5-year-olds!]

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22 thoughts on “Is the government lying to us about gas stoves?”

  1. I’ve never had any issues like fatigue from using gas stoves. Perhaps they are too durable and need to be replaced by stoves built according to the principles of planned obsolescence.

    According to the Guardian (https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2023/jan/15/gas-stoves-pollution-alternatives), the U.S. government yet again prints money to reduce inflation:

    “In the US, the Inflation Reduction Act includes rebates of up to $840 for buyers buying an induction or electric stove.”

    My guess is that Science will shift to harm caused by the magnetic fields of induction stoves in 10 years.

  2. Greenspun caves to the electric stove lords. Too bad the $200 sensor perishes after 3 years. The last time lions had an aversion to gas stoves was age 12 & the aversion will always be related to that age. The next big thing is going to be heat pump stoves & you can count on the amerikan people mandating the living daylights out of AI stoves.

  3. Is the government lying to us about gas stoves? Yes! Obama always says if you like your gas range you can keep your gas range.

  4. I would not opt for an induction range because the magnetic fields MAY interfere with medical devices like pacemakers and insulin pumps. Since my mother-in-law has a pacemaker and my daughter-in-law is a Type 1 diabetic with an insulin pump and they are 1) frequent guests in my home and 2) I like them, I’ll keep using gas.

  5. Aside from the instant on/off and the open flame of my gas stove being more versatile than most other options, I also like that it’s actual fire. Keeps my testosterone up and health care bills down.

    • None. In fact, every pro cook I know (admittedly a few) absolutely loathes all kinds of electric cooktops.

    • Jdc: NYT interviews some pro chefs who like induction in

      https://www.nytimes.com/2022/03/11/dining/induction-cooking.html

      But I am not a pro! What appeals to me about induction are (1) the smooth surface for cleaning while still retaining instant adjustability, (2) the reduced risk of someone getting burned, (3) faster boiling of water for pasta and steaming vegetables, and (4) less waste heat in the kitchen that the AC will have to remove.

      As far as actual cooking performance, I guess the ability to have a low power setting is attractive, though the Italian range we got with the house has a simmer burner.

    • (I prefer gas to a traditional electric range. We are trying to set up a compact outdoor kitchen on a converted patio. Our range hood is huge and impressive in every respect except removing smoke. The outdoor kitchen will have an air fryer toaster oven and an induction hot plate so I will let you know in 6-12 months how we like induction!)

  7. None of this matters (except to “the planet”) as long as you have a decent range hood.

    However, most range hoods don’t work. Rather than a tax on gas stoves I’d simply require that range hood installations meet standards and work properly. This is what you’d be looking for:

    1. External exhaust, not recirculating..

    2. Low to the cooking surface. The German Passive House Institute has a science-based white paper with the numbers.

    3. Sufficient make-up air. This is usually accomplished with under-counter floor level air input.

    4. The required amount of make-up air is surprisingly large. This is tested for by closing all doors and windows and measuring differential indoor air and outdoor air pressure. Use of the range hood should not cause indoor air pressure to drop.

    5. In a modern airtight home you need forced mechanical ventilation, and this should be automatically triggered when the range is used.

    6. The proper level of air flow requires a fan that makes a certain amount of noise. For this reason the fan should be in the attic or mechanical room, not right above stove.

    All this costs money, so it should be a sufficient deterrent to homeowners who don’t really care about their stove technology, as well as preventing poor people from using gas;: they can use tank-based propane, whose higher heat is better than natural gas anyway for stuff like wok cooking. At any rate, taxes aren’t necessary.

  9. We live in the great white north and our political Science is mandating electric heating in new homes. Our electricity comes from a natural gas plant. Efficiency and losses be damned, we r green! Poli Sci’s are the wrong kind of Sci’s

    • There’s an old Soviet adage: every discipline with the word “Science” in its name is not science at all.

      (The exact equvalent of Political Science in Soviet education was called Scientific Communism. I have it in my trasnscript since it was mandatory…)

  10. “Dr” Phil you are three months late in caring about this inane right-wing culture war topic. Your fellow lemmings have moved on to: (checks FoxNews.com front page):

    1. Pledge of Allegiance at school
    2. Transgender student using the bathroom
    3. Hunter Biden
    4. MSNBC hating Good Friday
    5. Nike scolds customers about transgender partnership

    Never mind, it is the same old boring stuff…but somehow intellectually stimulating to “Dr” Phil.

  11. I’d be very surprised if your gas range emitted much CO. The problem are NOx and particulate matter. Those jump right up like your garage experiment.

    • ifr: I am a little surprised that the EPA’s numbers proved to be completely unsupported by our simple experiment. One thing that I have noticed is big variations from our Kidde smoke/CO/air quality alarm in the Total Volatile Organic Compounds (TVOC). It can be “good” at 350 ppb and then spike to nearly 3000 ppb (“very bad” says the app). We have one vent labeled “fresh air” in the laundry room (maybe because there is a gas dryer there?). The HVAC system has no means of bringing in fresh air (it would be good to add an ERV or maybe a dehumidifier that can directly draw in some fresh air during the next HVAC rehab).

      The question is what is causing the TVOC to vary so much during the day. People opening and closing doors more? Cooking? https://www.aprilaire.com/blog/how-cooking-impacts-your-indoor-air-quality/ says that you’re killing yourself every time you cook: “cooking and baking can add volatile organic compounds (VOCs) and other particulate matter to the air”.

      The WHO says you should target 50 ppb for your house. Our Kidde never shows anything that low. The “green building” LEED people allow occupants to be poisoned at 250 ppb. https://atmotube.com/atmotube-support/standards-for-indoor-air-quality-iaq (the Kidde device says that “below 500 ppb” is “good”)

      Our house had a $115,000 hurricane glass retrofit by the previous owner in September 2021. That probably made it tighter than before. One of the first things that we did was install Panasonic bathroom vent fans so that we could run them all day. I think I should do an experiment by turning on all of the bathroom fans to see if that reduces TVOC. Then add the range hood (though it is much too loud to leave on continuously).

      A simple online calculator shows that we would need at least 350 cfm from an ERV for a house our size and that this delivers an air change roughly every three hours. We have more than 350 cfm of bathroom exhaust fan total capacity. https://www.hvacquick.com/sysbuilder/hrvbuild.php

    • Now you’ve got me motivated to start thinking about VOCs in our house. Amazon sells a $50 meter that is calibrated in “points” from 0-500 and accurate to +/- 10 points or 10% of points. https://amzn.to/3Mt0XQu How useless is that? No way to compare to any standard!

      Here’s a $300 one that also apparently https://amzn.to/3MsSrkh

      https://help.airthings.com/en/articles/4679798-vocs-how-does-the-airthings-voc-sensor-work says “Unlike our other sensors, Airthings does not provide data on accuracy for the VOC sensor. The sensor response depends on the mix of compounds in the air, and its output is scaled to give the most correct reading for one common mix of compounds (the VOCs that are in our breath). But if the mix of VOCs it sees is different than this, its output might be significantly off. This is even true for professional VOC reference monitors, that only provide an accurate reading if the mix of compounds is known and adjusted for. The sensor output should only be used as guidance, and the levels not relied upon for health critical decisions, and should not be used to detect specific gases.”

      (Amazon says that this device originates in “Tunisia”. That’s kind of tough to believe!)

      This $300 one paid for Science to check the results versus high-end gear. https://getuhoo.com/smart-air-monitor The VOC sensor was the most questionable, largely due to low selectivity.

      I ordered the Airthings $300 device and will report on the correlation between its TVOC and the $200 Kidde’s.

    • Vast majority of consumer air quality sensors are crap that doesn’t actually measure all parameters they claim but rely on a sort of lookup table to cross reference with other sensor values. Basically, guessing.

      With regard to ERV…design for about twice the suggested volume (or double room occupancy) unless you like the constant rumble at higher fan speeds. We ran experiments for a while and it only kept up with exhaled CO2 on it’s highest setting, which s incompatible with good sleep.

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