Very true for the average apartment.
Two (huge) obstacles for induction cooktops:
1) They're still more expensive than a non-induction electric cooktop. Might not be a big deal in a $1 million apartment buildout, but if someone is remodeling a block of apartments that are going to rent out no matter what they contain, the remodelers are going to get the cheaper non-induction equipment.
2) They depend on the type of cookware used. Again, not a big deal if you're a homeowner spending $$$ on a remodel and cookware to go with it. But it is a big deal if you're trying to rent out apartments to people who have cookware and you don't want to get constant calls about the fancy cooktop not working.
It's not realistic to expect the average NYC apartment to get fancy induction cooktops. They're just going to get the cheap electric units.
I don't know where to buy cooktops in the US so I can't do a comparison, but on one of the biggest websites in the UK the cheapest induction hob is £105 right now, and the cheapest ceramic hob is £80.
> They depend on the type of cookware used.
You can buy a pad from amazon for less than $10 that will let you use any cookware on an induction hob. Most cookware _is_ suitable (I bought a new pan before the holidays and even the cheapest non stick pans had a stainless steel layer on the bottom)
There's a reason 99% of people have non-stick aluminum cookware. Everything else is horrible, and I say that from bitter experience. How often do you scramble eggs on your cast iron skillet?
That said...
> can be acquired for under a hundred bucks.
You can certainly get a small set of non-stick aluminum cookware with induction plates built in for under $100, however, it's not the easiest thing to find in the first place.
Cooking on cast iron is great- you simply heat it on a low temp with some oil on the surface first, and scrambled eggs / ommelet is no problem.
It's pretty heavy to hold with one hand, but overtime I've gained stronger wrist strength and can handle it no problem now.
We're on our third non stick, but the cast iron is still going strong.
The rule is simple: those pans must never even be looked at by something metallic during use or cleaning. Wood or plastic are fine. I use wooden tools. Fingernails are not OK too.
Of course flatmates use to be quite anarchic and careless especially young ones.
I'll handwash more expensive wooden tools.
Other than heat retention, it’s as good if not better than cast iron in every way, and it’s way lighter to boot.
So I actually do cook scrambled eggs (and omelets) in a well seasoned carbon steel pan. I’ve made eggs fried over easy in my cast iron. It requires butter and the pan has to be the right temperature (it sticks more if you start too cold), but it’s doable.
It does stick a touch more than non-stick, but it’s not difficult to clean by any measure.
https://www.amazon.com/All-Clad-E785S264-Anodized-Nonstick-D...
Almost daily, through there are things one leearn. Butter is a must, especially in term of flavor, and if you fry bacon before then you need to let it cool down for a bit or the egg white will get bubbly.
I find the cultural aspect interesting. Non-stick teflon frying pans tend to degrade over time and as such, do not get passed down when people here move out. It was also not something that we used when I was young since they easily broke if misused. That is th part I suspect will change with time.
Maybe this is because induction hobs are much more common in Europe.
https://www.ikea.com/us/en/p/annons-5-piece-cookware-set-gla...
And yes we make quite a lot of eggs, scrambled and fried, works just perfectly without a mess.
Onyx pans are amazing in every way (nonstick, scratchproof, dishwasher safe, induction ready) but not yet sold in the US I think: https://onyxcookware.de/
There are similar ones sold on AliExpress that would presumably ship to the US, e.g.: https://a.aliexpress.com/_mr49PaC
Every time I make scrambled eggs. It isn't difficult. I don't even see what you are getting at with this question.
I'm not sure who these people are that sit around and scheme about how to craft laws who fuck over people they'll never meet.
No one, they just don't consider that effects on peoples' lives. Sure, natural gas isn't great for indoor air quality, but it's easily mitigated by cracking a window or some airflow. Getting stuck with a cheap electric cook top makes cooking a lot more miserable and unreliable and there's nothing you can do to improve the situation if every apartment is built that way.
I suspect the average lawmaker does not take cooking seriously, which I think is fairly sad.
Some of that can probably be mitigated with good fume extraction, but it’s a consideration.
Uh, the air pollution of a typical urban street is a _disaster_.
The point about Julia Child is that she was creating works of art using this supposedly unusable tool. If she can manage that, your average Joe should be able to bang together some burgers and saute some vegetables on one.
Gas sure bets induction especially when filling up a large skillet with food. People can adopt though. It really wasn’t very long ago when cooking was mostly done with wood.
Personally I would just impose a tax on new hookups and more regulations before I actually banned gas though, but there is justification for government intervention when people are pumping highly flammable toxic and environmentally destructive gases into businesses and residences for the sake of making a better omelette.
The only really strong argument I see for gas is that reducing heating expenses has a substantial effect on local poverty.
I know that it's not Montana, but the vast majority of people aren't walking around in T-shirts in almost-freezing weather. These temperatures are pretty objectively cold, if you ask me.
FWIW, I've been to SF, but have never lived there. I am from (and currently live in) a much colder city. Even during summers where I've been to SF, I've experienced significant wind chills which have forced me to wear a hoodie.
That's still above freezing, which some may not consider "cold".
For example, even 'basic' heat pumps, the ones that look exactly the same as AC-only boxes, can typically work down to 5C. However once you drop down freezing and into the negatives (C) you tend to need mini-split systems. That's what the GP may mean when the word "cold" was used.
* https://www.fujitsugeneral.com/us/residential/what-is-a-mini...
> A single-zone (also called a mini-split) ductless system allows you to control the temperature of one room by connecting an outdoor unit to an indoor unit, with no ductwork needed. An outdoor mini-split unit is placed outside your home and is connected to an indoor mini-split unit by small cables and a refrigerant line through a hole in the wall.
* https://www.trane.com/residential/en/products/ductless-syste...
> A multi-zone (also called a multi-split) ductless system connects an outdoor unit to an one or more indoor units, letting you control the temperature in several different zones of your home. Variable Refrigerant Flow (VRF) systems are a type of multi-zone ductless systems. VRF systems are energy efficient, and they can be used to heat one zone while cooling a different zone at the same time.
* https://www.trane.com/residential/en/products/ductless-syste...
Why not? Most new construction is "luxury" priced, as since the land/structure is expensive anyway, and it's only marginally more expensive to put in "premium" appliances that allow you to charge a significant rent premium, everyone does that.
Of course new apartments are going to be built with induction cooktops when gas isn't an option. Induction isn't even that much more expensive.
They aren't luxury, they are market rate and the people renting them are often definitionally rent burdened.
> marginally more expensive to put in "premium" appliances
Induction cook tops cost nearly $4k. A whole electric stove and oven for about $600.
> since the land/structure is expensive anyway
In NYC you need an expected profit margin of 5% to get a development loan, and that quite high for large real estate projects. Slapping and extra $3-$4k onto each unit just isn't going to work for most projects.
> Of course new apartments are going to be built with induction cooktops when gas isn't an option.
As of today, there are fewer than 20 apartments for rent in NYC that list induction cooktops in their listings. I've checked every major rental site, and some didn't seem to actually have them based on photos. Plenty of building have electric, but I've never seen a rental with induction or heard of anyone who has one at any price of unit.
You are comparing a Tesla Model S to a Toyota Civic.
Here is a $500 36-inch induction cooktop
https://www.homedepot.com/p/Empava-36-in-Built-In-Electric-S...?
> Induction cook tops cost nearly $4k. A whole electric stove and oven for about $600. In NYC you need an expected profit margin of 5% to get a development loan, and that quite high for large real estate projects. Slapping and extra $3-$4k onto each unit just isn't going to work for most projects.
the cost of the cooktop and oven is not increasing by $3600. It's actually only increasing by $500.
Also 5% of a 800k condo unit is 40k.
Also your 5% profit margin is a bare minimum. In reality, I doubt any developer would do start any project unless they expected at minimum 15% margin.
I can buy 5 Miele induction cooktops for $4k, what planet are you living on?
While I agree with you the gas stove tops are better, electric ones work OK
Do you have a source for that? I have a gas stove, and so do many others I know, and I've never heard of a ban.
So the equipment itself is slightly more costly for an apartment, and a landlord specifically has a strong incentive to have little/no gas, to save on the annual checks.
Tldr; a tower block suffered a partial collapse as a result of a gas explosion in 1968. Changes to Building Regulations were made to mitigate against 'Disproportionate Collapse'
(Effect on legislation) 'Existing buildings were allowed to resist an explosive force of 17 kPa (2.5 psi), provided that the gas supply was removed and flats were refitted for electric cooking and heating.'
Such buildings with gas supplies today will have been constructed to comply with the amended regulations.
Also, in terms of resilience gas cooking beats electric cooking. In my experience (I live in an Eastern European capital city) gas delivery has been more constant compared to electric power, not to mention that even if both gas and electricity were to be cut off it's much easier to connect an existing gas cooktop to a small gas tank than it would be to connect an electric cooktop to an equivalent battery. In fact my parents still use gas tanks for part of their cooking (for the other part they use actual wood).
As for reliance on electric supply, I haven't experienced any outage longer than a couple of minutes since the 1980s, but I get that will certainly depend on where you live.
Meanwhile I've had gas boilers fail twice and had to resort to electric heaters while waiting for repairs.
Snow and ice storms are a reality that make self sufficiency highly desirable.
So I stand by what I said: Many places the power reliability is high enough. A long outage in Norway would be treated as a major national emergency.
I had no idea about the amount of leaking, but it makes sense. Unless you're actively checking every foot of gas pipe everywhere, chances are it's leaking here and there. But it's too bad. I learned while doing process control in a plant with steam heated processes, that you can run a lot of power down a gas pipe. I have a hunch that they could heat all of NYC from just waste heat.
The hob itself costs more, and the cheapest pans aren't compatible. Gas is often cheaper to run.
Other than initial purchase price, a normal electric hob has no advantages.
I'd say this is a bit of an overreaction. They're definitely terrible to time correctly, heat-wise. But they also can definitely cook. I've made a rib-eye steak medium rare just fine on a cast iron using reverse-sear between oven and the glass range.
The part I really hate is how careful I need to be not to damage the glass when using a heavy pan like that.
So, that would certainly seem to disprove their comment because I did in fact cook something, which implies it isn't useless.
If it doesn't have that...pass immediately
And as for cooking experience I prefer induction. It heats up the fastest and can control the heat just fine.
This regulation effects rental units, renters aren't going to swap ovens and cookware every-time they move house.
Here is a 30-inch Samsung induction cooktop for $1100
https://www.homedepot.com/p/Samsung-30-in-Smart-Induction-Mo...
> and another 500-1000 for induction cookware?
Here is a $43 induction cookware set which includes both pots and pans
https://www.amazon.com/AmazonBasics-8-Piece-Non-Stick-Kitche...
The cheap, government-controlled rentals in my town started switching to induction for all new cooktops a decade ago.
This is in Europe, though.
It's also, while good for the particular use cases it is aimed at, not great general substitute for a proper set of stovetop cookware.