Lay My Hat

hello....we are renovating our "guest kitchen" and are wondering if the cooker should be electric or gas. I am a gas fan myself...so am leaning in that direction. OH is concerned that gas cookers are more dangerous than the electric one we are replacing.

I'd go for electric oven and gas hob - then at least if there's a power cut your guests can have something hot to eat and drink.

My ideal would be an electric induction hob - the convenience of instant adjustability like gas but with an easy wipe clean top, and as you say probably safer. You do need particular saucepans, so worth checking if yours are ok. Also guests might not be as familiar with it or find it as easy to use for that reason.

Surely electric has to be the choice for peace of mind. The general public never cease to amaze me with their lack of common sense, and it is only getting worse in our nanny state. Most people are not safe within 10 metres of a naked flame.

I prefer gas too, but common sense goes right out of the window on holiday and I'd never have it in a rental.

I agree that an induction hob is the best compromise in terms of cooking - you do need to make sure the guests know how to use them (the pan must be on the hob to heat it) but it's no biggie, just make sure it's in the welcome notes or email. I find people with kids especially appreciate the safety element of the instantly cool hob.

It's an interesting point about power cuts - are they frequent in your area?

I was put off getting an induction hob for our holiday home as I was told you shouldn't use them if you have a pacemaker fitted. I expect the risk is negligible but I didn't want to have to add a warning about using the hob in my cottage instructions so went for a standard electric hob.

Having said this I am used to a gas hob at home and I do find the electric one More difficult to use as it is much less responsive.

We inherited a large gas cooker when we bought our place - it's old but excellent and the guests have never had any problems with it. We have 2 gas bottles for it, so the guests can change over easily if it runs out. If we have to change it in the future, it'll be another gas cooker. One thing - not sure if this is true of all cookers, but ours has a safety feature by which it's impossible to leave the gas on without it being lit... that's the only 'issue' we've had with it - guests turning the push in knob and releasing it, with the intention of leaving it running while they light a match, then getting confused that the ring won't light. Why you'd want to fill the kitchen up with gas before you light it, I don't know, but others say... guests and holiday brain!

Martha wrote:It's an interesting point about power cuts - are they frequent in your area?

They used to be, when we first moved here - all power cables are overhead in the rural areas so prone to weather related events. But even if it's a scheduled outage for specific works, as opposed to weather induced emergency outage, it's still useful to be able to boil the kettle and have a much needed cuppa!

Ecosse wrote:We inherited a large gas cooker when we bought our place - it's old but excellent and the guests have never had any problems with it.

We inherited a built in electric oven and a separate gas hob. The only problem we had was with one set of guests who insisted they had to cook their toast under the grill, rather than in the toaster, and complained that the grill didn't work.....
Well, it would have, if only they'd set a temperature