[HN Gopher] I measured the pollution from my gas stove
___________________________________________________________________
I measured the pollution from my gas stove
Author : jseliger
Score : 104 points
Date : 2023-01-09 21:45 UTC (1 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.distilled.earth)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.distilled.earth)
| steve76 wrote:
| [dead]
| legitster wrote:
| > In other words, it may be possible to build a home with
| perfectly vented gas appliances, and there may be a safe level of
| NO2, but in the real world--in the homes that we all actually
| live in--this is probably the rare exception.
|
| This is a rather frustratingly blithe conclusion. Should we ban
| electricity in homes because they can be wired wrong?
|
| I'm not entirely sold on the health risks as presented, but that
| the author doesn't seem interested in seriously exploring _any_
| of the obvious solutions to this (seemingly) fixable problem
| makes this entire analysis feel rather lazy.
| virtual_void wrote:
| Interesting. We have a gas stove and a gas furnace. Furnace was
| changed a few years back and coincides with worse asthma symptoms
| for both me and my youngest son.
|
| Anyone have any air quality sensor recommendations? Preferably
| one that i can easily extract data from for analysis.
| koolba wrote:
| Barring a completely incorrect install, the exhaust of the
| furnace should be completely vent out of your home. The indoor
| air is warmed by passing against a heat exchanger.
|
| If you're having issues with air quality have your humidity
| levels checked. If it's too low, a furnace attached humidifier
| will solve that by adding humidity to the treated air.
| danans wrote:
| > Anyone have any air quality sensor recommendations?
|
| Search the HN archive. There are lots of debates and
| discussions about air quality sensors, especially around the
| time of the West Coast US fires.
|
| But from right now, every time you turn on your gas stove or
| oven, open a window and set your stove extractor fan to
| maximum, even if it briefly makes your house cold.
| scottlamb wrote:
| I don't recall any NO2 sensor recommendations in particular,
| and that wouldn't have been a focus during the fires. In
| general though folks here discussed AirGradient kits.
| https://www.airgradient.com/open-airgradient/kits/ I bought a
| stack of them, and I recommend them. The Pro kit at least has
| extra I2C module spots on the board (one for 3V3 modules, one
| for 5V modules). They sell a SGP41 module for VOC, and (I
| didn't know this until I looked at the spec sheet [1] just
| now) it also supports NO2. The output's apparently an "index"
| rather than calibrated physical units that you could compare
| to the threshold/graph in the post though.
|
| (btw: iiuc the "special" thing about the SGP41 module sold by
| AirGradient as opposed to some Alibaba vendor is that the
| AirGradient one doesn't come with surface-mounted terminating
| resistors installed. If you buy one from somewhere else and
| want to plug it into the AirGradient board, you need to
| desolder those because the AirGradient's I2C bus is already
| terminated elsewhere.)
|
| I have an older SGP30. Less luck there; it does VOC and CO2,
| no NO2.
|
| [1] https://sensirion.com/media/documents/5FE8673C/61E96F50/S
| ens...
| virtual_void wrote:
| Thanks. Will take your advice on both counts!
| anamexis wrote:
| Depending on your inclination for some DIY, AirGradient makes
| great kits. Open source and easy to use however you want.
|
| https://www.airgradient.com/open-airgradient/kits/
| DrFunke wrote:
| This was a concern of mine, so I purchased an induction stove.
| Also took it one step further by moving my entire kitchen to a
| covered outdoor patio. It seemed silly to be breathing oil
| particles for hours every time I cook chicken. Very grateful for
| my hypochondriac mother. She taught me to never not stop think
| about all the ways we can get cancer.
| postalrat wrote:
| Is always thinking about getting cancer a way to get cancer?
| jojobas wrote:
| It always bugged me that you can just burn something inside,
| unless there's a proper, exhaust-to-the-outside rangehood. I
| guess the only worse thing is the modern world are Japanese
| exhaust-to-room oil heaters.
| chadlavi wrote:
| My wife can be in another room and not even know I've turned on
| the stove/oven, and she starts to cough when I start cooking. (we
| rent, don't get at me about replacing)
|
| I try to use our portable induction burner whenever I can now,
| even though we pay for electricity but we don't pay for gas.
|
| I was extremely skeptical and snooty about the potential of
| induction cooktops when it was first floated, but if I owned a
| home I would definitely prefer an induction stovetop to a gas one
| now. Induction is a lot faster and more responsive than gas, in
| my experience. Just wish there were induction stovetops that has
| real knobs and weren't so easily cracked or scraped.
| none_to_remain wrote:
| I will continue cooking with gas and simply accept this risk
| lukev wrote:
| Counterpoint: I also measured the pollution from my gas stove
| (using the same meter the author is, from the look of the graph)
| and it was well within acceptable parameters. And I don't even
| have a vent above it.
|
| I bought a meter and started monitoring after reading an article
| similar to this one.
|
| My next stove will probably be induction, but just be aware that
| not ALL gas stoves are problematic if set up correctly and
| burning cleanly.
|
| Definitely get a meter to make sure, though.
|
| Edit: since lots of people asked, I got a uHoo sensor from
| Amazon. It measures basically everything and cost $300.
| totoglazer wrote:
| Also have a uHoo. Kind of hate the UI, but it seems like a
| decent sensor.
|
| While my CO2 spikes during cooking on gas, fortunately NO2
| remains low. 5-15 ppb range. My gas furnace is in the basement,
| several floors away from my apartment.
| miguelazo wrote:
| $300?! That's half-way to a decent induction range on sale.
| yamtaddle wrote:
| Has there been a huge price drop? We bought a range about a
| year ago and the cheapest induction ranges were still around
| $1,800 on sale. Gas could be had for like $350, entry-level.
| And has a robust used market, which is lacking for induction
| (which isn't necessarily the tech's fault--it is fairly new)
| interactivecode wrote:
| Here for example 242 euro, plenty of choice:
| https://www.ikea.com/nl/nl/p/matmassig-inductiekookplaat-
| ike...
| lukev wrote:
| That's true, but it's also valuable for analyzing air quality
| for lots of other things (including Covid safety using CO2 as
| a proxy.) I use it at home and also bring it to the office
| occasionally to make sure things are reasonable there.
| nomel wrote:
| USD? Mid range where I am is over $1k USD, from a big box
| store. Amazon shows similar results. Are you thinking a
| little countertop unit?
| lotsofpulp wrote:
| The cheapest induction range at Costco is $1,150. I would not
| bother with anything that is so low quality so as to be able
| to be sold at half of Costco's cheapest model.
|
| Also, hiring an electrician to install a power outlet for the
| induction stovetop could be at least $500, if not $1,000+.
| nomel wrote:
| > And I don't even have a vent above it.
|
| Where I am, this is illegal!
|
| I unintentionally bought a "smart" gas range. I hooked it up to
| turn on my oven fan any time the burners are on, and for some
| minutes after they're off. I t think all ovens should have this
| feature, built in.
| danans wrote:
| > but just be aware that not ALL gas stoves are problematic if
| set up correctly and burning cleanly.
|
| There is no such thing as a clean burning gas stove. Even when
| not in use, they leak methane, and the majority of methane they
| leak is when they are not in use.
|
| All gas stoves and ovens, regardless of cost or age, put levels
| of pollutants into indoor air that are greater than what is
| safe [1]. A $15k Wolf range is no better than a $1500 range.
|
| The solutions are to either introduce a lot of ventilation, or
| switch to non combustion cooking.
|
| 1. https://pubs.acs.org/doi/10.1021/acs.est.1c04707
| lukev wrote:
| Methane (at the volumes we're taking about) does not have
| significant health effects; the paper you link speaks mostly
| about its effect as a greenhouse gas.
|
| And I'm measuring my NO2 and it's within safe levels. So
| should I believe you or my own lying eyes?
|
| Granted, a lot of this may be due to other effects (e.g,
| ventilation) and I agree my next stovetop won't be gas.
|
| But clearly some setups are less problematic than others and
| it's not the case that everyone is poisoning themselves
| unless they go buy an electric tomorrow.
| kragen wrote:
| though any gas other than air will kill you at a high enough
| dose, methane is pretty extremely safe; wikipedia claims the
| major risk if you avoid blowing yourself up is that it can
| displace air and thus oxygen
| hedora wrote:
| However, there is such a thing as an even dirtier burning gas
| stove. For instance, put a natural gas regulator on a propane
| supplied burner, or vice versa.
|
| Also, even a properly tuned range will emit all sorts of
| things that are much worse than methane.
| _benedict wrote:
| NO2 is not easily measured accurately with inexpensive sensors
| like the uHoo. The US government tests a number of sensors and
| generally finds them lacking - my limited research suggests NO2
| in consumer equipment is generally estimated mathematically
| based on correlations with other more easily measured
| pollutants, meaning it's just not measuring NO2 at all.
|
| The uHoo was tested some time ago and found to not be that
| great, but not for NO2 (which wasn't tested)
|
| http://www.aqmd.gov/aq-spec/sensordetail/uhoo
|
| Indeed, as far as I can tell uHoo's own website does not list
| an NO2 sensor as part of the equipment, despite listing it as a
| pollutant it reports:
|
| https://getuhoo.com/blog/business/performance-precision-and-...
| lukev wrote:
| This is the same sensor used by others who have reported high
| NO2 levels correlated with their gas stove burning, though,
| so it's got to be measuring _something_ relevant.
| SoftTalker wrote:
| A good rough indicator is that the flame on a gas burner should
| be pure blue. If you see yellow tips, or a yellow flame, it's
| not getting enough oxygen for complete combustion.
| kragen wrote:
| proper combustion will probably increase your nitrogen
| dioxide levels, not decrease them; if you have yellow
| diffusion tips you are getting unburned hydrocarbons and
| carbon monoxide which will tend to reduce any nitrogen
| dioxide present
| jeffbee wrote:
| I think the big issue here is that renters do not get to pick
| and choose their appliances, so like other types of indoor
| health hazards this needs top-down regulation to make landlords
| replace gas with electric.
| s17n wrote:
| Dear god please no, electric stoves are awful and idgaf about
| my lungs.
| lukev wrote:
| This is true for resistive electric stoves, which "pulse"
| on and off to achieve a certain heat level. Truly
| frustrating to cook with.
|
| Modern induction stoves are much better (even better than
| gas, I hear, though I haven't used them extensively yet.)
| jeffbee wrote:
| Induction ranges are almost all really bad except at the
| very high end. I have one that will intermittently scorch
| a 4-inch diameter annulus in the center of the pan while
| leaving everything else untouched. The only thing it's
| practical for is boiling water, which is enough of a
| benefit for me to justify its existence.
| llsf wrote:
| My dad is a professional cook (retired, but used to own a
| restaurant in France). He only uses induction. While he
| did not get the cheapest one, he did not take the high
| end either.
|
| One thing to consider is that quality of the pans and
| pots. Nowadays while they are all induction friendly,
| some provide a better heat distribution than other.
|
| If asking my dad, the main benefit he sees is the
| control.
| yellow_postit wrote:
| What have you found challenging to cook? I moved from gas
| to glass top electric and had heard horror stories (had
| always had gas stoves before) but despite regularly
| cooking meals for the family I haven't run into anything
| problematic beyond worrying my cast iron will scratch the
| glass top (no issues so far).
| reddog wrote:
| I had a lot of trouble cooking on a halogen electic --
| pulse on, pulse off -- stove and all those problems went
| away when I got an induction. For years I thought I was a
| terrible cook but it was always that terrible electric
| cooktop. The only thing that cooktop did well was boil
| water.
|
| The most frustating thing I tried to cook was good,
| crispy hashbrowns. Believe me, I tried everything and the
| results were always soggy, greasy horror. When I switched
| to induction (and replaced all my non-ferrous pans) the
| results were perfect everytime.
| asveikau wrote:
| Depending on where you live you may be out of luck in the
| future. Some places are requiring them in new construction.
| Including California.
| yamtaddle wrote:
| Hope that comes with a price drop. Gas is the only option
| right now if you want cheap _and_ well-performing. Last I
| checked (maybe a year ago?) the cheapest induction ranges
| were well into the middle tier of prices. Which makes the
| fact that I keep seeing stuff about their tending to stop
| working after only a few years, or suffering from very-
| fragile surfaces that are easy to crack and ruin, even
| more of a turn-off.
| jerlam wrote:
| Maybe the ranges are cheap. But the price of natural gas
| has soared over the past year. Right now, it's cheap
| again, but it seems that prices are a lot more volatile
| than electricity, which will benefit from alternative
| sources of production and storage.
| econonut wrote:
| Yes, gas stoves are an unfortunate victim of climate
| policies enacted at the local level as city governments
| aim to ban all natural gas appliances in new construction
| in their misguided attempt to save the planet. Don't get
| me wrong, there is plenty they can do, but banning gas
| stoves is a ridiculous overstep.
| jeffbee wrote:
| Cities are able to take this action because they know
| they have no intention of building anything ever again,
| so the impact to actual residents and voters is zero. I
| should know: my city of Berkeley was the first to ban
| them. It is pure greenwashing.
|
| The final insult is single-family home construction and
| remodel can elect to use gas if they want.
| econonut wrote:
| That's fine for your city, but sucks for those of us
| living in the midwest. I can't speak for every city, but
| our growing city likes to model its policies after CA
| policies, so we get thousands of newly built electric-
| only homes & apartments.
| alfor wrote:
| The site is dedicated to fighting fossil fuels as if there were
| pure evil.
|
| Does not seems like a place for balanced views.
| [deleted]
| serverholic wrote:
| Please, please enlighten us with your take on what a balanced
| view means here.
| pessimizer wrote:
| You're never going to be convinced of anything if you'll only
| accept arguments from people who do not believe them.
| virtual_void wrote:
| He cites his sources (which seem reasonable), is making
| measurements and has written up objective results it seems.
|
| Perhaps there are other articles less objective on that site
| but it doesn't seem like this article should be dismissed out
| of hand.
| mperham wrote:
| Can I get a balanced view on the heat dome that resulted in
| 118F temps and a dozen deaths in Portland last summer? What
| about the wildfires that choked our air with PM2.5 > 500 for
| weeks?
|
| The laws of physics don't care about your need for political
| balance.
| zdragnar wrote:
| Well, one could argue that cold continues to kill more
| people each year than heat does.
|
| It's not exactly a winning argument in favor of climate
| change, but just because a person is holding the correct
| view on one thing does not mean that they will be correct
| on others.
|
| Natural gas cooktops contribute a meaningless amount of CO2
| in the grand scheme of things. When everyone is suffering
| the effects of global warming, they're going to feel silly
| for all the sacrifices they made along the way while the
| major sources of greenhouse gasses weren't addressed.
| mysteryalias wrote:
| You do know climate change is making some cold places
| even colder and increasing the severity of winter storms.
| Your comment only further strengthens the climate change
| argument.
| [deleted]
| [deleted]
| hristov wrote:
| Balance does not imply truth. Sometimes truthful views are
| imbalanced because the truth is imbalanced.
| [deleted]
| giraffe_lady wrote:
| They may not be "pure evil" but they are clearly _extremely
| bad_. What does a balanced view of that look like for you?
| lazide wrote:
| With a decent hood, they are not clearly bad.
| Zagill wrote:
| The emissions from such stoves is a large part of what
| makes them "extremely bad"
| lazide wrote:
| Which emissions, exactly?
|
| With a proper hood, they aren't an issue inside.
|
| When working properly, they are also quite minor.
| ethanbond wrote:
| The obvious outcome of the "both sides"-ism of late: We
| need to give equal airtime to the Inhaling Ignited
| Hydrocarbons Is Okay Actually group.
|
| Sources don't matter, depth of analysis doesn't matter,
| expert consensus doesn't matter, basic risk mitigation
| principles don't matter, what matters is that wherever a
| view is shared, all other views must be shared at equal
| volume and with equal credence.
| GauntletWizard wrote:
| The obvious outcome of "Misinformation and hate speech"
| policing of late. Proponents of things that are
| synonymous with civilization cannot have any airtime at
| all.
| mysteryalias wrote:
| Misinformation and hate speech policing has been part of
| the internet since its start bud, it's called
| "moderation"
|
| Any unmoderated section of the internet quickly becomes
| full of trolls and Nazis in a couple weeks.
| kragen wrote:
| most of usenet was unmoderated for decades, and was
| consequently the best source of information on a huge
| variety of topics, though it certainly was full of trolls
|
| the nazi revival seems to have come out of modern heavily
| censored platforms like twitter and youtube
| lr4444lr wrote:
| Strawman.
|
| 37000 people die each year in vehicular accidents, but
| somehow people think there's a benefit to using cars, and
| to use them without making them 3X as expensive just to
| save perhaps half of those lives.
|
| So too do we continue to use gas appliances because
| they're relatively cheap, effective, and resilient, and
| if you want to convince us the harm is too great, then
| quantify it for our judgement.
| ethanbond wrote:
| > if you want to convince us the harm is too great, then
| quantify it for our judgement.
|
| That's literally what TFA does. Dispute the data or the
| argument if you want. "This site looks like it doesn't
| like fossil fuels" is not disputing the data. It's "I
| suspect there's another side that's not represented [duh]
| and I therefore will dismiss this information out of
| hand." It's a terrible heuristic to get _anywhere_.
| lukev wrote:
| Gas stoves (like everything else) have pros and cons. CO2
| emissions are certainly a major con, which is why my next
| stove will be an induction. I got a gas ten years ago
| because induction cooktops were not widely available and
| the cook quality of gas is far higher than non-induction
| electric, and I cook a lot and really need quality tools.
|
| Facts matter, and it doesn't do anyone any good to paint
| something as "extremely bad" without balancing all relevant
| facts. Acknowledging that gas stoves are often (but not
| always) bad for indoor air quality is part of that.
| ajross wrote:
| We did a kitchen reno 11 years ago and hopped on the
| induction bandwagon then. There were a pretty good number
| of options at the high end (i.e. 30" standalone, not an
| integrated/oven unit). Induction is hot (heh) right now,
| but it's been a realistic option for a good while now.
| bodangly wrote:
| I really can't understand this perspective. Perhaps cheap
| gas is better than cheap electric cooktops. But my Miele
| which is radiant, not even induction, heats up VERY fast
| and provides a very predictable amount of heat via the
| digital interface. I cook a lot, and thought I'd miss gas
| when buying my new house, but just about the only change
| I needed was to get a flat bottomed wok. Electric can
| definitely be more than adequate on the high end, imo.
| huffmsa wrote:
| > digital interface
|
| Like a touchscreen?
| ahelwer wrote:
| How much did you pay for the meter? Last time I looked into
| this measurements for various metrics were basically useless
| (unless you're only looking at relative, not absolute numbers)
| unless you spent at least a few hundred bucks and occasionally
| calibrated it.
| asveikau wrote:
| I think what I've heard before is that this needs regular
| monitoring, which most households will not do. Stuff can break
| in your stove and oven and you might not know.
| RetpolineDrama wrote:
| >Stuff can break in your stove and oven and you might not
| know.
|
| I'd argue >99.9% of people would have no clue if the stove
| was otherwise functioning normally
| diziet wrote:
| What specific meter did you use? I want to try it myself.
| [deleted]
| wcoenen wrote:
| > _I bought a meter and started monitoring after reading an
| article similar to this one._
|
| Which meter? (I'm asking because I have a bad experience with a
| device from Aliexpress that turned out to produce fake air
| quality measurements. Though it did not claim to measure the
| NO2 pollution which the article talks about.)
|
| edit: the uHoo seems to be an expensive device that promises to
| measure a bunch of stuff, but it cannot be calibrated. I would
| not trust it.
| barney54 wrote:
| I don't understand the correlation between air quality and
| asthma. In the United States, asthma rates are way up. This
| article blames at least part of the increase on air pollution,
| specifically nitrogen dioxide. But nitrogen dioxide
| concentrations in the United States are down by 54% since 1990
| alone. https://gispub.epa.gov/air/trendsreport/2021/#air_trends
| It isn't outdoor air pollution that's driving the increase in
| asthma because outdoor air quality is improving (and has been
| improving for over 50 years in the United States.
|
| I would imagine that today's natural gas stoves are cleaner than
| in the past, natural gas appliance don't seem to be driving the
| increase in asthma either.
|
| My point is that the data isn't clear what is driving the
| increase in asthma.
| ericbarrett wrote:
| You raise a great point about air quality improvements.
| However, nitrogen dioxide, the irritant discussed in the
| article, is created with any hot-enough combustion process,
| since it's a reaction of the nitrogen and oxygen already in the
| air. Quality of fuel should have little to do with it.
| gedy wrote:
| From the increase in allergies, I wonder if life is too clean
| now basically.
| screye wrote:
| I would be all for moving off gas-stoves, but can we acknowledge
| that the alternatives really suck if you like cooking ? I want to
| be part of the solution, so here are few things that alternatives
| need to figure out before I move off gas:
|
| _Easy problems_ :
|
| 1. No more cycling-induction/electric stoves. I do not want my
| food alternating between burning & sitting around.
|
| 2. A power setting where low-to-medium aren't only kind of
| burning your food.
|
| 3. Off means off. I don't want my food cooking for 5 more minutes
| after I turn the stove off.
|
| 4. Kitchen ranges having high quality broilers to make up for the
| lack of a charring mechanism on alternative ranges.
|
| _Hard problems_ :
|
| 1. Being able to change the shape of the surface element to trace
| the shape of the pan. I cook with a wok, and all non-gas-ranges
| only heat the very center. If I can use a wok to fix the shape of
| the coil into a bowl, then I can ensure even heating even in a
| wok. (It's a spring coil, the shape should be mechanically
| adjustable).
|
| 2. Can the good ones be competitive on prices with top gas ranges
| ?
|
| I really dislike electric stoves, they have the worst of all
| worlds. Induction stoves: I could live with, but the good ones
| are too expensive to be a reasonable alternative for most people.
| There are additional good reasons to switch as seen from this[1]
| video.
|
| [1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hX2aZUav-54
|
| ______________
|
| Final caveat for tropical countries. Here, windows are always
| open. Houses often lack a gas connection, and instead have a gas-
| cylinder supplied to the house. So the pollution & removal-of-gas
| benefits do not apply. The cooking culture often relies on
| instantaneous fire to give certain staple flavors. They rely on
| curved pot shapes for cooking techniques & and the price
| differentials hurt a lot more when you're a poor country.
|
| Gas stoves sound a lot less evil in these tropical circumstances
| and this is the region where a majority of the world's population
| lives.
| musicale wrote:
| Definitely open the windows and turn the hood fan on _before_ you
| turn the stove on (preferably one that actually vents outside
| since inside ones are useless[1,2]) and leave it on until after
| you turn the stove off.
|
| [1] https://www.vox.com/energy-and-
| environment/2020/5/7/21247602...
|
| [1] https://www.cbc.ca/news/science/gas-stoves-air-
| pollution-1.6...
| Reason077 wrote:
| Even an electric/induction stove will generate a lot of indoor
| air pollution if not well ventilated.
|
| In my current London flat (which I'm moving out of soon), nobody
| uses the fan above the stove because it's super loud and doesn't
| work properly anyway. Frying pretty much anything in the kitchen
| will cause my PM2.5 meter, which is upstairs in my bedroom on the
| other side of the house, to go crazy. Often up into the hundreds
| of ug/m3.
|
| Good kitchen ventilation is super important, gas stove or
| otherwise!
| binkHN wrote:
| I guess I can corroborate a bit. Back around the start of the
| pandemic, I picked up a few Awair devices (back when they were
| reasonably priced and weren't used for crypto purposes) and put
| them around the house. Whenever we cooked with our gas cooktop,
| TVOCs skyrocketed and the HVAC system dispersed this throughout
| the house.
| bob1029 wrote:
| Induction really is better in a lot of important ways (especially
| if you value your time and cook every day). The only thing I hate
| to cook on it is wok-style or anything where the pan has to move
| quickly _with_ fine temperature control. Most of the time, I can
| blast the rice on max and slide the pan around to similar effect,
| but it 's not ideal and it can "run away" very quickly if food
| gets stuck.
|
| Aside from the few caveats, I can't imagine going without.
| Bringing water or oil to temperature is easily 3-5x faster on my
| 5kW element. Waiting for a semi-direct flame to heat your pot is
| so primitive by comparison.
|
| Then, there is the cleaning aspect. My induction cooktop takes 15
| seconds to wipe down. My last gas range had some parts go through
| dishwasher, with others getting toothbrush-in-sink treatment.
| Unless you like cooking on a dirty range, this adds up fast.
| ajross wrote:
| Also safety: you can boil over a pot, pick it up, and just wipe
| the spilled gunk off the stove and the bottom of the pot with
| your other hand using nothing more than a rag.
|
| That's not to say you can't get an induction pan searing hot
| (small pans can actually get much _hotter_ than ones over gas),
| but you have to work at it. Generally the pan is no hotter than
| its contents.
| bob1029 wrote:
| * * *
| StanislavPetrov wrote:
| I'm fine with the government making people aware of the risks,
| but not with banning gas stoves. I'm an adult, and if I want to
| take that risk for myself, that should be up to me to decide. The
| oft-trotted out argument that "well, when you get sick, the
| government has to take care of you and you are a burden to
| society" is nonsense. If sentient adults don't have the right to
| make their own choices and assess their own risks, because of
| some amorphous burden to society, then the entire concept of
| freedom and autonomy is out the window. This is an increasingly
| more important issue as people who push for "Socialism" strongly
| believe it should be up to the government to decide what you are
| allowed to do and should have the power to decide what
| "acceptable level of risk" adults are able to take on. It is also
| one that pushes people like myself away from "Socialism", which
| is unfortunate because I believe in a strong social safety net
| for those who are unable to support and/or take care of
| themselves (for whatever reason). But when push comes to shove,
| I'd rather live in a society without any social safety net
| whatsoever, where I was free to make my own decisions and take my
| own risks, than an authoritarian society with a social safety
| net.
| charlie0 wrote:
| I'm not surprised about the gas stove pollution, but am surprised
| at how ineffective kitchen fans are. I got an air purifier with a
| sensor on it. It's about 8 feet away from the kitchen and it
| always goes on a few minutes if I switch any of the burners to a
| high setting. This happens even when I have the stove fan setting
| on high. These are suppose to suck the bad air out, but don't
| seem to do a good job at it.
| alar44 wrote:
| Is it actually vented outside? Every place I've had it just
| recirculates through the hood.
| dang wrote:
| Related ongoing thread:
|
| _U.S. safety agency to consider ban on gas stoves amid health
| fears_ - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=34310218 - Jan 2023
| (114 comments)
|
| Also related:
|
| _Gas stoves are more hazardous than we've been led to believe
| (2020)_ - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=31630946 - June
| 2022 (122 comments)
|
| _What a gas stove ban means for restaurants_ -
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=31603850 - June 2022 (592
| comments)
|
| _My best estimate is gas stoves decrease life expectancy by 53
| days on average_ - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30275953
| - Feb 2022 (117 comments)
|
| _How bad is my gas stove?_ -
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29935939 - Jan 2022 (520
| comments)
|
| _Cities try to phase out gas stoves but cooks are pushing back_
| - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27874912 - July 2021 (481
| comments)
|
| _Experts are sounding the alarm about the hidden dangers of gas
| stoves_ - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25332332 - Dec
| 2020 (343 comments)
| ladberg wrote:
| I've had similarly bad results with CO2, PM2.5, and PM10
| concentrations when I use my gas stove.
|
| If anyone is curious I have a Qingping Air Monitor Lite which I
| love. It's probably sucking up my data but I don't mind too much
| because it has a great physical interface, natively connects to
| HomeKit so I can see the current status and trigger events when
| levels get too high, and has a decent app that shows charts over
| time.
|
| It's nice to be able to remotely see that particulate levels are
| rising and turn on my air filter for a bit so everything's back
| to normal by the time I get home.
| globalreset wrote:
| Absent real life threats, first-world people increasingly busy
| themselves with inventing surrogate problems.
|
| Everywhere Nazis are trying to overthrow democracy, climate
| change is going to destroy us all in the next 5 years, viruses go
| rampage and we need to lock everyone up, now your gas stove is
| trying to kill you.
|
| While in reality western world has never been so safe and
| prosperous.
| alar44 wrote:
| For real. This is an absolute non issue, not even in comparison
| to anything else. There are tradeoffs for being a human. We
| need heat to cook. A few ppb in your home of whatever isn't
| shit compared to, idk, walking next to a fucking road or being
| in a city. Electric just offloads it to coal plants which is
| likely worse.
|
| Good grief.
| kragen wrote:
| summary to circumvent the clickbait headline: author measured 291
| ppb nitrogen dioxide from his gas stove and gas furnace, and gas
| stoves increase the risk of childhood asthma by 42% due to the
| nitrogen dioxide exposure
| nemo44x wrote:
| Get an electric or induction cooking surface and cook food and
| you'll notice any and all air quality sensors reporting pollution
| if you have a poorly vented stove. The very process of hearing
| oil to high temperatures to sear and brown foods emits all sort
| of pollutant.
|
| You can live your life by boiling everything on an induction
| range or you can cook with gas indoors like billions of people
| have without issue for generations. Stop being weird.
| beebmam wrote:
| Natural gas is absurdly cheap in most parts of the US. It's not
| going to change anytime soon here, simply due to these economic
| reasons.
|
| How do I go about testing my gas stove for dangerous emissions?
| danans wrote:
| Indoor air pollution from gas combustion appliances can actually
| be _worse_ in newer homes because they are so much less leaky
| (and by consequence more efficient) than older homes.
|
| New building codes call for mechanical ventilation, but not
| nearly enough to compensate for the byproducts of combustion
| appliances or other sources of indoor air pollution.
|
| The best solution (an airtight house with 24/7 whole house
| mechanical ventilation with heat/humidity recovery) is sadly
| still the stuff of high end green homes.
|
| If you cook with a gas stove, you should open windows and run
| your extractor fan at max when cooking.
| bgentry wrote:
| I have a new house (built in 2020) and it did come with an
| inefficient, underpowered mechanical ventilation intake that
| just pulled outside air directly into the home. Given the house
| is in Austin, Texas where the weather outside rarely matches
| the conditions inside, this results in a lot of cooling or
| heating loss, as well as losing the humidity conditioning of
| the indoor air. It's no wonder that I regularly hear locals
| advising folks to simply turn off the mechanical ventilator;
| bringing in hot, humid summer air or cold, dry winter air is
| not good, even if the fresh air is.
|
| That's why shortly after moving in, I had the garbage
| ventilator replaced with an ERV. Based on my research I
| selected a Renewaire EV-Premium L, a variable speed unit which
| does up to 280 CFM. That's a ton of fresh air, even for a 4300
| sqft house. But importantly it preserves some of the
| temperature and humidity when exchanging the air, so it's a lot
| more efficient than a plain mechanical ventilator.
|
| I have it wired into my Ecobee thermostat. It runs at its
| configurable low speed 24/7, and the Ecobee puts it in boost
| mode (full output) for 10-15 minutes per hour.
|
| This setup did cost some money of course, but the $2000 cost
| was pretty minor in the context of a new home. With this setup,
| we never see a buildup of CO2, VOCs, etc indoors. Definitely
| worth it when we're both working from home and spending most of
| our time there. And although we have a gas cooktop, I never see
| any indoor air quality issues so long as we're running the hood
| while cooking.
|
| I hope indoor air quality becomes a bigger priority for homes,
| offices, and schools. The building codes in this area haven't
| yet caught up to the need for improved ventilation to account
| for how much better sealed up modern buildings are.
| aclatuts wrote:
| Some higher end homes have a make up air system for venting a
| stove top in air tight houses, but it is so expensive.
| ed25519FUUU wrote:
| Are you describing something different than the overhead fan
| equipped above the gas range in most new homes?
| Fauntleroy wrote:
| Which sensors detect NO2? I have a CO2 and PM2.5 sensor, but I'm
| finding it hard to come up with anything that mentions NO2.
| a_t48 wrote:
| It's a bit pricey, but some Dyson fans can measure NO2.
| totoglazer wrote:
| The uHoo the author and another commenter here mentioned does.
| [deleted]
| CorrectHorseBat wrote:
| Modern gas boilers here (furnaces aren't very popular, I assume
| from a pollution point there's no difference) have external
| intake and exhaust. Would those still give indoor pollution?
| lazide wrote:
| Any furnace, boiler, etc. which allows any exhaust gas to mix
| with indoor air is a major risk of Carbon Monoxide poisoning.
| Which does sometimes happen.
|
| If it's functioning correctly, exhaust gas and indoor air do
| not directly contact each other at all, they both go on
| opposite sides of a heat exchanger.
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