Natural gas not allowed

ChrisJ · July 2019

Jean-David Beyer said:
Burning natural gas on a stovetop is certainly inefficient as most of the heat goes around the pan and into the air. A regular electric range does the same thing only from a less efficient fuel source.

I have one of those "glass" top electric ranges. For one thing, there is no gas in the house (though there is in the garage where the heating system is). But it seems to me that the heat delivered to the bottom of a pan pretty much goes into the pan, not around it. Provided I put the pan on an element the same (or slightly smaller than) size as the pan itself. The heat goes by conduction into the pan.

It just occurred to me that if I put silicone goo, like what is used to connect CPU chips to their heat sinks in computers, on the bottom of my pans, the efficiency would be increased still more. While I would never actually do this, I wonder how much difference it would actually make.

Heatsink compound, or heatsink pads are designed to fill voids in the two mating surfaces. The compound and pads transfer heat worse than metal to metal etc, but better than gaps.

If you machine your pot surface to be smooth and fit tight to the stove it would greatly increase transfer. You could also insulate the outside surface of the pot, not the bottom of course.

Add an insulated lid and you'll have something.

archibald tuttle · July 2019

Steamhead said:

I've read somewhere that's what happens in Europe- after about five years, if your boiler breaks down you might not even be able to get parts for it. So you get a whole new one. This explains why cast-iron boilers are still in favor, especially to those of us who were raised by parents who grew up during the Great Depression.

they certainly are still in favor to those of us who are still using the ones that heated our parents homes when they were growing up during the depression

Solid_Fuel_Man · July 2019

So it's to that point when we say:

You are using a 80 year old boiler

Said boiler transfers xx% of its fuel input to the structure its heating

Replacing said boiler (with new boiler of xx% efficiency) will save you xx% of fuel per annum.

You have now effectively removed xx tonns of annual CO2 from being released.... same as removing xx cars from the road.

New boiler takes xx tonns of CO2 to produce and will last xx years, blah blah blah.

You pay now!

Or you do what you like and choose when (or not) to replace your heating plant, and apparently kill the earth.

nibs · July 2019

Have had silicone catch fire, don't do it.

archibald tuttle · July 2019

@nibs

Naomi Oreskes set out to demonstrate something and did. There is a wicked shocker. The adamant rhetoriticians on both sides are of course confounded in their approaches with confirmation bias. I remain skeptical based on the very oft sounded defense of the consensus, i.e. not that it is right, but that skeptics can be dismissed because they are 'shills for industry'. Even if i accepted that predisposition colors the outcome of science, the last thing i would do is blindly accept policy from exponents of drastic economic change in the name of climate because they are noble champions of the natural order who just happen to always thing that the way you fix nature is by the redistribution of wealth. I think one should view both camps equally skeptically.

And industry increasingly doesn't care if we get carbon controls, they just want predictability. Because they pass on the cost to who buys the stuff. It wasn't french industry, but french peasants who wore the yellow vests. So this whole notion of industry fighting this off is manufactured. There is quite a solid block of folks who rationally believe that the price of these insurance policies is too high. That has spawned the latest tactic which is to try to tie climate to every viscissitude of weather on which there is not remotely a consensus in the meterologically oriented climate research.

I'm not arguing that those promoting the climate change meme are necessarily wrong although i think they grossly overstate the climate sensitivity - another area that is outside the consensus. But they have it completely backwards. They attempt to paint skeptics as making an extraordinary claim in contesting the necessity for action in the face of anthropological global warming when they themselves are actually making the extraordinary claim that we should drastically alter civilization. So they shouldn't be surprised that civilization isn't particularly interested in being drastically altered, or demands extraordinary evidence to back up policies that would do so.

Instead we get a constant drone of visible 'experts' telling us the issue is decided and we only have a year or two to save the planet for the last 30 years, and as soon as one deadline expires somehow there is still just one more year to save the planet.

I don't start off by qualifying, as many do, that they believe climate changes and humans have an impact. All of that goes without saying. The most profound impacts on the environment and the climate came about when humanity switched gears from hunter gatherer to agriculture. But that doesn't mean I want to move back to a cave and bring in my food with a bow and arrow, even if that is known with certainty. (and in the NFN department human engineering to store water has changed the rotation of the earth).

But i'm quite open to truly "no regrets" policies like a significant gas tax increase that is tied to infrastructure improvement. That is essentially a user fee and if we get roads and bridges fixed and it turns out we didn't really need to tamp down carbon use as urgently or drastically as claimed, we needed to fix them anyway.

We can argue about prevailing wage and contractor collusion and revolving doors ,etc. when wondering how it is that it will take us 100s of years and 100s of times the cost to rebuild the inter-states that got built in a decade, but I accept the general principle of charging for that infrastructure. That posits it in a very different context than attacking carbon as in the french contre-temps.

I think our current renewable energy direction is completely wrong until we get reliable storage and I much more encourage such technologies to be aimed at the consumer level and get folks off the grid rather than let it continue the giant sucking sound on our wallet, whether in favor of renewable or fossil rent seeking.

In the meantime I continue to find unconvincing the arguments that there are actually high subsides for fossil fuel other than in inherent consumer choices in their favor. Yes the interstates encourage fossil fuel use, but who pays for them, the fossil fuel users. I'm sorry, but that is not a subsidy. In fact the more grim reality is the extent to which money is siphoned from gas taxes to pay for public transportation which cannot pay for itself. Again, I recognize there one can posit benefit to drivers from congestion relief, but that is a marginal rather than organic driver of utopian belief in mass transit and the process is more meant to demonize drivers than anything else -- but then to give them an out by implying that it is exxon who addicted them to driving and not their own horrible choice.

I'm trying, at length as usual, to contextualize my skepticism but apologize in the context of my earlier conversation that, although I don't see this as a lecture or a rant (feel free to disagree), still, it took me a lot of words to bring it back to the industry and the joking or serious proposals about requiring inductive stoves (i'd rather require deductive ones) or mod cons or some such.

I think good practice and good relations with those we serve allows us to make the best recommendations for equipment and to temper the rush to modcons with the reality of service life of cast iron, especially when in a setting with high temperature emitter design.

When starting from scratch in fuller renos the economics and aesthetics/comfort of low temperature solutions may be supported. I've been doing radiant floors since before the internet when I used to get the "New Hydronic News" delivered in the mail each month and still have polybeautiful systems running just fine using indirects to keep any oxygen from the boiler loop. I've always been interested in cost benefit of these systems and tech that is very accessible to the user/installer level.

And after 50 years with this technology , my only regret is the chagrin of a life long steam/hydronic worker/exponent -- and noting the parallel thread about whether or not anyone runs ducts anymore -- who has to admit that I have never seen a more surely efficient combustion system than condensing gas furnace because the return temp is room temp! And the pricing is attractive enough that even if the stainless steel heat exchanger goes and you have to replace them every 10 years it still looks affordable. That to me is the biggest challenge to most of us on the wall (no real worries because the installed base will keep us busy for years, but it gets me looking in the mirror wondering if i've been steering the right course all these years).

Not to mention minisplits where the refrigerant graphs are finally reliably carrying enough btu's on the heat side as well. I imagine i'm going to be doing a lot more with R410A than H2O in the near future -- or its successor (because nothing is ever good enough for EPA, for chessus sake, now they won't let me buy R410A without a license because they got popped for selling R22 without one and everybody is rearranging angels on the head of a pin to figure out why it some sucks almost as bad). Ironically, i'm working on building a 410A chiller at the moment so H2O is still in the mix. I considered actually heat pumping vs. solely chilling but that would have meant moving the exchanger indoors and various complications which ultimately could be worth it but proof of concept first.)

Brian

Robert O'Brien · July 2019

> @archibald tuttle said:
> I've read somewhere that's what happens in Europe- after about five years, if your boiler breaks down you might not even be able to get parts for it. So you get a whole new one. This explains why cast-iron boilers are still in favor, especially to those of us who were raised by parents who grew up during the Great Depression.
>
> they certainly are still in favor to those of us who are still using the ones that heated our parents homes when they were growing up during the depression

If you grew up during the depression and have memories of it you're in your mid 80's

Jamie Hall · July 2019

It occurs to me that I should clarify one point in my previous discussion. I implied, incorrectly, that a drop of only a few degrees F would be enough to start continental glaciation again. That was incorrect. It would take a drop of 5 to 10 degrees F. What I should have said was that up to a temperature of one or two degrees below the temperature about 30 years ago the Greenland and Antarctic ice sheets were stable, and up to a temperature about 4 degrees less than current the continental ice sheets were stable.

I would have to revisit the various computer models to refine those numbers -- we have much better computers now, and far more data than we had then! -- to do the work. I would not care to be doctrinaire about it, but I suspect that Greenland has already "flipped", and Antarctica may have.

(The flipping point for Greenland may have been as long ago as the 1960s -- well before all this furore. One of the points of my work was to explore that -- and, given the state of knowledge and computing power at the time, I came up with a resounding "maybe")

In which case quibbling about halting temperature rise to no more than another 1.5 degrees... or is it 1? or is it 2? is quite beside the point. It doesn't and won't matter. Even 0 degrees wouldn't matter. The proper question is, what can be done to improve humanity's response to the inevitable changes?

And to go back to the top here, getting rid of natural gas in homes in Berkeley California isn't going to make a bit of difference. For that matter, somehow magically eliminating all anthropogenic carbon dioxide won't matter -- the genie is out of the bottle and now what are we going to do?

nibs · July 2019

@Jamie Hall When you talk about "flipping point" I think of temperature phase change as a metaphor.
I wonder given that we have an infinite number of worlds which could possibly have had civilized residents, how many civilizations have ruined their worlds by conflict or neglect?

Jamie Hall · July 2019

nibs said:
@Jamie Hall When you talk about "flipping point" I think of temperature phase change as a metaphor.
I wonder given that we have an infinite number of worlds which could possibly have had civilized residents, how many civilizations have ruined their worlds by conflict or neglect?

Thing about the bistable characteristic. Little hard to envision, but basically considering a continental scale ice sheet (as it might be Greenland) it will be stable up to a certain temperature environment -- let's say, for argument, a sea level mean temperature of 38F at the southern tip -- provided there is an ice sheet present. Anything above that and the ice sheet will disintegrate. But... it will also be stable and ice free down to a mean annual temperature of say 28F; ice won't accumulate. So... let's say we have a glacier in Greenland, and the mean temperature rises above 38. The ice sheet goes away. Now we want the ice sheet back -- but we have to drop the mean temperature to say 28F before it will start to accumulate. Once it starts to accumulate, though, we can bring the temperature back up into the low 30s -- eventually up to 38 -- and it will remain ice covered.

In between 28 and 38, it is stable as ice covered, or stable as ice free -- which is what I mean about bistable (those temperatures are somewhat arbitrary).

Interestingly, the path of the Gulf Stream turns out to be bistable as well -- at the moment it swings north, and northern Europe has a pretty balmy climate (relative to its latitude). The other stable state, though, goes almost directly east from roughly Cape Cod to Portugal -- and northern Europe winds up with a pretty chilly and damp climate. I'm honestly not sure how close to flipping it is, but I seem to recall that it's not all that far (it has to do with how much ice there is in the Artic Ocean (the less there is the more likely it is to go straight across), and oceanography was never my specialty)(England winds up with a climate much like northern Norway today). There is no similar phenomenon in the Pacific. "Global warming" does not necessarily mean what it sounds like, which is why I prefer "climate change".

jumper · July 2019

Nobody answers my question about nukes. Even if they're dirty and dangerous aren't they preferable to GW cooking us and the glaciers?

ChrisJ · July 2019

> @jumper said:
> Nobody answers my question about nukes. Even if they're dirty and dangerous aren't they preferable to GW cooking us and the glaciers?

I guess that depends on if they have a problem and how bad it is. Three Mile Island and Chernobyl were close to not being better.

If done correctly, and responsibly, I would say yes.

Jamie Hall · July 2019

jumper said:
Nobody answers my question about nukes. Even if they're dirty and dangerous aren't they preferable to GW cooking us and the glaciers?

Yes. Which is part of what I meant earlier about not using all of our resources. But that is a political (or worse -- possibly theological) argument, and I don't think we all want to go there.

hot_rod · July 2019

jumper said:
Nobody answers my question about nukes. Even if they're dirty and dangerous aren't they preferable to GW cooking us and the glaciers?

Fear of the unknown, uranium mining, and the issue of 138 million pounds of nuclear waste stored in temporary facilities across the US are a few hurdles the public is concerned with.

New, safer systems that could reuse some of the spent fuel rods, and a more permanent storage option might help the public warm to nuclear power.

Larry Weingarten · July 2019

Hello, This has indeed been an interesting thread to watch! I'd like to add one more perspective on burning gas in the home, which doesn't seem to have been mentioned. Here is a study: https://heetma.org/gas-cooking-and-asthma/ about the effects of cooking with gas on children's health and asthma.

I'm all about being energy aware, but ultimately, health is even a greater concern and should be part of the discussion. I'll quote this from the report: "The analysis showed that children living in a home with a gas cooking stove have a 42% increased risk of current asthma (95% confidence interval [CI] 1.23, 1.64), and a 24% increased lifetime risk of asthma (CI 1.04, 1.47)".

Yours, Larry

Leonard · July 2019

Gas stove has higher BTU output than electric, which can be nice for cooking, but I never liked smell of exhaust from a gas stove. In a house would need to run exhaust hood ( to outside) while cooking, even in winter. In-law's daughter grew up in house with gas stove/oven and NO kitchen exhaust fan, she has asthma. Restaurant kitchens have massive exhaust hoods, pumping a LOT of conditioned air outside, all day long. High fuel bills in winter.
-----------------------

Found this interesting chart & info in one of my engineering magazines.

USA 2018 Energy use was 101.2 quadrillion BTUs (quads) , which is up 3.6% from 2017. ( that's 101,200,000,000,000,000 BTUs)

Chart in link shows different energy sources, and where they are used.
https://www.llnl.gov/news/us-energy-use-rises-highest-level-ever
.

Jamie Hall · July 2019

Interesting chart, @Leonard . Does show where the energy comes from -- and goes! I wonder what fraction of "transportation" is personal-- cars and air travel -- and what fraction freight, both over the road trucking and rail. Rail is technically easy to electrify -- if you have the money (like a lot of money!). Some folks are making some wild claims about over the road trucking -- but considering that I can buy a Peterbilt with 1200 mile range between fills, I'm not going to consider an electric with a 200 mile range...

hot_rod · July 2019

Tesla is claiming a 500 mile range wither electric semi tractor.
https://electrek.co/guides/tesla-semi/

Steamhead · July 2019

Larry Weingarten said:
Hello, This has indeed been an interesting thread to watch! I'd like to add one more perspective on burning gas in the home, which doesn't seem to have been mentioned. Here is a study: https://heetma.org/gas-cooking-and-asthma/ about the effects of cooking with gas on children's health and asthma.

I'm all about being energy aware, but ultimately, health is even a greater concern and should be part of the discussion. I'll quote this from the report: "The analysis showed that children living in a home with a gas cooking stove have a 42% increased risk of current asthma (95% confidence interval [CI] 1.23, 1.64), and a 24% increased lifetime risk of asthma (CI 1.04, 1.47)".

Yours, Larry

Leonard said:
Gas stove has higher BTU output than electric, which can be nice for cooking, but I never liked smell of exhaust from a gas stove. In a house would need to run exhaust hood ( to outside) while cooking, even in winter. In-law's daughter grew up in house with gas stove/oven and NO kitchen exhaust fan, she has asthma. Restaurant kitchens have massive exhaust hoods, pumping a LOT of conditioned air outside, all day long. High fuel bills in winter.
-----------------------

Found this interesting chart & info in one of my engineering magazines.

USA 2018 Energy use was 101.2 quadrillion BTUs (quads) , which is up 3.6% from 2017. ( that's 101,200,000,000,000,000 BTUs)

Chart in link shows different energy sources, and where they are used.
https://www.llnl.gov/news/us-energy-use-rises-highest-level-ever
.

I'd be willing to bet no one ran a combustion test on the stoves in question. I've tested some that were pretty scary.

@Leonard , there should not be any smell from a gas stove. If the smell you mentioned sort of resembles the odorant in unburned gas, you have a CO problem there. The smell is one of the aldehyde family, resulting from poor combustion. If you have this aldehyde odor, you have CO along with it.

Test everything!

Solid_Fuel_Man · July 2019

That chart is very interesting indeed. I wonder how rural biomass (obviously an interest of mine) is accounted for? Its largely unregulated and hundreds and hundreds of cord of firewood are sold in my country, which displaces a few thousand gallons of oil/gas.

If only we could find something better to do with all that rejected heat! Especially from transportation. In the past I did some pretty extensive research on phase change materials to store heat while on the road, then that hear could be used for something useful when the vehicle was parked. Cost was a big issue. I'll see if I can find my papers on it.

ChrisJ · July 2019

Steamhead said:

Larry Weingarten said:
Hello, This has indeed been an interesting thread to watch! I'd like to add one more perspective on burning gas in the home, which doesn't seem to have been mentioned. Here is a study: https://heetma.org/gas-cooking-and-asthma/ about the effects of cooking with gas on children's health and asthma.

I'm all about being energy aware, but ultimately, health is even a greater concern and should be part of the discussion. I'll quote this from the report: "The analysis showed that children living in a home with a gas cooking stove have a 42% increased risk of current asthma (95% confidence interval [CI] 1.23, 1.64), and a 24% increased lifetime risk of asthma (CI 1.04, 1.47)".

Yours, Larry

Leonard said:
Gas stove has higher BTU output than electric, which can be nice for cooking, but I never liked smell of exhaust from a gas stove. In a house would need to run exhaust hood ( to outside) while cooking, even in winter. In-law's daughter grew up in house with gas stove/oven and NO kitchen exhaust fan, she has asthma. Restaurant kitchens have massive exhaust hoods, pumping a LOT of conditioned air outside, all day long. High fuel bills in winter.
-----------------------

Found this interesting chart & info in one of my engineering magazines.

USA 2018 Energy use was 101.2 quadrillion BTUs (quads) , which is up 3.6% from 2017. ( that's 101,200,000,000,000,000 BTUs)

Chart in link shows different energy sources, and where they are used.
https://www.llnl.gov/news/us-energy-use-rises-highest-level-ever
.
I'd be willing to bet no one ran a combustion test on the stoves in question. I've tested some that were pretty scary.

@Leonard , there should not be any smell from a gas stove. If the smell you mentioned sort of resembles the odorant in unburned gas, you have a CO problem there. The smell is one of the aldehyde family, resulting from poor combustion. If you have this aldehyde odor, you have CO along with it.

Test everything!

To be honest, I've never been around a grill, stove or even engine running on LPG or NG that I couldn't smell. In fact I'd go as far as to say I can tell the difference between LPG and NG burning by smell.

So either nothing I've ever been around was burning clean enough, or there is a distinct smell. I've never smelled my boiler, but that's because it vents out of the roof.

archibald tuttle · July 2019

interesting tangent on gas stoves. @ChrisJ I don't have the acuity of smell to associate it with gas burners or gas grills, although i do catch a reasonable whiff when outside the exhaust stream for side vented gas boilers (or occasionally at the top of the chimney for conventional ones) so i'm sure that effect exists at a smaller level with stoves and i just don't have a capable detector.

my family's gas range was chimney vented from the ovens (As were a lot of the old gas on gas ranges with space heaters).

I assume these smells are the oxides of nitrogen? And, iirc, those come on the lean side if one over balances away from CO and associated with yellow tip vs. largely blue vs. extended orange flame tips as rudimentary indicator.

I don't think that places gas cookers on par with the indoor air quality of various localities that are burning more complex biomass for kitchen fuel. Maybe it is actually a sensible trade off that ovens aren't vented anymore, tending to be less used than burners anyway.

Of course our original habits with gas cooking did originate in days when houses weren't as tight. Although asthma is caused by everything these days so it is a little difficult to disaggregate the risk factors and get a grip on how much to make of this. I can see and don't doubt that coassociation with gas cooking shows up as statistically significant although this doesn't fully characterize the extent of actual impact.

Absolutely worth a degree of contemplation where cooking with combustibles is certainly one aspect of getting rural and suburban climes off the grid from my perspective. It is easy to conceive storing enough electricity for lights, digital electronics, even modest cooling. But instant cooking loads are heavy and better handled by the stored energy of LPG. As has been pointed out, a vent hood is a more serious than aesthetic proposition in such circumstances but moderately confounds our efforts to condition indoor air by exhausting a fair amount of it outdoors.

Trade offs, always trade offs. Was it you who pointed out that we used to get the mileage of hybrids out of some standard cars before attention was devoted to emissons uber alles.?

Brian

Leonard · July 2019

Propane stove/oven at in-laws was unvented. I stayed there for Thanksgiving, had burning eyes, had to keep going outside, turkey cooked ~6 hours. Was not gas odorant. Maybe turkey juice spilled and burned???

Was Maine, they were greenie granola types..... tightly sealed house to save heat (woodstove) eventually they installed small air/air heat exchanger, for fresh air intake/exhaust ...... it did almost nothing even though it ran all day. I was glad to leave,

At my house I have electric stove & oven AND both hoods vent to outside

Another time there I had burning eyes. I traced it down to very low propane pressure (pilot light was small and yellow/white).....vent on pressure reg at tank iced over. Roof snow melt dripped on tank and splashed over vent and froze. Air was below freezing, sun was warm,

Steamhead · July 2019

ChrisJ said:
To be honest, I've never been around a grill, stove or even engine running on LPG or NG that I couldn't smell. In fact I'd go as far as to say I can tell the difference between LPG and NG burning by smell.

So either nothing I've ever been around was burning clean enough, or there is a distinct smell. I've never smelled my boiler, but that's because it vents out of the roof.

archibald tuttle said:
interesting tangent on gas stoves. @ChrisJ I don't have the acuity of smell to associate it with gas burners or gas grills, although i do catch a reasonable whiff when outside the exhaust stream for side vented gas boilers (or occasionally at the top of the chimney for conventional ones) so i'm sure that effect exists at a smaller level with stoves and i just don't have a capable detector.

my family's gas range was chimney vented from the ovens (As were a lot of the old gas on gas ranges with space heaters).

I assume these smells are the oxides of nitrogen? And, iirc, those come on the lean side if one over balances away from CO and associated with yellow tip vs. largely blue vs. extended orange flame tips as rudimentary indicator.

I don't think that places gas cookers on par with the indoor air quality of various localities that are burning more complex biomass for kitchen fuel. Maybe it is actually a sensible trade off that ovens aren't vented anymore, tending to be less used than burners anyway.

Of course our original habits with gas cooking did originate in days when houses weren't as tight. Although asthma is caused by everything these days so it is a little difficult to disaggregate the risk factors and get a grip on how much to make of this. I can see and don't doubt that coassociation with gas cooking shows up as statistically significant although this doesn't fully characterize the extent of actual impact.

Absolutely worth a degree of contemplation where cooking with combustibles is certainly one aspect of getting rural and suburban climes off the grid from my perspective. It is easy to conceive storing enough electricity for lights, digital electronics, even modest cooling. But instant cooking loads are heavy and better handled by the stored energy of LPG. As has been pointed out, a vent hood is a more serious than aesthetic proposition in such circumstances but moderately confounds our efforts to condition indoor air by exhausting a fair amount of it outdoors.

Trade offs, always trade offs. Was it you who pointed out that we used to get the mileage of hybrids out of some standard cars before attention was devoted to emissons uber alles.?

Brian

Leonard said:
Propane stove/oven at in-laws was unvented. I stayed there for Thanksgiving, had burning eyes, had to keep going outside, turkey cooked ~6 hours. Was not gas odorant. Maybe turkey juice spilled and burned???

Was Maine, they were greenie granola types..... tightly sealed house to save heat (woodstove) eventually they installed small air/air heat exchanger, for fresh air intake/exhaust ...... it did almost nothing even though it ran all day. I was glad to leave,

At my house I have electric stove & oven AND both hoods vent to outside

Another time there I had burning eyes. I traced it down to very low propane pressure (pilot light was small and yellow/white).....vent on pressure reg at tank iced over. Roof snow melt dripped on tank and splashed over vent and froze. Air was below freezing, sun was warm,

Did you guys test the units in question with your analyzers?

ChrisJ · July 2019

Steamhead said:

ChrisJ said:
To be honest, I've never been around a grill, stove or even engine running on LPG or NG that I couldn't smell. In fact I'd go as far as to say I can tell the difference between LPG and NG burning by smell.

So either nothing I've ever been around was burning clean enough, or there is a distinct smell. I've never smelled my boiler, but that's because it vents out of the roof.

archibald tuttle said:
interesting tangent on gas stoves. @ChrisJ I don't have the acuity of smell to associate it with gas burners or gas grills, although i do catch a reasonable whiff when outside the exhaust stream for side vented gas boilers (or occasionally at the top of the chimney for conventional ones) so i'm sure that effect exists at a smaller level with stoves and i just don't have a capable detector.

my family's gas range was chimney vented from the ovens (As were a lot of the old gas on gas ranges with space heaters).

I assume these smells are the oxides of nitrogen? And, iirc, those come on the lean side if one over balances away from CO and associated with yellow tip vs. largely blue vs. extended orange flame tips as rudimentary indicator.

I don't think that places gas cookers on par with the indoor air quality of various localities that are burning more complex biomass for kitchen fuel. Maybe it is actually a sensible trade off that ovens aren't vented anymore, tending to be less used than burners anyway.

Of course our original habits with gas cooking did originate in days when houses weren't as tight. Although asthma is caused by everything these days so it is a little difficult to disaggregate the risk factors and get a grip on how much to make of this. I can see and don't doubt that coassociation with gas cooking shows up as statistically significant although this doesn't fully characterize the extent of actual impact.

Absolutely worth a degree of contemplation where cooking with combustibles is certainly one aspect of getting rural and suburban climes off the grid from my perspective. It is easy to conceive storing enough electricity for lights, digital electronics, even modest cooling. But instant cooking loads are heavy and better handled by the stored energy of LPG. As has been pointed out, a vent hood is a more serious than aesthetic proposition in such circumstances but moderately confounds our efforts to condition indoor air by exhausting a fair amount of it outdoors.

Trade offs, always trade offs. Was it you who pointed out that we used to get the mileage of hybrids out of some standard cars before attention was devoted to emissons uber alles.?

Brian

Leonard said:
Propane stove/oven at in-laws was unvented. I stayed there for Thanksgiving, had burning eyes, had to keep going outside, turkey cooked ~6 hours. Was not gas odorant. Maybe turkey juice spilled and burned???

Was Maine, they were greenie granola types..... tightly sealed house to save heat (woodstove) eventually they installed small air/air heat exchanger, for fresh air intake/exhaust ...... it did almost nothing even though it ran all day. I was glad to leave,

At my house I have electric stove & oven AND both hoods vent to outside

Another time there I had burning eyes. I traced it down to very low propane pressure (pilot light was small and yellow/white).....vent on pressure reg at tank iced over. Roof snow melt dripped on tank and splashed over vent and froze. Air was below freezing, sun was warm,
Did you guys test the units in question with your analyzers?

I'm still waiting for you to loan me an analyzer.

hot_rod · July 2019

Fossil free cooking, with this folding solar oven.

Solid_Fuel_Man · July 2019

@ChrisJ are your vehicles diesel by any chance? You said they get over 45mpg.

Leonard · July 2019

Mechanical Engineer , not a real heating guy....so no analyzers.
I do car A/C recharges though.

ChrisJ · July 2019

> @Solid_Fuel_Man said:
> @ChrisJ are your vehicles diesel by any chance? You said they get over 45mpg.

No,

My last two 2012 Chevy Cruze and Chevy Sonic with 6 spd manuals and 1.4 turbos. My current is a 2019 Hyundai Accent with 6 spd manual and 1.6. all gas.

Steamhead · July 2019

There you go. If you don't test, you don't know.

Steamhead · July 2019

ChrisJ said:
> @Solid_Fuel_Man said:

> @ChrisJ are your vehicles diesel by any chance? You said they get over 45mpg.

No,

My last two 2012 Chevy Cruze and Chevy Sonic with 6 spd manuals and 1.4 turbos. My current is a 2019 Hyundai Accent with 6 spd manual and 1.6. all gas.

Stickshift makes all the difference. Plus, it's an effective anti-theft device.

JUGHNE · July 2019

There was a car jacking in Omaha a couple years ago.
The mother and kids were headed for school and were kicked out of the car before it even left home. She went inside and called police. The punks took off running after they could not figure out how to run a clutch. Caught almost immediately.

jumper · July 2019

In the fifties lots of NG but hardly ever heard of asthma.
Look for bunnies long enough and you'll see them?

Steamhead · July 2019

JUGHNE said:
There was a car jacking in Omaha a couple years ago.
The mother and kids were headed for school and were kicked out of the car before it even left home. She went inside and called police. The punks took off running after they could not figure out how to run a clutch. Caught almost immediately.

Solid_Fuel_Man · July 2019

My cars (and truck) are all manual transmission. All gas (accept the tractor). I said my vehicles in the 80s, VW 1.7 and 1.8L SOHC gas all averaged 35 mpg or higher.

All were manual.

Manual transmissions dont necessarily get better mileage. If you buy two identical vehicles, one with a manual, one automatic, the automatic one will most likely have a lower cruising RPM. This closes the gap in mileage and somewhat makes up for the added weight and losses of the hydraulic pump needed in an automatic.

Most dont know how to properly drive a manual and manufactures set the top gear to be able to climb a decent hill. The public looks down upon having to downshift to climb a hill. This isn't noticed in an automatic, step on it and it goes!

I actually changed 5th (top) gear in my 1987 GLi and increased mileage to over 40 even on E10 fuel. I did a lot of 75mph interstate driving with that car.

hot_rod · July 2019

Solid_Fuel_Man said:
My cars (and truck) are all manual transmission. All gas (accept the tractor). I said my vehicles in the 80s, VW 1.7 and 1.8L SOHC gas all averaged 35 mpg or higher.

All were manual.

Manual transmissions dont necessarily get better mileage. If you buy two identical vehicles, one with a manual, one automatic, the automatic one will most likely have a lower cruising RPM. This closes the gap in mileage and somewhat makes up for the added weight and losses of the hydraulic pump needed in an automatic.

Most dont know how to properly drive a manual and manufactures set the top gear to be able to climb a decent hill. The public looks down upon having to downshift to climb a hill. This isn't noticed in an automatic, step on it and it goes!

I actually changed 5th (top) gear in my 1987 GLi and increased mileage to over 40 even on E10 fuel. I did a lot of 75mph interstate driving with that car.

I would think the new 8 and 10 speed autos would be the better milage option as they keep the engine in the best, most efficient operating condition.

When I first started driving 6 speed manuals I had to remember to hit that 6th gear as much as possible

45 mpg is impressive? At 40 mph? The wind speed at 75- 80, typical on interstates these days really hits the fuel mileage.

ChrisJ · July 2019

hot_rod said:

Solid_Fuel_Man said:
My cars (and truck) are all manual transmission. All gas (accept the tractor). I said my vehicles in the 80s, VW 1.7 and 1.8L SOHC gas all averaged 35 mpg or higher.

All were manual.

Manual transmissions dont necessarily get better mileage. If you buy two identical vehicles, one with a manual, one automatic, the automatic one will most likely have a lower cruising RPM. This closes the gap in mileage and somewhat makes up for the added weight and losses of the hydraulic pump needed in an automatic.

Most dont know how to properly drive a manual and manufactures set the top gear to be able to climb a decent hill. The public looks down upon having to downshift to climb a hill. This isn't noticed in an automatic, step on it and it goes!

I actually changed 5th (top) gear in my 1987 GLi and increased mileage to over 40 even on E10 fuel. I did a lot of 75mph interstate driving with that car.
I would think the new 8 and 10 speed autos would be the better milage option as they keep the engine in the best, most efficient operating condition.

When I first started driving 6 speed manuals I had to remember to hit that 6th gear as much as possible

45 mpg is impressive? At 40 mph? The wind speed at 75- 80, typical on interstates these days really hits the fuel mileage.

45MPG is my average across the entire tank with mostly highway 65-75mph and a little bit of city mixed in. This is also manually calculated as the computer usually reports 48-49mpg.

The engines most efficient operating condition isn't only rpm related, it's also load related and most will tell you light load isn't it. This is where "pulse and glide" come in, but I've never really done it.

Jamie Hall · July 2019

Anybody remember overdrive? Sometimes it was a top gear -- sometimes it was a separate lever...

How many ratios in the transmission depends a lot on the engine. Some engines -- the big old gas V8s and even more the straight 8s and 6s -- had a very wide and flat torque curve, and could and did get away with fairly wide spaced 3 speeds (like my '70 Chevy C10 -- straight 6. Will pull very nicely, thank you, anywhere from around 20 to top speed (which depends on how brave you are) in 3rd). Some engines -- back in the bad old days mostly diesels -- had remarkably narrow torque curves. Hence such delightful toys as 18 speed Road Rangers. The more modern, very highly stressed and very optimized gas engines -- almost everything on the road these days -- have strikingly narrow torque curves, and need the 8 or 10 speed or more transmissions to give any performance at all. Even better are continuously variable transmissions (CVT) which can be computer controlled to keep the engine at its most efficient point come what may (although they can be disconcerting to folks used to gears!). Serial hybrids such as the Chevy Volt are even better at that -- compensating for the extra weight of the battery.

The bad rap for automatics is really a holdover from the early days, when the torque converters (and a few fluid couplings) were truly pretty miserable in the efficiency game. Recent ones are much much better.

ethicalpaul · July 2019

OK we're well off topic now so here's my records of my gen 1 Insight

http://ethicalpaul.com/insight/

After these dates, I moved from flat slow driving Michigan to hilly aggressive CT so my mileage went down the tubes. But I still have 64 lifetime MPG on it at 250,000

ChrisJ · July 2019

Jamie Hall said:
Anybody remember overdrive? Sometimes it was a top gear -- sometimes it was a separate lever...

How many ratios in the transmission depends a lot on the engine. Some engines -- the big old gas V8s and even more the straight 8s and 6s -- had a very wide and flat torque curve, and could and did get away with fairly wide spaced 3 speeds (like my '70 Chevy C10 -- straight 6. Will pull very nicely, thank you, anywhere from around 20 to top speed (which depends on how brave you are) in 3rd). Some engines -- back in the bad old days mostly diesels -- had remarkably narrow torque curves. Hence such delightful toys as 18 speed Road Rangers. The more modern, very highly stressed and very optimized gas engines -- almost everything on the road these days -- have strikingly narrow torque curves, and need the 8 or 10 speed or more transmissions to give any performance at all. Even better are continuously variable transmissions (CVT) which can be computer controlled to keep the engine at its most efficient point come what may (although they can be disconcerting to folks used to gears!). Serial hybrids such as the Chevy Volt are even better at that -- compensating for the extra weight of the battery.

The bad rap for automatics is really a holdover from the early days, when the torque converters (and a few fluid couplings) were truly pretty miserable in the efficiency game. Recent ones are much much better.

Lockup style torque converters became popular starting in the early 80s. These make the torque converter 1:1 when cruising so I'm not sure how "recent ones are much much better".

As far as I'm aware torque converter efficiency hasn't changed for a long time.

ChrisJ · July 2019

ethicalpaul said:
OK we're well off topic now so here's my records of my gen 1 Insight

http://ethicalpaul.com/insight/

After these dates, I moved from flat slow driving Michigan to hilly aggressive CT so my mileage went down the tubes. But I still have 64 lifetime MPG on it at 250,000

I rarely drive under 60mph and I almost always run my A\C.
I'm a mixture of somewhat hilly. I work at around 30ft above sealevel and live at around 520.

Natural gas not allowed

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