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Old 11-16-2019, 10:15 PM   #31
Winilyme
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Join Date: Oct 2019
Location: Ice in = CT / Ice out = Winnipesaukee
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We installed an electric induction cook top during a kitchen gut/rebuild at our home in CT seven years ago. This replaced a mid-1990's standard coil electric cook top. The main negative was the higher cost and the fact that we had no magnetic pots/pans. That meant a significant investment in new cookware - not an inexpensive endeavor as that stuff was much costlier than standard cookware (cookware must be magnetic to work on an induction unit). There was also the occasional inconvenience where a friend might be over with their pot of soup and we'd have to transfer to one of our pots in order to reheat it.

In our mind however, those disadvantages were outweighed by the advantages:

1. Induction cook tops are far faster at heating than traditional electric units. And the responsiveness of the controls is nearly instant. Turn down the heat a notch and you almost immediately see the change in whatever you are cooking. Turn it up, same thing.

2. Of course the induction cook top is a smooth cook top. Cleaning is simple. When I see a gas unit, I can't help but think how dreadful it must be to clean it. It was bad enough keeping our old electric coils clean.

3. We had a younger child at home and young nieces/nephews around so safety was a concern. We didn't want any open flames, hot coils or any fossil fuels in our home. Also, it's easy to digitally lock the unit so it can't be accidentally turned on.

I think a decision might sometimes come down to whether you are an aggressive cook or not. If you are, I'm sure there are many arguments why gas is a preferred medium (it does seem that most professional cooks prefer it). I feel we are more typical homeowners that generally stick to basic cooking challenges. If that's you, then the practical aspects of the advantages noted above may very well take center stage.

All our other kitchen appliances are electric and we've been happy with them.

As an aside, we heat our home with a geothermal heat pump - in fact one of the first ones installed in CT back in 1995. Can't say enough good things about it:

1. Extremely efficient. I've never performed an analysis but I estimate it's saving us a boatload of dollars annually over electric baseboard, propane or oil (natural gas is not an option in our rural area).

2. Very comfortable. Heat is delivered via ducts just as in a typical forced air system. There is a big difference however in HOW that heat is delivered. Our prior experience with forced air was that it was on full force for a period of time and then it was completely off for a period of time. On and off all day long but nothing in between. That led to several degrees of temperature variation throughout the day - not an ideal recipe for comfort. In contrast, our geo is on constantly at a very low delivery rate. Set the thermostat for 68 degrees, and the temperature will seldom vary more than a third of a degree off that mark. The constant-on feature keeps the temperature steady. Also, we avoid the excessive drying of the air and dust that I feel can be a result of standard forced air systems.

3. Easy maintenance. Twice annual filter changes and an inexpensive check-up every several years is all we've needed since 1995. I'm not a mechanical engineer but I'm told that a geothermal unit is a very simple device. There's just not a lot that can go wrong with it.

4. Our water heater is connected to our geo unit. This means we're pre-heating the water utilizing the heat drawn from the earth just as we're doing the same for the heated air. We also just installed a new hybrid water heater to replace the 23 year old standard unit that was still working fine (I was thinking it was on borrowed time). So, we're getting additional efficiency out of that now.

5. Very cheap cooling in the summer. Everything works the same way but in reverse. Of course, since we now summer on the lake, we're not using AC in CT much anymore.

6. No fossil fuels in the home.

Note that there will be a day or two a year where it'll be cold enough that the geo unit alone cannot keep up with our home's heating demand. In this instance, electric power will supplement. But if your unit is sized appropriately, this should be rare situation. For us, outside temperatures need to get down to about 10 degree below 0 Fahrenheit before that will happen. Those temps are just not seen very often in southern CT.

It's a great system that we've been very happy with. They're much more popular and known these days although they've become rather costly. I seem to recall that our fully installed system cost us about $10K more than the alternative oil system we were considering. But much of that delta was erased due to aggressive rebates available at the time from CL&P (now Eversource). I'm guessing a lot of those rebates have long ago dried up and probably geo system costs in general have increased significantly. Yet, given our experience, it would sure be something we'd look at closely if we ever built again.
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