Few gas ranges in Canada?

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mavei

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Joined
Dec 26, 2010
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I notice in Canada that there is a scarcity of gas ranges.Almost every Canadian range I have seen on this board and others is electric. Anybody tell me why?
Someone once mentioned that Canadian gas distribution system mains have solenoid valves that automatically close and cut off gas when the electricity fails to prevent use of gas appliances during a power failure.Sounds too strange to believe...
 
If's odd, but only really old buildings in the larger cities seemed to have a gas supply for the longest time. The building boom of the 50s and 60s seldom seemed to provide a gas line to kitchens or laundries even if the heating system of the house was gas-fired. We must have taken that 'Live Better Electrically' message really seriously...
 
My guess, and it is only a guess.........

A lot of Canada's electricity is from hydroelectricity.....damns of rivers, making electricity comparatively inexpensive at the time, almost too cheap to meter.

Just my 0.02.

Lawrence/Maytagbear
 
Gas valves that close when the power fails!

Would have left me out of heat for over an hour when it was -26F outside.  Thank God I have a gas stove.  (With my foodservice background I actually know how to cook on it properly as gas is the industry standard.)  Those valves are mandatory for commercial kitchens in the USA(they also pop when the fire suppression system activates) but I've never heard of them for home use.  Just the opinion of a professional chef.  Accept or dismiss it as you will.  LOL!

WK78
 
I don't know what the percentage would be but electric rules proabably by at least 3 to 1. Few families that I grew up around had a gas stove or dryer but everyone had a gas furnace and water heater. The only gas stove I ever had was in a turn of the century apartment block in Vancouvers west end. You can light the burners on a new gas stove but not the oven apparently from what I've been reading on the ice storm in Toronto last week. I have no idea though.
 
Control ock out solenoids on high-end gas ranges

I have recently heard of some high-end gas ranges that have a control lock out(some type of solenoid valve). If the lockout is activated whan the power fails it cuts off all gas to the entire stove-you can't even light it with a match because you are getting no gas. Anybody have one of these stoves?
 
As Paul said, older buildings in large cities sometimes have gas. My great-aunt rented an apartment in Montreal built in the early 1900s from the 1960s until about 12 years ago and she had a 40" Findlay gas range. The pilot for the oven hasn't been working for years, she had to light a match when she used it.
I remember she also had a very slim non-insulated electric water heater. When it failed, they needed to find another one of the same type as nothing else would fit in that spot in the bathroom. It also heated the bathroom. 

 

Outside of big cities, most people who have gas cooktops and fireplaces use liquid propane. Gas water heaters are extremely rare and so are gas dryers.

 

My grandmother who lived in Montreal told me she learned to cook with gas appliances and didn't like them. The last place she owned in Florida (a 1964 mobile home on a rented space) had a coppertone Magic Chef cooktop and wall oven (and a coppertone 2 door GE fridge) and she didn't like the wall oven. That's when she told me she didn't like gas ovens.  I also remember her cooktop generated heat from the pilots and she re-adjusted them so low that a slight draft from the open windows would often shut one or both off. On two occasions where I visited, I remember we closed windows when we left and a few hours later, we'd get back home and the smell indicated that a pilot had quit again... The second time it happened, I suggested that she'd readjust the pilots as she was lighting it up again. She did but barely and just the one that had shut off by itself!

 

My grandfather observed her doing that but didn't comment or do anything! He never really used or cared for any appliance but the dishwasher. He wouldn't allow grandma or anyone else to load it. If somebody did, he didn't speak and he just rearranged the dishes as he wanted them to be... My grandmother thought it was funny and told me that he didn't bother as much when it was time to unload it! But in their mobile home, they didn't have a dishwasher that he could care about!

 
 
Gas distribution can be spotty. My houses in central Honolulu had gas but on the north shore I had a propane tank and a couple other locations were electric period.

I learned on electric and still prefer it overall. But rented so many gas range houses I learned those too. *Might be* my imagination but seemed the fumes from gas during longterm roasting (turkey) made me dizzy.

Gas is a LOT cheaper compared to burning gas to make electric and sending it through 4 generations of hardware to make the same heat. Electric house heat is colossally expensive. But rentals here are almost exclusively electric. Gas is more expensive to install. Landlords don't care what it costs to operate, tenants pay that.
 
Here, electricity rates are cheaper and gas is probably more expensive.

I know that LP is currently around $0.92/liter (about $3.24 US /US gallon), I have no idea about natural gas prices. 
 
PhilR

Propane in Montreal is $0.92/litre? I have a locked in price of $0.639 this winter. I read an article in the paper a few days ago that supposedly there is a shortage of propane in Eastern Canada?

I have never been in a home that has a gas range although most homes do have natural gas furnaces and water heaters.

Gary
 
That's what a friend told me yesterday. He paid 64 cents last fall. The only thing he runs with his propane is a small Jøtul stove.

 

I have never seen a home with a natural gas water heater around here, just one of my friends has natural gas heating at his home and that's because he lives on a military base (and he told me that all military residences across Canada have gas heating). 
 
We had a gas water heater in the first apartment Hubby and I rented together - it did have a fail-safe device that would close the valves if there was a service interruption in the gas supply. We learned that the hard way after a fire down the street caused Gaz Metropolitain to cut the gas! When we first moved into that place, natural gas was relatively inexpensive; the price skyrocketed around 1998 for some reason and just keeping the water heater going cost us more than the electricity did (and that included our heat!)
 

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