Stoves without thermostats

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Sorry but this really is tit for tat. You don't understand thermodynamics even in the most fundamental sense. Which is why someone with a more advanced understanding would appear dumb to you. Because its going over your head.

At any given wattage you will eventually reach an equilibrium.

The temperature will rise such that heat loss will equal element's heat input.

It is physically impossible for a 250 watt element to bring a typical stove to 600*F. But it will get warm inside for sure.
 
>> My theory is that if you do not open the door to a none thermostat oven, the temps inside
>> will remain rather stable and not bob up and down.
>> ...
>> At any given wattage you will eventually reach an equilibrium.

Again, Yes, it could be done, and Yes, you could bake things in an oven made this way.

But you're still missing the big picture. That equilibrium equation includes losses due to opening the door (necessary to put food inside to cook, or to check cooking progress), the thermal mass of the cold food and cookware you put in, the temperature, humidity, drafts, etc of the external environment in your kitchen, the materials and insulation of your oven, the insulating value and thermal mass of surrounding floor and cabinetry, whether your nearby refrigerator is running, whether the lights are on, whether the sun is shining through the window, what season it is, whether the oven light is on, etc.

It is very easy to design a simple temperature-regulated control circuit to hold an oven at a specified temperature +/- a tolerance, regardless of the outside conditions. It is near impossible outside of a carefully controlled lab environment to reach that same temperature at an equivalent level of temperature stability by equilibrium alone.

So what do you do?
If you set the heater wattage to reach that theoretical equilibrium point at a sane cooking temperature, you have to deal with an oven that for practical purposes never reaches temp. Because with cold food put in, the time it takes to recover is on par with the total time you cook for.

If you set the heater wattage to be higher to account for that, to bring the temp up faster and keep cook times in check, then your equilibrium point is a much higher temperature and leaving it on will burn your food if left alone.

If you increase the thermal mass of the cooking appliance to improve temp stability (cast iron stove walls, etc), you increase the warm-up time considerably, worsening the problems above. If you reduce the thermal mass of the cooking appliance to improve warm-up-to-equilibrium time, you worsen the impacts of opening the door or inserting food.

See the problems?
 
Just to throw this in the mix, how about the old wood stoves with the oven built in. The fire was going constantly to keep heat going, but you could adjust the fire to hold a pretty constant temperature. We had one in the basement at my parents house and if it was on my mother would bake down there all the time and the results were outstanding whether it was cakes cookies chicken or roasts.

Jon
 
I think they should build passenger cars that only have enough horsepower to only drive 65 mph...

Same idea. And it would work equally well.

I may have missed a comment as to why in the hell would this idea have any merit, I scrolled by half of the thread.

I LOVE any system that has feedback control that allows it to be adaptive to work better. This is what a thermostat system is, closed loop feedback control. This is the reason why computer controlled appliances are adaptive and superior to old crude mechanical controls too.
 
I want to try it myself. Doubt it would ever hit mass production for obvious reasons, but the simplicity is kind of seducing for me. Its a good way to learn thermodynamics in person.

LowEfficeny- your post was very helpful to me. You touched on several issues I need to consider like thermal inertia trade offs.

At least the cooktop idea would work.

If you guys were to try this- what wattages would you choose for preheating and baking? Say you had an off the shelf Whirlpool or GE oven and could pick any wattage.
 
Well some good news to make folks happy... I am less enthusiastic about trying this now. Multiple door openings will lower the temperature to much, and to avoid it getting to low a temp a higher wattage element would be needed which would result in significant over shoot during long bake periods.

But the idea is still giving me a thrill.

Basically I was imagining a GE range with a knob like this:

https://www.ebay.com/p/WB3K5254-GE-Range-Oven-Selector-Knob-KN-7d/2080218455

https://www.ebay.com/itm/WB3X5678-WB3K5254-GE-Oven-Selector-Knob-KN-7e1-/331763942293

With something like "preheat" "roast" "bake" "warm"

or

"preheat" "bake hi" bake med" "bake low"

Loved the feeling of the oven selector knob turning when I had the GE range years ago. It was several steps up from this:

 
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Hi All,

Here is an Australian General Electric (AGE) Hotpoint stove I own that has no thermostat control for the oven; only a thermometer built into the oven door.

The upper and lower elements each comprise two banks of nichrome wire coils in ceramic holders. Each element has a 3-heat switch that switches the two banks in series (Low), one bank on full heat (Med.) and both banks in parallel on full heat (High).

It is the same model of stove my grandmother used from when her house was built in 1948 up until the late 1990s. She used to bake, broil and roast in it daily. To preheat it she would put both elements on High. Once the thermometer showed approximately the right temperature, she would switch the top element to Low, and leave the bottom element on High or switch it to Med. She never needed to adjust the switches again while cooking to regulate the temperature.

The oven interior is very small, has a very thick layer of asbestos insulation around it, and the outer shell is thick cast iron. I believe all of that combined makes the heat regulation very stable despite having no thermostat.

Regards, Tim

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Thank you to both! These posts are immensely inspirational. Its comforting to know that oven was able to bake and broil without major performance issues.

By any change, do you know the wattage of each element in the Australian Hotpoint?
 
Hi chetlaham,

The top and bottom elements of my AGE Hotpoint are 1300 watts each.

I tested today how hot it would get if both elements were left on High.

It got so hot that the thermometer went off the end of its scale (550F), at which point I turned it off, and so it appears it would easily get to 600F if left switched on High.

Interestingly 5 hours later it is still warm and so the large thermal mass and good insulation appear to be the key to its ability to maintain a stable cooking temperature without a thermostat. I guess old solid fuel stoves used a similar principle.

Thanks for the link to the Hotpoint website !

Regards,
Tim
 
Old AEG Hotpoint Electric Oven

Hi Tim, At a total of 2600 Watts your oven left on will easily Self-Clean itself and go over 1000 F as well, I would not recommend it though on something that old as it could buckle some metal parts or ruin some wiring etc.

 

I used to hear stories of purple burning off soil in old electric ovenlike yours, even the owners Manuel suggested burning the top elements clean [ the open coil ceramic type ] by placing a metal pie pan oven them and turning them on high for 15 minutes.

 

Thermostats are wonderful things to have on a range, NO MANUFACTURER would ever build an oven with a heat control system and thankfully we are starting to get maximum heat limits on surface elements as well, they are even working on gas surface burners as well to make them safer. 

 

John L.
 

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