Electric Oven Efficiency

[cheezemonkhai]

We've been looking at our electric consumption and realised that the electric oven is a large chunk of this.

When you look around they all claim newer ovens are more efficient than anything over 5 years old and have energy label ratings showing this.

 

Thing is being a fan assisted electric oven, I can't see how you can really make it more efficient than another fan assisted oven.

I mean they are all essentially a fan motor and one or more electrical heating elements, which have a pretty fixed efficiency, so what gives?

Insulation wise, I might buy, but between the double outer walls the oven has insulation and good seals.

 

So what am I missing, or is it in fact just some clever marketing to appear better on the tests.

[J.R.]

Ignoring the ratings and just applying common sense then yes, insulation plays a part also the volume of the oven and the surface area of the steel sides, top & bottom that has to be warmed up, the quicker the oven warms up the more efficient it will be.

 

I ditched my built in oven over a decade ago and have been using a Halogen cyclonic glass bowl thing, mine is now Triggers Broom

 

It gets up to cooking temperature in a fraction of the time that a normal oven does, within a couple of minutes and the food is usually cooked before a built in oven gets up to temperature and you can then put the food in to cook, listening to the thermostat cut in and out or simply watching the light from the element you can see that the insulation is very good (even though the glass is too hot to touch) as its 1300 watts compared to 2.2kw and is only heating about 20% of the time to maintain the temperature.

Edited 6 April, 2021 by J.R.

[cheezemonkhai]

I hear what you're saying, but sadly we do actually use the space in the oven most of the time.
When we don't we have the half sized top oven or a cast iron dutch oven, which has been used on the hob first, so plenty hot.

 

This oven is well insulated between the walls (I was cleaning it the other week and took the seals out), so I can see that would make a difference, but as this one has it, not enough to justify the cost of a new oven over an old one.

 

Short of using a smaller volume oven I think it's just something to accept and also that the Energy Labels for appliance efficiency can be a bit like the emissions figures for certain cars (eg flexible).

 

 

[Breezy_Pete]

Just marketing. 

 

[cheezemonkhai]

Ta 👍

[john999boy]

If you do feel the urge to change then also consider having an oven which incorporates steam cooking too.

That way you can use the extra facilities as a reason for the upgrade.

 

No idea if it's more efficient but the food tastes nicer.

[Aspman]

Ratings on appliances bear the same relationship to the truth as MPG on cars.

 

Why do think the eco setting on your washing machine takes 5hr?

Reckon that actually takes less electricity than a 1hr warmer cycle or do you just think it games the efficiency rating?*

 

*Disclaimer - I am an appallingly cynical person but also normally right

 

Just be glad you don't have an Aga

[Liger1956]

The cooker energy rating does not appear to be "real life" unless you like eating bricks!

 

From the Currys website about the new scale for energy efficiency of appliances:-

The energy ratings for cookers are staying just the same. When a cooker’s being tested, the size of the internal space is measured against the amount of energy it uses to heat a brick to 55°C. The less energy used to heat the brick, the better the cooker's energy rating!

[J.R.]

My halogen oven would have the highest rating of all in which case although the 17l capacity would work against it.

[cheezemonkhai]

Is that a London brick, an engineering brick, a low mass thermal brick 

 

If it's anything like some of the ratings, some manufacturer will have focussed all the heat on the area where the brick is, ignoring the rest of the oven.

Great for the tests, useless for actually cooking anything.

 

Anyway, thanks for the replies, it confirms what I thought, so I'll just keep the oven we have, check the thermostat is accurate with a manual one and carry on as I was

 

Edited 8 April, 2021 by cheezemonkhai
typo

[edbostan]

Dunno. We have an electric built-in oven made by Stoves and going strong for at least twenty years. It has a top conventional oven and fan bottom oven. Probably made before energy efficiency labels were thought of

[NJRJ]

I found our old hob top used much more power than the oven, I think the small ring consumed ~2.5kw (same as the oven), the middle 2 ring went up to 3.5kw and the big one 5, no wonder they cycled off and on or the cable would have been toast, latest oven is legal on a 13amp plug and flex, not checked the rating plate so could be 3kw. Total time on for an oven will chew more power than a relatively briefly used hotplate. Go for gas before it's banned

[Aspman]

Yeah electric hobs need a 20A cable as I recall, ovens pretty much just plug in a 3pin 12A circuit like anything else.

[cheezemonkhai]

The hob is seperate and gas, which is a good thing on many levels

[john999boy]

2 hours ago, cheezemonkhai said:

The hob is seperate and gas, which is a good thing on many levels

I've got an induction hob after having a gas one and it's so much better.

Apart from the clean lines, the best feature is that individual areas can have separate timers. 

[Aspman]

15 minutes ago, john999boy said:

I've got an induction hob after having a gas one and it's so much better.

Apart from the clean lines, the best feature is that individual areas can have separate timers. 

 

We're about to move to an induction hob for the first time. Some trepedation after having used gas for a long time. Old ceramic hobs and the older electric ring hobs were pretty awful in comparison.

[NJRJ]

1 hour ago, Aspman said:

 

We're about to move to an induction hob for the first time. Some trepedation after having used gas for a long time. Old ceramic hobs and the older electric ring hobs were pretty awful in comparison.

You will never regret an induction hob, well other than maybe needing new pans, and is so so superior to gas in controllability too.  My perfect combo would be induction hob and a gas fan oven (well I'd settle for eleccy fan) but apparently gas ovens do meringue much better...

[cheezemonkhai]

If I moved to induction I would have to add a gas ring on order of the misses for certain types of breads and foods she cooks.

Edited 9 April, 2021 by cheezemonkhai

[VWD]

I'd suggest that the cooker types (are conditioned by where in the country (or further afield)Swimbo grew up).  After marriage, we ended up in a mobile environment, where she got used to (more or less) gas hob. Then we moved to an area where we could not have a gas cooker. After a few years of having a gas hob, I persuaded her that an electric oven was a better choice. For her (and possibly a lot of our older better halves) gas is more controllable, but a gas oven needs ventilation and needs to heat up the space more often, whereas an electric oven gets up to temperature and then only needs spurts of heat to keep the temperature constant. These days she has her choice of choice- an electric oven and a gas hob.

I'd suggest the path to harmony in the kitchen is to let her decide and then fit it. And I'd put 50 years of marriage without ( many fights) as evidence.

[Phil-E]

Here in Germany it is very rare to have a gas oven and or hob.

 

Most flats or joint houses don't even have a gas supply into the actual house. They will have a big shared boiler (and usually supplemented by ground or air source heat pump) and that's it.

 

So we also then have 3 phase into all properties and the oven and hob is wired into 3 phase at 400v which I believe further increases their efficiency.

 

I didn't know what I was looking at when I came to "plug" the oven in when we first moved over here and there were 3 live wires! Lol

[J.R.]

Induction hobs are great for cooking things in their tins (lids removed) without needing pans so no washing up.

 

They are excellent for softening wax finishes, warming up paint before application, reducing the viscosity of wayoyl etc before application, heating bike & motorcycle chains in oil baths.

 

Some people even use them for cooking can you believe!

[KenONeill]

35 minutes ago, Phil-E said:

there were 3 live wires!

!!? Live, return and earth I can understand; 3 phase red, blue, yellow feeds and return I can understand.

[Phil-E]

The colours are slightly different but yes:

 

[PetrolDave]

11 hours ago, KenONeill said:

!!? Live, return and earth I can understand; 3 phase red, blue, yellow feeds and return I can understand.

That's the old 3-phase colours that were changed many years ago - including making black one of the phases as shown in Phil-E's post (L2)!!!

11 hours ago, Phil-E said:

The colours are slightly different but yes:

 

 

[KenONeill]

28 minutes ago, PetrolDave said:

in Phil-E's post (L2)!!!

Big hint - Phil's post showing 3 phase was made after mine. I may have misremembered the current wiring colours, but it's around 30 years since I last worked with 3 phase wiring.