New kitchen - gas vs electric hob & oven. Also stone vs wood worksurface.

greenbee

From the point of view of cooking, I'd say a gas hob & electric oven... however, for energy efficiency I'd guess at gas for both (sorry, not prepared to do the maths for you!), and certainly with the current proportion of renewables in our electricity generation mix, gas would be the least carbon-intensive (although you'd need to check the carbon intensity of your supplier's fuel mix).

For the work surface - stone of any kind is environmentally unsound, unless reclaimed. The quarrying alone causes huge environmental damage, and its obviously heavy to transport.

Your best bet is to look for reclaimed units or materials, but if you don't want to do that, then look at FSC wood, or bamboo. I know bamboo has to be transported from Asia, but it is faster growing than wood and if you shop around you can find worktops that are responsibly produced. I did this last year, as I decided to put bamboo flooring and worktops in my kitchen after looking into all the options.

My previous kitchen was made up of solid pine units (yes the units, not just the doors!) and work surface that had been taken out of a friend's house when they had a new kitchen put in.

Jamp

Thanks there are some interesting replies and good debate.

There's an interesting article about induction hobs versus gas here http://www.whatprice.co.uk/household/induction-hobs.html They say they have significantly better transfer efficiency than gas which might just result in a comparable efficiency over all I would guesstimate. I will have to look into the EMF health issues some more to make a decision, but otherwise I think induction is the favourite. I should have stated that I'm not much of a chef so I won't need to pick what a 'real cook' would want, just a compromise between what's best for my needs, ease of cleaning, greenest, cheapest (to buy and run), and the best gadget! One thing I do want to be sure of is that the hob has a very low setting available - my current electric cooker frustrates me because it will boil over a pan of rice (with lid) when set as close to 'off' as possible as this setting is not low enough! I think this is the case for most electrics, but it is something I want to avoid.

I like the idea of a bamboo worktop - can you recommend anywhere that supplies these? I am already intending to have bamboo flooring in the bathroom and am considering it for the kitchen but I am a bit concerned about overloading on the wood if I have wooden floor, units and worksurfaces!

greenbee

I got my bamboo flooring and worktop from Simply Bamboo. The floor and worktop are the same colour, and I have painted the doors white (sadly they're MDF, not wood, but at least they're painted not coated with some nasty plastic!). I also used some of the bamboo floorboards (I got the extra wide, extra long boards) as plinths rather than having melamine ones. The white doors and walls, with some slate-coloured tiles on the walls (not many, just where needed) keep the colour neutral and light, but the wood adds warmth. Underfloor heating works well under bamboo, but I decided against this. I have 3mm silver-backed foam underlay under part of the floor, and the old cork tiles under another bit. I think the cork tiles are possibly better insulation, but they were already there!

Re. the cooker - unless electricity comes from nuclear or renewable generation, it is a very inefficient way of converting fuel to power. You're much better off burning gas in your kitchen that in the powerstation and then transporting it across the country.

1jim

I looked into the Bamboo worktops a little while ago as was updating the kitchen and obtained a free sample from here http://www.simplybamboo.co.uk/freesample.php looked great, never got around to making a decision as we decided to make do for a little while longer and painted the doors/units instead and it looks pretty good.