Is it worth swapping an electric oven for gas?

BUFF

Verdigris said:

I would suggest a Panasonic Combi oven. It can roast grill and microwave, separately, or together in some auto-cook routines. They use far less electricity than a conventional oven, being smaller. For example, it will cook fish and chips, from frozen, in 16 minutes, or less. A conventional oven would take that long to get up to temperature before it even started cooking the food.

This is what I do (other brands are available ) - the smaller cavity makes a big difference when used as a fan oven. If he uses the microwave side at all it is even more efficient than a conventional or fan oven.

MattMattMattUK

Vesmari said:

I have similar dilemma, whether is worth investing in air fryer and to use it instead of the oven. Oven is 5.6-6.1kW, air fryers are about 2kW and do not need pre-heating and shorter cooking times, cost is about £150. I have started recording the oven use and since the beginning of March we average an hour per day.

i have some calculation based on hour use per day(even though it should be less for air fryer) and oven is £435 per year compared to £145 for fryer. need to consider limited kitchen space and whether i will use the oven for anything else but pizza. Any ideas?

It would also depend on how you heat your home, in winter the energy from the oven also warms the home, so it is not lost during/after cooking, of course in summer that is not a benefit. 

Also your figures for the oven look very high, most single ovens have a maximum draw of 2.2-2.8 kW and will only draw at that level whilst they are coming up to temperature, a double oven might have a draw of 4-5 kW, but that would only be with both ovens heating up to temperature. An air fryer might be in the 1.5-2.0 kW range, again it will draw more during heating up, although a higher percentage up and running. As an estimate a standard electric oven would use around 2 kWh running for an hour on a 200c internal temperature, which is long and hot enough to incinerate almost any meal beyond edible cooking level, in most cases it will run either at a lower temperature, for a shorter period of time, or both. 

There will be a saving to be made between an oven and an air fryer, but I do not see the differential being anything like as large as you estimate, although the actual difference would depend on what you choose to cook in each. 

Lemonjuiced

It would be worth swapping only if the oven needs replacing any way due to the cost of buying a new one and the payback time.

Spies

Just FYI you don't really need to spend £100 on an air fryer, we got one a few years ago from Argos under the Tower brand for £30 and it works just fine, we use that instead of the oven wherever possible. 

QrizB

Lemonjuiced said:

It would be worth swapping only if the oven needs replacing any way due to the cost of buying a new one and the payback time.

Have you actually read the thread?

brig001

If a gas oven is fitted, the existing ventilation might be inadequate and the installation cost might be higher than you think. Is the kitchen internal? https://www.gassaferegister.co.uk/media/2194/tb-005-a-gas-cookers-in-internal-kitchens-eng-wales-iom-and-guernsey-vent-requirements.pdf

I would stick with electric

Brian

markin

Every brand of air fryer on amazon had at least 1-5 people saying they burnt down, even good brands!

If the cooker is still in good condition you may even get 50-200 selling it on.

MWT

MattMattMattUK said:

There will be a saving to be made between an oven and an air fryer, but I do not see the differential being anything like as large as you estimate, although the actual difference would depend on what you choose to cook in each. 

Agreed, most people over-estimate how much energy the oven uses over the full cooking time, and fail to consider that the air fryer draws continuously over the cooking period. 

Vesmari

i am only going by the manual for the oven, no idea where else to check, neither i can estimate it accurately. the model is AEG u7101

vonsworld

Thanks for your replies and tips.

My neighbour already uses gas for his central heating. He had a gas cooker until a few years ago, and the old gas pipe is simply capped off behind the electric cooker, so swapping should be straightforward.

He has a smart meter, so I'll ask him to work our how much he actually spends using his electric cooker, my guess is about 1Kwh each day, so around 28p/day or £102/year, but it may be more!  That cost of course will also rise more in October. 

We can then work out how long it would take him to recoup the cost of replacing his cooker.

Alternatively a mini oven sounds like a good idea, since at the moment he is using a full sized oven to cook mainly small items.