Indoor air pollution due to gas stoves is something I became aware of about a year ago, and I've done some reading about it since then as I have a gas stove and two young children. As far as I can tell it's not an issue of a properly or improperly operating appliance, but rather NO2 is an unavoidable byproduct of gas combustion.
I can't locate the exact sources now, but it's apparently very difficult to vent the NO2 to the outside with a range hood as the hood is so far away from the flame that a massive amount of airflow is required. This introduces an entirely new set of problems where makeup air must be provided to avoid depressurizing the house. If it's hot or cold out bringing this makeup air is a huge waste of energy as heated or air conditioned air is exhausted and unconditioned air is brought in.
My quick solution for now was to replace the range with two portable induction cooktops which have been working great. I've been happy with now they provide the fast temperature response of gas although there was a bit of a learning curve at first.
Do you have a source for NO2 being difficult to direct out of a house with a range hood? My range hood is maybe ~3 feet from the source, I'm wondering if it's enough or if I should do something more proactive.
I thought I had read somewhere that home range hoods tended to not be deep enough or have high enough airflow to capture combustion products from gas stoves, but I'm having trouble finding that now. I did find this article that says they measured 80-95% reduction of pollutants which seems pretty good with 108 L/s airflow which is achievable:
It's possible that what I was reading before was discussing direct capture of the combustion products, but it stands to reason that if you're exhausting a lot of air with the range hood it's going to limit the concentration of pollutants by cycling the air in the entire kitchen. Alternatively I could just be remembering incorrectly!
My range hood is unfortunately configured to recirculate, and it's not in a convenient location to duct to the outside. If I change entirely over to electric I'll likely keep the range hood recirculating and install a central ERV or HRV that pulls air from the kitchen to manage winter time air pollution throughout the house.
I also had a range hood that recirculated air in my home (an integrated KitchenAid model with built-in microwave). I had no idea it recirculated the air until I started measuring PM2.5 in the house and noticed it would spike like crazy any time we cooked and didn't seem to change when running the range hood fan. There was a tiny metal grease filter in it, but I can't imagine these do anything for indoor air quality. Feels borderline unethical.
On my unit you can reconfigure it to vent out the back (if the unit just happens to align perfectly between the studs -- which mine didn't) or you can configure it to vent up through a duct. I had a duct run through the roof. My air quality is definitely better when running the range hood now; it still gets bad when I cook, but just less-bad than before.
Oh that's interesting. A range hood that recirculates? I didn't know that was even a thing. Must have a very powerful HEPA filter in there or something; not sure how safe I would feel with that.
I suppose I'll just be more proactive using my indoor air monitor when cooking; albeit it's hard to know for sure. The monitor always shows a non trivial ambient level of VOCs; so it's hard to know what is safe, what is from cooking, what can be prevented, etc..
My range hood will actively draw smoke from 10+ feet away, so I have to assume it has no problem sucking up virtually all the gases coming from the flames 3 feet directly below it.
The biggest surprise for me was just how quickly an induction cooktop can heat up a pan. When using gas I would often turn the stove on as I finished chopping vegetables to let it preheat, but after burning a few things on the induction cooktop I realized I need to have everything ready to go in.
Other trouble I had was largely due to the Ikea Tillreda cooktop I purchased first; it only has ten temperature settings which made it difficult or impossible to find the correct setting when sauteeing. The second cooktop I purchased was a Duxtop model which has twenty temperature settings which seems to work just fine, and the Ikea cooktop still finds use boiling water and other tasks where precise temperature control does not matter.
Another problem that I have with both cooktops is that the actual heated area of the pan is only about 6" in diameter, whereas it seems to be common for a full size induction range or cooktop to have at least one 12" element. This is more noticeable than with a standard electric stove because the heated area on induction comes up to temperature almost immediately whereas the unheated areas of the pan take a long time to warm up through conduction.
Edit: I should add in case the above sounds negative that I love using induction and can't wait to have a full size version! The digital control and fast heating give me better consistency and less time standing around waiting than gas. I would however recommend that anyone thinking about switching to induction first buy a portable unit to try out as decent ones are well under $100.
Definitely seconding this experience. Induction is great for lots of reasons, indoor pollution only being one.
The small cheap portable induction units have a number of tradeoffs that are not inherent to induction itself, but are more related to.. being inexpensive and portable.
Like the parent here though, we do all of our cooking on a cheap, portable, induction hot plate sitting on top of our gas stove because it is just that much better. I also cannot wait to get a full size version, but this is unfortunately hard when you rent apartments.
Thats really interesting, I didnt realize (or think about) the mechanics of it. I think I'll look into it more, seems like a way better alternative to my pulsating electric range as well.
I can't locate the exact sources now, but it's apparently very difficult to vent the NO2 to the outside with a range hood as the hood is so far away from the flame that a massive amount of airflow is required. This introduces an entirely new set of problems where makeup air must be provided to avoid depressurizing the house. If it's hot or cold out bringing this makeup air is a huge waste of energy as heated or air conditioned air is exhausted and unconditioned air is brought in.
My quick solution for now was to replace the range with two portable induction cooktops which have been working great. I've been happy with now they provide the fast temperature response of gas although there was a bit of a learning curve at first.