Cooking and Laundry

cooking and laundry.

: now serving, with induction!

Electrify Cooking
Switching to an Induction Stove

One of the ways you can decrease the amount of harmful pollutants in your home and reduce your home’s environmental footprint is by switching to induction cooking in your kitchen. An induction stove offers many health and environmental advantages compared to a traditional natural gas range, and efficiency advantages compared to an electric cooktop. 

Missoula resident Kristi whips up stir-fry on her induction stove!

Induction cooking uses less energy than traditional stovetop cooking: Since induction cooking is faster, it uses less energy than a traditional stovetop. It also generates less residual heat, meaning that any heat produced will be in your pot/pan and not coming from the stovetop itself. (Bonus, cooking in the summer just got a whole lot cooler!)
Induction cooking is safer: Induction heating is safer because it has no open flame or exposed heating element, which can accidentally catch things on fire. If you accidentally turn on an induction burner with no pot on it, it will not get hot. When you remove your pot from the induction stove, the heating stops.
Induction stoves make cleanup easy:  The glass cooktop of an induction stove makes cleaning up spills relatively easy.

Types and Cost

Induction range: These ranges are four to six-element cooktops, usually paired with an electric convection oven. This type of induction cooking requires a 240-volt outlet, with prices ranging from under $1100 to over $3,000.

Induction Cooktops: These have four to five-element cooktops installed on a kitchen countertop independent of an oven. Induction cooktops also require a 240-volt outlet or can be hardwired into the electrical system. Prices generally range from $500 to $2,000.

Portables: Portables are generally one to two-element units that can be set on a countertop anywhere and plugged into a standard 120-volt outlet. While they do not have the same power to heat as fast as induction ranges and cooktops, they still provide rapid heating with the same environmental benefits. Prices range from $50 to $500 for commercial-grade portable cooktops. These are an EXCELLENT option for folks who don't have the ability to replace their methane stove!

Main Benefits of Induction Cooking:

Induction cooking is fast and efficient:  You can shave up to 50% off your average cook times for many meals due to the rapid response of the electromagnetic cycle. The fastest induction stoves can boil six quarts of water two to four minutes faster than traditional stovetops.
Induction cooking is better for the climate and eliminates harmful pollutants from your home: Gas stoves are a significant source of indoor air pollution, as they emit nitrogen dioxide (NO2), carbon monoxide (CO), and formaldehyde (HCHO), which can all have detrimental impacts on your health. A 2020 report from Rocky Mountain Institute found that peak indoor air pollution from gas stoves can reach levels as much as five times higher than the legal outdoor limit. One study found that replacing a gas stove with an induction or electric stove decreased NO2 concentrations by 51% in the kitchen.
Induction is a health solution. A peer-reviewed study from 2022 found that 12.7% of "current childhood asthma in the US is attributable to gas stove use." And another study from 2023 found that homes using gas stoves had higher indoor levels of benzene than levels found in secondhand tobacco smoke, (benzene is a known carcinogen linked to blood cancers like leukemia). So get that gas stove out ASAP for your health!

Okay, I'm convinced. Now what do I do with my old gas stove?

We had the same question and asked our friends at RMI. Right now, taking removed gas stoves to a salvage yard is better than putting them back out on the market. There are just too many health concerns linked with their use to feel good about passing it to someone else.

Financing Resources

Electrify Laundry
Heat Pump Laundry Dryer...yes, it's worth it!

Heat-pump clothes dryers are more energy-efficient and they offer other benefits, too. They work without heating the clothes or venting warm, humid exhaust air to the outdoors, as traditional dryers do. Instead, they use air-conditioner technology to extract water from clothes as they tumble at room-temperature air. There is no exhaust air, just extracted water, which can be plumbed to drain automatically into the same pipe where the washer drains. Using a refrigerant in condenser coils makes heat-pump dryers at least 28% more energy-efficient than standard dryers, according to the federal Energy Star program.

Main Benefits
The "ventless" nature of heat-pump dryers is one of their main selling points: There is no need to cut into the exterior of the building for a vent pipe. If you have a small space, you could put this dryer in any room or next to anything: your closet, bathroom, bedroom, etc. Nothing is off limits because no vents or ducting is required!

Cost
Heat-pump dryers often cost more than vented electric dryers and usually range from $600 to over $1,000, but the energy savings due to their higher efficiency ratings can help offset the steeper initial cost.

"Solar-Powered" Clothes Drying

Though not electric-sourced, solar-powered clothes drying (aka clothes lines) can make your laundry drying net zero today. The biggest benefit? It's free! Because the sun is a "natural sanitizer" it can help reduce odors and enhance freshness and you don't have to worry about unwanted shrinkage. A perhaps more latent benefit is that it gets you up and moving outside - and maybe even forces you to slow down a bit and get a breath of fresh air.