Assume 10 and you are not far off
We have 2 induction "rings" and 2 gas. Only our stainless pans will work on the induction side, but that's no big deal. The hob was in when we bought the house, but should we need to change it, we would go for the same set up again. It's the best of both worlds and we have no worries should the power go off, which inevitably it will.
It heats the pans (and contents) faster than the gas hob and is just as controllable. Of course, the induction hob looks nicer and is much easier to clean.
James, I have a ceramic hob (halogen) in Manchester and a town gas hob in France.
There are pluses and minuses on both.
The ceramic hob is easy to keep clean, and cooks well at simmer level, but pans have a tendency to warp under high heat and a warped pan will not heat up effectively on the hob. So my warped pans have all migrated to France over time. It is also relatively slow to warm up and relatively slow to cool down after cooking, or when a change of temperature is required, however, you can move pans so only part of the bottom surface is on the cooking surface reducing the exposure to the heat source, without the danger of tipping that you have on a gas hob.
My gas hob is instant heat and instant (almost) cooling, though the grid and the hob plate do still hold some residual heat, but the minimum flame on each burner is too high to get a low simmer when that is required. It is also a sod to clean. My dishwasher comes in very handy for this and the grids and burners go in there regularly.
I have seen combination hobs in France and if I was buying a new one, knowing what I know now, I would go for one of those.
My apartment in Manchester is electricity only, so not a choice available to me there, but in France.........
And of course there's the all eggs in one basket issue, multiple sources of energy are preferable to just one.
We have always been gas users, however in 2008 we moved to Switzerland and had a standard electric hob, my wife in particular hated it. When we moved into our temporary accommodation (whilst our house is being renovated) we found ourselves with an induction hob (ironically we have gas central heating). At first we thought it was broken as none of our pans worked on it. We have now invested in the correct pots and pans.
We are converts (My wife did a complete U turn on this), yes you need to take care and some of the touch sensitive buttons have a knack to them. Once mastered it's the best hob we've ever had. Our hob is "THERMOR" and now we will only use induction, it's fast, controllable, easy to clean and good looking. Our old gas cooker will remain on standby should we have a power cut, fortunately we have the space!
Beware that induction hobs are very fragile from an electical overload viewpoint. They all contain a fuse, sometimes one for each induction coil, and this fuse is easily burnt out if your power supply has a tendency to go on/off at the most unforeseen moments. If you are lucky, the fuse, which is inside the unit, is simply plugged into to the circuit board. If you are unlucky, it will be soldered in, which means that when it burns out, you will have no other choice to either get out your soldering iron and replace it yourself, or risk paying half of the cost of the whole hob just to get it fixed !
Speaking from experience, I have lost two such 4 and 3 pan hobs respectively within the space of 5 years, no thanks to EDF's incredibly incompetent power suppy shenanigans. Trying to prove it was their fault was even harder. I have resorted to buying a single induction hob plate for sub-70 odd Euros from Lidl which I can plug and unplug from a typical mains 16a plug socket. Even if it only lasts a year, I'll have got my money's worth out of it.
We have an induction hob in France James. We installed it just before my wife died and she was the one that choose it. In Dublin she installed gas because she liked the immediate temperature control but she'd decided that induction gave the same control with less mess. I've just asked my daughter and she says she she likes the induction but finds the pots very heavy.
We installed an IKEA mixed induction/halogen bob a couple of years ago. Verdict? The Spousal Unit loves it. The dual mode means we can use non-induction pots and pans when we need to, and induction where possible. If we can, we use the induction zones. Several of the pans we have bought more recently have been induction-friendly as it gets more common, but you still need to check. But as someone said if it's magnetic, it'll work.
Good: Very very quick to heat up AND to cool down; stays at the temperature you set; more economical because the energy used goes to the pot, not to the rest of the kitchen (and we really do notice that the kitchen heats up far less in winter with this hob); has a timer function that's pretty handy too.
Bad: May need to buy new pots; more expensive to buy; may need to install a radiator in the kitchen. :-)
Overall I'd recommend it over other types of electric hob, and from a safety perspective over gas too.
Thanks Paul, I ran three 10mm2 cables for this and the ovens already. That's a good point about their kw draw, I have 45amps from EDF. Maybe that's not going to be enough, how many kw can I get out of 45amps? 10?
My only experience of induction is installing one in my daughters flat in the UK. She loves it and must admit I was quite impressed though you do need a good supply to it as they can take a fair bit of power and as others have said maybe factor in a new set of pans.
We settled for an induction hob. If the power were to go off for any lenth of time we can always cook on our wood stove or outside on the barbecue.Some of our saucepans didn't work on induction but we knew that would be the case. Good excuse for some nice new induction comliant stainless pans from IKEA and more expensively elsewhere (Bergerac has a truly wonderful kitchen equipment shop at truly wonderful prices). Hitherto we've used gas in UK and we wondered if we would adapt but it hasn't been a problem. For those who like to do the cheffy thing of shaking your frying pans and flaming all over the place this is still possible but not so easy. However Cheffy doesn't have to clean his own piano does he? Usually it falls to the apprentice and the kitchen porter so we don't do it much at home. The hob is very good at simmering very slowly so ideal for those French dishes à mijote. It's very easy to clean. Wouldn't be tempted to go back .
Something also to bear in mind is that electric hobs are quite powerful - typically 6-8Kw or more , and so with all on at the same time, you may be tripping out your EDF disjoncteur, if other appliances are on at the same time. I recently wired up one that was 8.2kw and required a 10mm2 supply cable!!
Depending on what KW rating you are currently on with your EDF contract, you may have to upgrade your electric supply to the next band, and then pay a higher standing charge all year round. This is particularly true if you have 3 phase into your house, as your allowed KW rating is divided into 3.
If you are swapping from gas to electric , haven't got one already, the hob will also require a new electric circuit directly back to the Tableau electrique in a minimum 6mm2 cable on it's own 32A circuit breaker or fuse. Sometimes this can snowball into more works , if for instance your tableau has no spare ways or the existing tableau needs upgrading.
We have just changed to induction after always having gas! I love to cook so was worried about changing but i love it! The hob did take a little while to get used to but now its easy, boils water very quickly, cooks really well and controlled and very very easy to clean. I could go on with all the good points. The only thing for me, i love gas for the tossing of food especially in a wok but with induction you cant do this. yes you do have to have induction pans, but most pans now are for all hobs, and as for boiling over, i have had things boil over because of getting used to the hob but the heat was reduced instantly. We looked into hobs for months and decided on a bosch with one long ring and two round rings, good idea having the long ring for extra room and bigger pans.
Coming at this from a different point of view, I'd stay with a gas hob (or a partial gas hob). The reason for this is the great storm of 1999 (2000?). Our village had no electricity for 4 days but we had the gas hob to cook with, the woodburner to heat the house and thankfully the standby batteries in the local exchange meant we had a phone/modem signal during that time.
If I was going to go partially electric, I think I would go for a ceramic one, purely for the hope it might give me for keeping it clean.
Hello
We have just changed to induction, and I love it, so easy to use once you get the hang of it, you will have to change the pots and pans though, good hint is take a magnet with you when you go to shop, an induction plate will only take pots and pans that the magnet sticks to, darty are very good with advise for this, I use a regular cleaner especially for induction, bought in all supermarkets, (cant remember the name) :-)
Yes, right about that, Em. I forgot, all those inox pans are not "recognised" by the hot plates.
Hi James, be prepared to buy a new set of pans/pots etc. My parents spent a wk finding out what was wrong with the hob only to find the metal of our pans/pots weren't suitable. They went ahead and bought a circular type plate with a handle a handle on from Carrefour for 20 euros. Of course it could only be used with a single pot/pan. I just remember my mum moaning about it and bought a microwave lol. I found it very sensitive too and pots did used to overspill when you tried to reduce the heat quickly. She used a special cream to clean it with that she bought from Darty. Hope this helps, but I would stick with gas as we did when we next moved out in the sticks.
Each time I've seen them in friends' kitchens, I found them a tad pernickety to fine-tune, usually when you wipe your finger over the controls they go up far too high (or low) and you have to spend some time fiddling.
And are you sure you want to rely on electric bills for cooking, James?
Know what you mean about gas bottles, though, even if they are now those lighter wheely orange ones.