If you are considering building a passive house, one major concern for you may be your Kitchen. More specifically a wok kitchen if you are a gourmet chef who enjoys having all the ‘fire-power’ at your disposal. Since passive houses are known to insulate and seal very well, the common understanding is that they are not designed to accommodate wok kitchens or any sort of intense cooking in general.
For health and safety, this is definitely a legitimate concern. But fear not, there are ways to work around these issues.
Induction Cooking
The concept of induction cooking has actually been around for several decades now, but there are still many misconception on how that compares to other stoves and ranges. If this is your first time hearing this, you might think its too good to be true. Don’t take our words for it, look for a kitchen appliance store where you can demo them.
- Speed – On average, its 50% faster to heat things on an induction cooktop than gas.
- Heat- did you know that 60% of the heat on a gas stove is wasted to heat up the kitchen? If your goal is to heat up your pan/ your food, you are only 40% efficient. With Induction, you are getting close to 90%. Many people don’t enjoy cooking just because of the excessive heat in the kitchen. So induction cooking may be exactly what you need to spark your culinary passion.
- Safety – Gas stoves obviously use gas, and not all of it is converted to flame when you use it. Even if you use a fan, you are not always safe. And there are additional risks when you accidentally put out the flame while the gas is still running. Especially in the case of a passive house, gas tends to get trapped even more due to the extra airtight building envelope. With induction cooking avoids that all together.
- Price – People who are unfamiliar with induction cooking tends believe that this technology is much more expensive than gas stoves. Well, they use to be. But if you are shopping now, they are comparable to any other types of cooktops of the same quality, while the running cost difference is about the same.
Of course induction is not without its flaws, but induction is one thing that we would recommend particularly for passive houses.
If you are interested in finding out more about building a passive house or designing any home, call us up for a consultation and let us know how we can serve you.
