So, I accidentally left one of the gas burners on my stove on, on low, for about 12 hours. We get charged $1.21 per therm – though I’m not sure what a therm is (evidently it’s a quantity of gas needed to generate 100,000 BTUs, but that doesn’t help me figure things out). Can anybody tell me roughly how much this bout of stupidity is going to cost?
Depends on the stove. Typical burners appear to be rated at between 6,000 and 15,000 BTUs per hour, max. What "low " is will probably vary considerably, but will be much lower than those figures. But, let’s a pull a number out of a hat, to get an idea of the worst-case scenario. Let’s call it 10,000 BTU/hr–ridiculously high for the low setting. For 12 hours, you’d consume 120,000 BTUs or 1.2 therms. Total cost at $1.21 per unit: A buck forty-five.
I wouldn’t worry about it unless you’re so broke you’re eating cat food.
Thank god. Much obliged, Q (can I call you Q?). That’s a huge load off my mind – I was afraid I’d blown a couple hundred bucks on gas or something.
Incidentally, this is just a crappy 4-burner stove-slash-oven made by GE, but I can’t find a model number anywhere; it must be on the side or back of the thing, and since it’s integrated into the counter I can’t see it. But your figures are probably accurate for this model since I found a few other stoves that look similar and their burners were all rated for 6-12 KBTUs/hour as well.
Anyway, thanks. You have no idea how much better that makes me feel.
But don’t you feel just a weeee bit guilty for using up more of our planet’s finite resources in such a wasteful manner? 
Yeah, someday we’ll wish we had that ten cubic feet of gas back. 
Actually I did feel guilty for wasting so much natural gas until QED helpfully pointed out that it wasn’t that much after all. Now I just feel bad that our cats could have jumped onto the stove and caught fire. 
But on the other hand, they never jump up on the stove, so it’s probably not that big a risk. The 8-year-old cat is too old and fat to jump up there and the kitten is too small (but I wouldn’t put it past him, he’s a rambunctious one).
What I really feel stupid about is A) I wasn’t even cooking something, I was just heating up an ice cream scoop so it would cut through the rock-hard ice cream from the chest freezer, and B) I did the exact same thing the day before, but for only about 5 hours instead of overnight. Son of a diddly … :smack:
The model number is usually on a metal plate located under the burners. Lift up the cover, and look around. It can be tough to find, especially if it’s not been kept clean, but it should be in a location where you do not need to remove the stove from the counter. (http://www.repairclinic.com/0089.asp?AppType=13&Brand=154 for help)
The way I’ve always done that was to hold the scoop in running water from the faucet. You can use the hot water if the ice cream is really hard, but normally the cold water is just fine. It’s still about 30-40ºF warmer than the ice cream, after all.
And the ‘wet’ scoop seems to work better at getting the ice cream out – lubrication, maybe?
You may notice that this is what they do in ice cream stores – they dip the scoops in water each time they go to dig out a scoopful.
Barely anything by my standards. I notice a huge difference in my gas bill on the months where I have to use gas heating (and cook) versus the hotter months where I only use gas for cooking. Those months my bill usually ends up mostly the “gas service fee”.
I used to (and still sometimes do) warm plates directly on the stove element. Turn on for 10 seconds, turn off and let sit for a minute = warmed plate. Turns out there’s plenty that can distract me for 10 seconds, and I ended up shattering 2 (or 3, can’t recall) dishes that way. :eek:
I still do it, but I’ll turn the dial on, keep holding it, and then turn it off. Now I just have to work on not stacking anything on the (conveniently located, but never used) back burner, 'cause I once turned it on by accident and melted a bunch of plastic to it. :smack:
Microwave them. Most ceramics can absorb microwaves fairly well, particulary if they’re well-used (new ones don’t absorb much, so will take longer to warm). If you nuke them with nothing else in the oven, it should get warm within a minute or two, depending on the ceramic–experiment a bit. No, you won’t hurt your oven by running it without a food load, no matter what the manufacturer tells you.