Do gas cooktops heat slower than electric?

We recently replaced our electric cooktop with gas. The burner puts out 12,000 BTU’s. One thing I’ve noticed is that it seems to take longer to get water to boil now. In my estimation, it’s taking about 50% longer with gas to get water to boil than it did with electric. Is that something to be expected? I like the control I have with a gas flame, but I’m wondering if something is wrong with the cooktop.

Might be a problem. IME, gas heats MUCH faster than electric.

You don’t say which type of gas. I’m betting on natural, because propane produces more heat from the same stove. There was a noticeable difference when my parents switched from propane to natural gas. Gas starts off faster, but I’m not sure that once the elements heat up the electric can’t out heat the gas depending on the model of the stove.

I always found gas heats faster and much more evenly than electric but it’s been a while since I last had a gas stove. They’re definitely better for power outages though, that’s for sure.

Uneven heating is a sign of poor cookware.

A lot depends on the type of pot, if it’s small a lot of heat from gas flame goes up over the sides and is not transferred into the pot, the electric coil having direct contact with most of the coil transfers heat pretty well. Moving to a larger diameter pot, or even reducing the flame diameter by reducing the gas flow, should help if the flames are spilling over the sides.

Or electrical elements that don’t heat evenly. Or, for that matter, gas burners that may have areas that are blocked or otherwise not producing even heat. Typically, though, that’s just a matter of cleaning, whereas you need to get a new element when your electric ones start going bad.

My stove kettle boils a lot more quickly since I recently (in the last couple of months) went from gas to electric. I still prefer gas for cooking, since it’s a lot quicker to get the heat going, and cools down a lot more quickly; I burned pasta a little bit last week by putting the pot back on the element after draining it, forgetting that electric elements stay a lot hotter for longer after you turn them off. When we go car camping (where electricity is an option), I take an electric hotplate to boil water, since it’s a lot quicker than using even the propane stove.

Gas goes from 0-60 much faster than electric, but how fast a heated up burner cooks your food depends entirely on the heat output. 12K BTU’s sounds towards the low end for a home gas cooktop (10K is probably a bare minimum). Any idea what wattage your electric burners were? (I don’t know how I could compare watts to BTUs…)

1 BTU/hr is about .29 Watts. So, his 12k BTU/hr burners come in at about 3,480 W.

Yeah, I meant for a properly working stove. Gas stoves shouldn’t heat less evenly than an electric stove, unless you have poor cookware. That’s not a value judgment; I have poor cookware mixed in with good stuff.

The reason I mention it is that it seems like most electric ranges I see, especially those in apartments, are not “properly working.” Those elements need to be changed periodically, but people don’t seem to do it until they go out completely.

I agree. I’ve noticed that when I’ve got the stove cranked up to the highest setting, anything in a medium-to-small pot will take longer to heat because the heat is going up the side of the pot, not staying on the bottom. The best thing to do is just match the diameter of the flame to the diameter of the cooking vessel so the flame is a little smaller. Otherwise, gas heats up and cools down almost instantaneously.

Robin