It seems like in many threads someone (or several) will comment on how they won’t use the oven in the summer because it heats up the kitchen/house too much. I’m just curious… I just baked dinner for about 1.5 hours at 400 degrees and there isn’t one degree of difference I can feel between my kitchen and the rest of the house.
I also have a 5 burner gas cook top that puts out something like 70 bajillion BTU’s and even if I put all five on inferno you will only notice a difference withing a foot or two of the surface, and even then it isn’t bad unless you maybe lean your face directly over the flames. I could certainly cook in the rest of the kitchen without any discomfort.
So, is it because people don’t have/run the AC, the oven is old and un-insulated, the kitchen is small with no air flow between the rest of the house, or what?
I’ve never lived in a house where this was a problem, but I seem to read this here a lot.
I don’t have air conditioning and yes, the kitchen and dining area heats up when using the oven. That’s good in winter, but it can be unbearable when it’s very hot.
I have air conditioning, the house is only twelve years old, and the living areas are basically one big room. And yes, if I use the oven a lot, it will heat up the area.
I have central AC, and yes, the oven makes it work a little harder in summer, but it helps the furnace in winter. The thermostat is in the dining room, with a small “breakfast room” between it and the kitchen. The oven also helps out a little when the power is off in winter (along with the living room fireplace).
I have a couple of window unit A/Cs, but not one in the kitchen. And yes, it gets hotter than several hells in there. We use the Crock-Pot a lot in the summer, or eat cool meals like chicken salad.
The kitchen’s at the other end of the house from the window AC units, so it’s always warmer in there regardless. I wouldn’t want to make a midsummer Thanksgiving dinner or anything, but it’s fine just to cook dinner in and then go back to the rest of the house.
I have a digital indoor thermometer in the kitchen. It sits on a counter about four feet from the electric range. I’ve noticed no temperature change when I use the burners or the oven, but if I open the oven door and leave it open for a couple minutes – like when I’m basting a turkey, the temp will rise.
I use the gas range in the basement for canning – all four burners. It warms up half the basement, and will set off the fire/smoke/heat alarm at the top of the basement stairs.
I have central, there is one vent that goes into the kitchen, and, yes, it’s significantly hotter in there when I’m cooking. Doesn’t stop me, but it’s probably 5-10 degrees warmer in the kitchen.
The building I live in is nearly 100 years old. There isn’t any outside ventilation in either the kitchen or bathroom, in the form of hood vents or things like that. Just windows, ceiling fans, window fans, and window a/c. It’s generally 70-75 in my apartment year-round, in the summer with the a/c units on or windows open, or in winter with the steam radiators.
Running the oven in these conditions always heats the apartment up. I won’t run it in summer, just the stovetop with which I will braise if I decide I really want to cook a roast. Otherwise, short cooking sessions is it, and no oven in summer. In winter, if I run the oven for something like a roast for a couple hours or slow roast even at low temp for 6 hours, it can reach up to 82F or so in my apartment. Sometimes I have to open the windows in winter when I’m cooking/baking an involved meal.
Yes, our kitchen area warms up when the oven is used.
We have a “smart” thermostat, and in the winter it expects the additional heat, so if dinner doesn’t use the oven one day, the house is cold around dinner time, when it’s expecting the additional heating.
My oven is insulated… when the inside heats up, it stays hot. It isn’t pouring out heat the entire time it is baking. I can stand just outside of my oven and not feel any excess heat. I did grill something tonight (yes I baked earlier, but my son came home and was hungry for a Johnsonville “better with cheddar”) and I could definitely feel the 700 degree heat coming from the grill.
Lets say we open the hot oven up and let all of the 400 degrees out (which I wouldn’t normally do)… we’re talking about something around 3’ x 3’ x 3 = 27’ of 400 degree air into a 1,000 square foot main floor area… with about 8 foot ceilings (I guess 100’ x 10’ x 8’ = 8,000’). I’m sure I’ll screw up the math but that is a small percentage to counter the rest of the 72 degree air. Since I don’t normally just open the oven door and let it all pour out, it slowly dissipates out over the several hours it takes for the oven to cool down.
I have to say I’m shocked that everyone says theirs does and I seem to be the only one who’s kitchen doesn’t raise 10 degrees whenever you use the oven for any length of time. Maybe I don’t pay enough attention to my AC bill or care enough for the couple of extra dollars spent to enjoy something baked in the oven.
My house is ~30 years old. Central A/C, in South Florida. I’ve never noticed a temperature difference from having either my oven or my stove top on. I have a fairly open floor plan - maybe the air just circulates enough? Next time I’m baking something, I’ll break out the infra red thermometer and see if I can detect any differences.
My house is 57 years old with no central air and only one wall air conditioner. Also, the kitchen is on the west side of the house so it gets the full brunt of the late afternoon sun (no trees to block it) and it will warm up considerably when I run the oven in addition to the sun beating down.
It sounds like you have a high end range with a very well insulated oven. Not everyone does. Mine is actually more than 10 years old and the insulation doesn’t work as well as it did (and it was low end to begin with.) Most of the heat from my oven doesn’t come from opening the door, it comes from the continued use of it over a long period of time. The oven doesn’t come to 400 degrees and then stop heating. There is continued heat loss into the room that the oven must fix by reheating often. The room gets hot because there is heat being added to it over at least an hour of use (I can’t seem to use my oven for less than an hour at a time.)
I also don’t have central air and live in an area that has had over 100 degree temps most of the summer.
This doesn’t mean that cookies aren’t worth it, but we do pay a price when we use the oven.
Mine heats up enough that I try to not use the oven much in the summer. (It’s easier now that the Weeping Princess set a bag of tortilla chips on fire in it last week; the ensuing chaos resulted in a broken element). I have a fairly new AC unit as well as a window AC in the living room, but there is a vaulted ceiling bridging the living room and kitchen and the heat seems to build there.
In the summer I use the stove top (even that produces some heat), crock pot, rotisserie, etc. In winter I try to use the oven every day to help heat the house.
Yes, all other things remaining constant, using my oven will definitely make my kitchen measurably warmer. Maybe by a degree if I have something in for more than half an hour at 400F.
Partly because of this, the window air conditioner is in the kitchen, so usually it’s still the coolest room in the apartment during the summer.