I’m not entirely sure my oven has *any *insulation. I mean, I suppose it must, or the outside would cause blisters when you touch it, but the inside dimensions seem awfully close to the outside dimensions. It’s one of those “what’s the cheapest oven that will let me rent out this apartment as having appliances” models. And, of course, as a renter, I ain’t about to replace it with something better.
With central air, it’s not so much that my house gets warmer as that my electricity bill goes through the roof. ($300+. Sometimes +++.) If I had a way to close off the kitchen, I wouldn’t mind baking in the summertime, but the public spaces are wide open, so there’s no practical way to isolate the heat to just one room.
I wonder if there’s a difference, too, for people whose oven/stove is freestanding in the middle of the wall, not tucked against a wall or in a bank of cabinets. There’s nowhere for my heat to go except the air, while my mom’s oven can sink a lot of heat into the adjacent wall and the dishwasher next to the oven on the other side.
I can’t use my oven in the summer, and if I cook anything in the summer I usually like to cook something I can cook in the morning and reheat or on when hubby is home, we grill meat outside.
But we live in the deep south and our house is pretty small, 50 plus years old and has no central heating or cooling. We have several smaller window units in living room and for each bedroom.
Now in the winter, I absolutely use the oven as much as possible to help warm up the house since it’s off the ground and not closed on bottom, it gets very cold floors . We have one gas heater, and use smaller electric heaters in bedrooms for heat.
There are basically only two seasons here it seems like, it’s either hot as hell or cold for a few months… not much spring like weather or fall weather going on.
I think it’s largely to do with the house though , being old and not well insulated, or up to date. My mom’s house is central cooling and she uses her oven all summer without house heating up.
We have a galley kitchen in our 43 year old house, and running the oven for a while will heat it up in there, but it doesn’t heat up the rest of the house at all.
Part of the problem is that while we have AC vents in the kitchen (small ones), the return vents aren’t really near there, so the hot air just sort of collects in there.
Yep, galley kitchen that faces west. Even with thermal blinds to help block/absorb heat pouring in our sliding glass door, it’s hotter around dinnertime in the kitchen and dining area before we ever start cooking. I just knock the AC down a few degrees and deal with it, but it’s not at all unusual to sit down to eat dinner all sweaty.
LOL.
To the OP: I’m curious how the law of thermodynamics bypasses your abode. I can see have a well-insulated oven that slows the transfer of heat but I can’t wrap my head around the thought that 5 open flames causes nothing outside a 1-2 foot radius of those flames. Could you start a real fire (maybe in the kitchen sink) and see if it does anything to the temp in your kitchen? That should settle the debate!
Even if your oven had perfect insulation (it doesn’t, not by a long shot), you’re still going to open it eventually, at which point you’re releasing a decent volume of 350 degree air into your house.
Yes, I understand the law of thermodynamics… and honestly I don’t know that I’ve ever had all five burners on full blast as the same time. Anyway, I’m not disputing that there is some heat released into the room. Much of it I believe is going up through the vent hood and being exhausted to the outside. It is never something you feel you need to back away from or leave the room though.
With the oven, the release of the heat is so slow it isn’t noticeable to me or anyone else who has been in our house. Or maybe it is because I have great air circulation, or the AC is very good… I don’t know. What I do know is that we’ve left the oven on in the summer and only noticed it because of the clicking as it cycles on and off. We have never had to limit our time in the kitchen because it was hotter than anywhere else in the house.
Actually, we notice a change of a few degrees between the upstairs and the main floor (and the basement is always cooler), but none between the kitchen and the adjoining rooms.
I guess I’ve always lived a privileged life since I’ve never experienced this problem (I’ve also had central AC for the last 43 years or so).
I don’t have central air in my apartment(it’s the second floor of my house) and given the configuration of the rooms the gas stove does seem to warm up my place.
I still use it, but not for long term roasting or such. The kitchen is open to my living room area, and the window AC is in the bedroom, with a fan to blow the cooler air out to the rest of the apartment. Most of the time that’s enough, but the oven working makes it, if not hot, not as cool as I want.
My mother used to prepare a roast in a slow cooker, and put it in the garage to cook when she wanted roasts in the summer. Slow cookers don’t give off nearly as much heat as an oven does, but even so, every little bit helps.
Since it usually gets over 100 F here during most of the summer, I don’t turn on the oven during most of the year.
Heck, my son has a small one bedroom apartment. He still managed to fit a large 55-60" TV in his living room. He tells me he has to keep it off during the day because the heat generated from it is just enough to over power his crappy AC. (In other words, it stays on all day and the temp in his apartment never goers below 80°.)
I have no problem with using the oven in my house.