Hmmm, I suppose if you’ve never used an electric stove, this might be a “no” for you.
Are you old enough to remember electric outlets on stove tops that you could plug stuff, such as a hand held mixer or electric frying pan into?
It’s not something I recall seeing since I was a kid. Preparing the slow cooker this a.m. for dinner tonight had me thinking that it sure would have been useful to have an outlet to plug it into right there.
I’m sure there are valid safety reasons for not having an outlet built into the stove top, but it sure made using those short-corded cooking appliances a lot easier.
I think I’ve only owned one electric oven - about 40 years ago - and it did have the outlet. I don’t remember ever using it but I can see how it would be handy.
(adding this to the list of thing I have not thought about in 30 years)
I certainly recall them, but there are two issues:
Cord safety - I’m sure more than 1 corded has been melted when the back burner was turned on
Electrical safety - old stoves used to have fuses for each element as well as the outlet. Stoves are now designed for the full 40-50A load that it is connected to, but the convenience outlet would still need a 15A breaker somewhere
Sounds familiar from the range in my parent’s first house. Which was built & equipped in 1958 and they sold in 1967. Haven’t had one in any electric stove / range since.
Strange. I have a relatively new glass-top stove and it does have an outlet (3-prong type) so they’re not obsolete. The 15A breaker is right beside it. I’ve never used it because there are lots of outlets above the counter.
We also have a Whirlpool glass-top stove (from the '90s/early 2000s?) with an outlet on it. We use it for our toaster (which we don’t use particularly often).
I’m pretty sure I’ve used a stove that had one, many years ago; but also pretty sure that I never used on, because the idea of having the cord so close to burners that could easily be accidentally turned on made me queasy.
I think I’m a whole lot more aware than most people that burners can be turned on by accident. (Maybe I’m more likely than most people to turn on the wrong burner?) Whenever people are visiting, I’m always having to remove empty pans from the burners; so many people seem to think that a burner is a sensible place to store an empty pan.
There was one such in my parents’ house when I was growing up. It was a wider (dual-oven) stove, so the burners were on the left and there was a flat space on the right; the outlet and breaker were above the latter.
Our family had an electric with twin outlet when I was in elementary school. You were supposed to be smart enough to understand not to have appliances plugged in while using the stove top burners, I guess. Not a good assumption, since I seem to recall back then there was no 2nd indicator light to tell you “burner isn’t turned on but still hot as hell”.
I’ve only seen those indicator lights on glass-top stoves, where the burner element glow turns off instantly but the glass top stays hot for a really long time.
I think you’re right. I think they’d be handy on coil tops, though, because the burners only glow visibly if the heat’s on high; there’s no readily visible glow if on lower heat, or while they’re warming up to temperature and cooling back down again.
Our c.1975 gas stove had one. It was on the rear panel on the far right side so you could temporarily plug in a small counter appliance or maybe something like a hand mixer for something on the burner. The range itself still has to be plugged in for the clock, oven light and burner ignition so i guess this let you get some use out of that outlet. I haven’t seen or noticed one since.
I don’t think I’ve lived in a place where the stove didn’t have an electrical outlet. Currently (ha!), I have a glass-top stove, and the flat surface is perfect to put my slow cooker on. The outlet then becomes very handy, as I can plug the slow cooker into it.
I routinely put empty pans on the stove to let them dry. Even better if the oven is on.
I’ve never seen a stove with an outlet. I don’t know that I’d use it, because there are better outlets for where I want to use the appliances. I guess maybe if I used an electric mixer on something cooking?
I don’t know how old my stove is. It was here when I bought the house 20 years ago. It has an outlet on the left side of the rear panel. I have a small stained glass lamp plugged into it. The cord runs behind the stove and the lamp sits on the counter to the right of the stove. So the cord doesn’t cross any burners. I don’t recall that I’ve ever used it for anything else.
Briefly, to let them dry, while I’m in or at least in and out of the kitchen, I’ll do that.
But I’m talking about leaving them there indefinitely, including when there isn’t going to be anybody near the kitchen who might notice an overheated pan before the pan was ruined (and possibly a fire started).