![Electric stove](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/2/26/Electric_stove.jpg)
An electric stove or electric range is a
stove
A stove or range is a device that burns fuel or uses electricity to generate heat inside or on top of the apparatus, to be used for general warming or cooking. It has evolved highly over time, with cast-iron and induction versions being develope ...
with an integrated
electrical heating
Electric heating is a process in which electrical energy is converted directly to heat energy at around 100% efficiency, using rather cheap devices. Common applications include space heating, cooking, water heating and industrial processes. An ...
device to
cook
Cook or The Cook may refer to:
Food preparation
* Cooking, the preparation of food
* Cook (domestic worker), a household staff member who prepares food
* Cook (professional), an individual who prepares food for consumption in the food industry
* ...
and
bake. Electric stoves became popular as replacements for solid-fuel (wood or coal) stoves which required more labor to operate and maintain. Some modern stoves come in a unit with built-in
extractor hood
A kitchen hood, exhaust hood, extractor hood, or range hood is a device containing a mechanical fan that hangs above the stove or cooktop in the kitchen. It removes airborne grease, combustion products, fumes, smoke, heat, and steam from the ai ...
s.
The stove's one or more "burners" (heating elements) may be controlled by a
rotary switch
A rotary switch is a switch operated by rotation. These are often chosen when more than 2 positions are needed, such as a three-speed fan or a CB radio with multiple frequencies of reception or "channels".
A rotary switch consists of a spindl ...
with a finite number of positions (which may be marked out by numbers such as 1 to 10, or by settings such as Low, Medium and High), each of which engages a different combination of resistances and hence a different heating power; or may have an "
infinite switch An infinite switch, simmerstat, energy regulator or infinite controller is a type of switch that allows variable power output of a heating element of an electric stove. It is called "infinite" because its average output is infinitely variable rathe ...
" that allows constant variability between minimum and maximum heat settings. Some stove burners and controls incorporate
thermostats.
History
On September 20, 1859, George B. Simpson was awarded US patent #25532 for an 'electro-heater' surface heated by a platinum-wire coil powered by batteries. In his words, useful to "warm rooms, boil water, cook victuals...".
Canadian inventor
Thomas Ahearn
Thomas Ahearn, PC (June 24, 1855 – June 28, 1938) was a Canadian inventor and businessman. Ahearn, a native of Ottawa, Ontario, was instrumental in the success of a vast streetcar system that was once in Ottawa, the Ottawa Electric Railw ...
filed patent #39916 in 1892 for an "Electric Oven," a device he probably employed in preparing a meal for an
Ottawa hotel that year. Ahearn and Warren Y. Soper were owners of Ottawa's Chaudiere Electric Light and Power Company. The electric stove was showcased at the
Chicago World's Fair in 1893, where an electrified model kitchen was shown. Unlike the gas stove, the electrical stove was slow to catch on, partly due to the unfamiliar technology, and the need for cities and towns to be electrified. By the 1930s, the technology had matured and the electrical stove slowly began to replace the
gas stove
A gas stove is a stove that is fuelled by combustible gas such as syngas, natural gas, propane, butane, liquefied petroleum gas or other flammable gas. Before the advent of gas, cooking stoves relied on solid fuels such as coal or wood. The first ...
, especially in household kitchens.
In 1897,
William Hadaway was granted US patent # 574537 for an "Automatically Controlled Electric Oven".
![Kalgooorlie stove patent drawing](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/a/a7/Kalgooorlie_stove_patent_drawing.jpg)
Early electric stoves were unsatisfactory due to the cost of electricity (compared with wood, coal, or
city gas), limited power available from the electrical supply company, poor temperature regulation, and short life of heating elements. The invention of
nichrome alloy for resistance wires improved the cost and durability of heating elements.
[ Ed Sobey, ''The Way Kitchens Work'', Chicago Review Press, 2010 , page viii] In the United States, even though three companies had introduced electric stoves in 1908, penetration was rare; an electric stove was still considered a novelty in the 1920s. By the 1930s, decreased cost of electric power and modernized styling of electric stoves had greatly increased their acceptance.
Electric stoves and other household appliances were marketed by electrical utilities to build demand for electric power. During the expansion of
rural electrification
Rural electrification is the process of bringing electrical power to rural and remote areas. Rural communities are suffering from colossal market failures as the national grids fall short of their demand for electricity. As of 2017, over 1 billion ...
, demonstrations of cooking on an electric stove were popular.
Kalgoorlie Stove
In November 1905, David Curle Smith, the
Municipal
A municipality is usually a single administrative division having corporate status and powers of self-government or jurisdiction as granted by national and regional laws to which it is subordinate.
The term ''municipality'' may also mean the go ...
Electrical Engineer of
Kalgoorlie, Western Australia
Kalgoorlie is a city in the Goldfields–Esperance region of Western Australia, located east-northeast of Perth at the end of the Great Eastern Highway. It is sometimes referred to as Kalgoorlie–Boulder, as the surrounding urban area include ...
, applied for a patent (Aust Patent No 4699/05) for a device that adopted (following the design of gas stoves) what later became the configuration for most electric stoves: an oven surmounted by a hotplate with a grill tray between them. Curle Smith's stove did not have a thermostat; heat was controlled by the number of the appliance's nine elements that were switched on.
After the patent was granted in 1906, manufacturing of Curle Smith's design commenced in October of that year. The entire production run was acquired by the
electricity supply department of
Kalgoorlie Municipality, which hired out the stoves to residents. About 50 appliances were produced before cost overruns became a factor in Council politics and the project was suspended. This seems to have been the first time household electric stoves were produced with the express purpose of bringing "cooking by electricity ... within the reach of anyone". There are no extant examples of this stove, many of which were salvaged for their copper content during WWI.
To promote the stove, David Curle Smith's wife, H. Nora Curle Smith (née Helen Nora Murdoch, and a member of the
Murdoch family
Members of the Murdoch family are prominent international media magnates and media tycoons with roots in Australia and the United Kingdom, along with their media assets in the United States. Some members have also been prominent in the arts ...
prominent in Australian public life), wrote a cookbook containing operating instructions and 161 recipes. ''Thermo-Electrical Cooking Made Easy'', published in March 1907, is therefore the world's first cookbook for electric stoves.
Variants
![Ceranfeld](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/3/36/Ceranfeld.jpg)
Early electric stoves had
resistive
The electrical resistance of an object is a measure of its opposition to the flow of electric current. Its reciprocal quantity is , measuring the ease with which an electric current passes. Electrical resistance shares some conceptual parallels ...
heating coils which heated iron hotplates, on top of which the pots were placed. Eventually,
composite heating elements were introduced, with the resistive wires encased in hollow metal tubes packed with
magnesite. These tubes, arranged in a spiral, support the cookware directly.
In the 1970s,
glass-ceramic
Glass-ceramics are polycrystalline materials produced through controlled crystallization of base glass, producing a fine uniform dispersion of crystals throughout the bulk material. Crystallization is accomplished by subjecting suitable glasses to ...
cooktops started to appear. Glass-ceramic has very low
thermal conductivity
The thermal conductivity of a material is a measure of its ability to conduct heat. It is commonly denoted by k, \lambda, or \kappa.
Heat transfer occurs at a lower rate in materials of low thermal conductivity than in materials of high thermal ...
and a near-zero
coefficient of thermal expansion
Thermal expansion is the tendency of matter to change its shape, area, volume, and density in response to a change in temperature, usually not including phase transitions.
Temperature is a monotonic function of the average molecular kineti ...
, but lets
infrared
Infrared (IR), sometimes called infrared light, is electromagnetic radiation (EMR) with wavelengths longer than those of visible light. It is therefore invisible to the human eye. IR is generally understood to encompass wavelengths from around ...
radiation pass very well. Electrical heating coils or
halogen lamps are used as
heating element
A heating element converts electrical energy into heat through the process of Joule heating. Electric current through the element encounters resistance, resulting in heating of the element. Unlike the Peltier effect, this process is indepen ...
s. Because of its physical characteristics,
A third technology is the
induction stove, which also has a smooth glass-ceramic surface. Only
ferromagnetic cookware works with induction stoves, which heat by dint of
electromagnetic induction.
Electricity consumption
Typical electricity consumption of one heating element depending on size is 1–3 kW.
See also
*
Electric cooker
*
Gas stove
A gas stove is a stove that is fuelled by combustible gas such as syngas, natural gas, propane, butane, liquefied petroleum gas or other flammable gas. Before the advent of gas, cooking stoves relied on solid fuels such as coal or wood. The first ...
*
List of stoves
This is a list of stoves. A stove is an enclosed space in which fuel is burned to provide heating, either to heat the space in which the stove is situated, or to heat the stove itself and items placed on it. Stoves are generally used for cooking ...
References
{{DEFAULTSORT:Electric Stove
Stoves
American inventions
1859 introductions
et:Pliit#Elektripliit