Electric stove

An electric stove uses electricity to provide heat.

An electric stove converts electrical energy into heat to cook and bake.

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 filed patent number no. 39916 in 1892 for an "Electric Oven," a device he likely 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, especially in household kitchens.

In 1897, William Hadaway was granted US patent # 574537 for an "Automatically Controlled Electric Oven".

Kalgoorlie Stove

In November 1905, David Curle Smith, the Municipal Electrical Engineer of Kalgoorlie, Western Australia, applied for a stove patent (Aust Patent No 4699/05) for a device that adopted what became the standard configuration of electric stoves: that is, an oven surmounted by a hotplate with a grill tray between them. Curle Smith's stove did not have a thermostat, but heat was controlled by however many of the appliance’s nine elements were switched on.

In October 1906, Curle Smith commenced manufacturing stoves to be hired out by the Kalgoorlie Municipality. 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". To promote the stove, David Curle Smith's wife, Helen Nora, wrote a cookbook containing operating instructions and 161 recipes. Thermo-Electrical Cooking Made Easy, published in March 1907, is therefore the world's first electric stove cookbook.

Variants

A glass-ceramic cooktop (2004)

The first technology used resistive heating coils which heated iron hotplates, on top of which the pots were placed.

In the 1970s, glass-ceramic cooktops started to appear. Glass-ceramic has very low thermal conductivity, a coefficient of thermal expansion of practically zero, but lets infrared radiation pass very well. Electrical heating coils or infrared halogen lamps are used as heating elements. Because of its physical characteristics, the cooktop heats more quickly, less afterheat remains, and only the plate heats up while the adjacent surface remains cool. Also, these cooktops have a smooth surface and are thus easier to clean, but they only work with flat-bottomed cookware and are markedly more expensive.

A third technology—developed first for professional kitchens, but today also entering the domestic market—is induction stoves. These heat the cookware directly through electromagnetic induction and thus require pots and pans with ferromagnetic bottoms. Induction stoves also often have a glass-ceramic surface. Electric stoves are very popular today, especially in urban and suburban areas.