What uses less electricity?

[babyOcho]

DP and I have never had a microwave since living together. When we heat things up we use a steamer or put the oven on (electric fan).

But which uses less electricity a microwave or a fan oven? I dont understand electricity, so is there a wattage thing or something?

I know its not what you asked, but as ovens go, how about a hallogen one? Uses half the energy of a fan oven and they are totally FAB- also do most of what a microwave does better (except jacket pots which take AGES- they really need starting in a microwave)

Our fan oven uses 2000 watts and the microwave uses 800 watts so cheaper to use microwave. I have a little camping cooker which is 650 watts and now rarely use the fan oven.

for warming up def microwave, since you only have it on for a few minutes. Oven needs to heat up and still takes longer to warm the food.

A gas oven

WynkenBlynkenandNod, what is a camping cooker?

Its hard to tell without using an electricity monitor. Your oven may be 2-2.5kW but it won't be using that constantly, it will only be using power to warm up and keep the temperature constant. When I have the oven on watch the electricity monitor it seems to use the full 2.5kW for about 20 mins while it heats up then uses less than 1kW until someone opens the door and it has to heat up again. Of course this depends on how efficient your oven is at keeping the heat inside it and how efficient it is at turning electricity into heat.

Your microwave however does use the 700W (or whatever wattage your microwave is) constantly.

Electricity usage is calculated in kWhs (kilowatt hours) which is just the wattage in kilowatts multiplied by the length of time in hours that the appliance has been on. 1kWh is equal to one unit of electricity on your bill.

It is this. My fan oven does tend to use the full whack of electricity whilst on, the little camping cooker tends to not use the whole 650 watts so much of the time and did cut our electricity usage when we first got it.

It depends.

For example, I did 2 big baked potatoes in our 800W microwave today. It took 15 minutes.

If I had done them in the oven it might have taken 30 mins of 2.5 kw so micowave used less electric.

However, if I had 20 potatoes to do the oven would have beeN cheaper because it would have taken 10 times longer in a microwave than just cooking 2 sPuds but the oven takes just as long and uses the same energy for 2 or 20 spuds.

In general, if you are cooking/heating a big volume of food an oven or hob is cheaper but small amounts of food are cheaper to heat in a microwave. For example, I always heat a cup of milk in a microwave for 1 min rather than use a pan on the hob.

what you say about a fan oven taking the same time to cook 2 or 20 potatoes isn't quite true Abetadad. I've tried it several times in the past and the 20 spuds just come out all hard and not properly cooked. It dosn't take 10 times longer though (as it would with the microwave), but it does take longer.

Generally speaking a microwave is more efficient - there is much less wasted heat. With a fan oven the oven itself and some of its surroundings are heated up as well as the food being cooked but with a microwave, fairly well only the food being cooked is heated.

That's what we like about the fan oven (also the tumble dryer and the halogen lights). They saves on extra heating costs.

Basically they both do their respective jobs very well, but the microwave doesn't really have many jobs to do. Microwave is great for defrosting stuff if you've forgotten to get it out of the freezer in advance, heating the odd cup of milk, heating baby-sized portions and reheating many many cups of coffee. Not much else though. I always do my baked potatoes in the oven.

I do agree about baked spuds. I get them going in the microwave (2/3 cooked) and then roll in olive oil and put on top shelf on very high heat in the oven to make skin crispy.