Induction hob, yes or no?

[ForNoisyCat]

i’m hoping to do a kitchen refit, as mine is over 40 years old! Looking at Howdens kitchen and AEG double oven and induction hob.
If any one here has an induction hob what are your views on it?

We have no mains gas so reluctantly got one in our new home. Overall I'm very pleased as it heats quickly and is so much easier to clean

Really? Induction is more Responsive and quicker than gas.
We’re getting a new kitchen in the spring and will go for induction. We currently have gas which I find fine for cooking but a bugger to keep clean. Having tried out induction hobs in friends houses, they’re even better than gas, more responsive and just need a quick wipe to keep clean.

Induction hob every time if you can.

I love it. Would never change back

had to use mams gas at Christmas - so unbelievably slow - so much wasted heat - and no where near as much low / simmer control

easy to keep clean - although I boil over far less now as I don’t get bored waiting for things to happen

you do need to make sure you have enough power

we needed to replace a frying pan as it wasn’t very flat and it needs contact to cook

I would have nothing else

Hey? I have had a five ‘burner’ one for about 8 years and have never had that issue at all.

Again, have never had this happen and I’m always having pans boil over. Maybe the issues are to do with different brands? Ours is a Neff one.

My Howdens one is okay, but my friend has chipped/cracked 3 in five years. She’s asked the insurance company if she can have a different make, they said no. It’s something to do with the edge.

Not only is induction faster and cleaner but the kitchen is a lot cleaner.

There is a boil control on my AEG, you just use the setting before turning on the heat. Mine also has a blutooth setting. I haven't used that yet though!

induction hob great. Howdens not great. Take your design to a local independent kitchen place hear your home, one where the person who owns the store cares about the result. You may find they are more competitive on price than you think. Def give local Indy stores a go before you decide.

Are you getting confused with a normal ceramic hob? An induction hob heats immediately. Otherwise the one you have used is not working correctly. My only issue is that my favourite saucepans don't work on an induction.

Yes yes yes!

Induction is the way to go. I have a Neff which came with a free set of compatible pans.
A dream to clean. I can honestly say that I've never used chemical to clean it. I pour a bit of hot water on, wipe off and ecloth to shine. It's nearly a decade old and apart from some very fine scratching on the most regularly used ring, you'd think it was new.

When my kitchen was refitted I had planned another gas hob but had to go induction instead for logistical reasons.
I chose the same AEG which a couple of friends had been using for a year or two and which was near the top of the Which? recommendations. Its the five burner type, wired in and can combine burners to take a large pot such as a fish kettle.

To my surprise I love it and wouldn’t now go back, even though I had to replace some of my beloved pans. I don’t recognise any of the comments about slow heating and cooling and find it as controllable as the old gas hob and a steadier heat control. Might be useful to know how old the problem hobs are - mine is now about 15 months old and the model was around a year or two before that.

thanks for this. Had previous kitchen (old house, was around 10 years ago ) from Howdens and was pleased with it and with the carpenter we’d hired to fit it. Did you not have good experience?

Ugh, reading all these I think my induction hob must be faulty. It’s a Stoves one as part of a freestanding cooker. It takes ages and doesn’t get hot enough, nothing like as good as gas. We had the repairman out once early on as one ring was definitely shit, and he said the coils weren’t close enough to the surface and moved it up, then showed us all pans happily boiling away. But despite its ability to boil, it doesn’t fry terribly well and it does take a while. It cost £1k as it’s a whole cooker, so I’m reluctant to replace it. We had a special cable put in with extra power load for it too. My dad has the tiny induction worktop thing from ikea and his is brilliant and just plugs into a normal wall plug too. Will have to dig out the paperwork and see how long the warranty lasted, but it’s over a year old so my hopes aren’t high!

I’d used induction previously at holiday lets and not really liked it but thought that was because I wasn’t used to it. So when we had our kitchen done I initially was unsure about induction but was wooed by the ease of cleaning. However it appears I just can’t get on with induction and after about 6 weeks much to the irritation of DH I had it replaced with gas.

I love mine. It does take a bit of getting used to as it’s very powerful. Took me months to perfect a boiled egg!
Ours is on the island with down draft extractor. I needed to buy new pots as my old ones were not induction friendly.

When we bought our current house, there was an induction hob in situ. We replaced the kitchen and the hob was the only original thing I kept. I love it, it’s easy to clean, it can be wiped over while still hot, it cooks things really quickly too. I did have to get new pans but they were worth every penny.

They look good and are quick to use and easy to clean. But when I use the one my daughter has, I don’t like it. Maybe it’s just the model she has, but it annoys me having to use two actions instead of one (one to select which 'ring' and another to choose the heating level). I also dislike the way it turns itself off if it gets wet, e.g. a pan boils over a bit.

If you do get one, check your power supply is sufficient. In many older houses it wouldn't be, and you’d need to upgrade it.

I got one when I had my kitchen replaced 3 years ago and I absolutely love it. Has a rapid boil so can heat up a pan of water really quickly and is easy to control a simmer etc.
I had to buy new pans and I also bought induction hob protection mats. The mats protect the top and as a result I don’t have any scratches, so when cleaned it looks brand new again.
Would not go back to gas.

100% induction. So easy to clean. All my pans and casserole dishes were fine on it.
mine has flexible layouts so I have a large rectangular cast iron griddle I can use on it too. So easy to clean.

The insufficient power supply would relate to houses that have always had a gas cooker before, and have no circuit for an electric cooker.

Any electric cooker or hob will need a dedicated circuit, whether it is induction, ceramic or ring.

Some single ovens (not cookers) can run off a 13A plug.

If an induction hob is capable of being adjusted to run off a plug, it will be limited in power.

You obviously know more about this than I do! All I know is that when I was considering having one fitted (to get round the problem of DH repeatedly forgetting to turn gas rings off) I was told the power supply to the kitchen of our 25-year-old house would be insufficient and there would be problems if I wanted other electrical appliances to run at the same time. I’ve got no idea what sort of hob the previous owners had. The solution would have been to run a new cable from our attached garage (where the fuse box etc. is) to the kitchen, but that would have necessitated lots of redecoration so I didn’t do it.