Comments on: Toasters and Toaster Ovens

By: Robin

Robin — Wed, 06 Apr 2011 12:42:45 +0000

I love a toaster oven, but they seem so inefficient with the heat going outside of them so much. Can’t one be designed so that the heat stays in the heating chamber where the food you want to heat is? It seems that would reduce the energy cost a lot and allow the toaster oven to go on the same cupboard shelf as the microwave oven.

By: Jamie

Jamie — Sat, 26 Feb 2011 03:46:49 +0000

Nice tips. They’ll come in handy.

http://frigidairemicrowaveparts.com/

By: Dale

Dale — Mon, 06 Dec 2010 17:53:09 +0000

I have had no luck finding a toaster that allows one to choose to use one bay or both – it drives me crazy to watch the empty bay glowing red uselessly when I want only one slice – anyone know of an intelligent toaster?

By: Kathy

Kathy — Sat, 04 Dec 2010 19:30:55 +0000

Gas ovens use about .112 therms of gas for an hour of cooking at 350 degrees. To compare this with kilowatt hours convert both to British thermal units (calculators available on the web). At first when I did this using a toaster oven came out as much more energy efficient than a gas oven for baking and broiling small amounts of food; but, then I remembered that because of energy lost during transmission the power plant must generate 3 kilowatt hours of energy for every one kilowatt hour of energy I use in my home. This is not true with gas because energy is generated and consumer right in the home. So I multiplied the number of kilowatt hours a toaster oven uses by three. Then it became more energy efficient to use a toaster for toasting but my gas oven for broiling and baking.

By: Judey

Judey — Sat, 06 Nov 2010 18:10:15 +0000

Toaster ovens are a great invention! I don’t think I could live without mine; I use it so often that I probably use it more than my regular oven!

http://www.toasterovenreview.org

By: Carol

Carol — Thu, 15 Jul 2010 17:58:43 +0000

I was re-reading your blog (and again kudos for your research), and I wondered if people are using the formula to assess operating costs. Do they find it pretty accurate? Are today’s appliances even better yet at energy conservation so that affects the results of the formula? (Not sure when it was written and there isalways new & better coming out)

Shop at http://www.toasterandconvectionovens.com

By: Carol

Carol — Wed, 28 Apr 2010 01:16:44 +0000

I think you did an excellent job of giving information and lots of details for people considering a toaster oven purchase.

By: SueQ

SueQ — Wed, 03 Feb 2010 21:04:35 +0000

Since my toaster oven broke, I am deciding which to get now: a toaster or a toaster oven.
Our needs are:
• We need to use a toaster 2 times a day (toasting in a toaster is twice as quick than in a toaster oven)
• We sometimes need a toaster oven for reheating, frozen quickies, or melting cheese. (About once or twice a week)

Should I get a toaster, and use the oven 4-8 times a month for the other times
or get a toaster oven to do it all, and not have to use the oven at all?

By: goodlux

goodlux — Mon, 21 Dec 2009 10:19:38 +0000

Electric toaster oven beats gas oven, from a cost perspective.

It costs approximately 1/4 as much to operate for the same amount of time at the same temperature as a regular gas oven.

By: ehonecker

ehonecker — Mon, 26 Oct 2009 05:58:54 +0000

Small gas toaster ovens would be brilliant for those with summer cabins. They would be more energy efficient than electricity for the rest of us.However, to design one to meet safety requirements would be extremely difficult. Electricity is actually far safer to design with because it’s very easy to turn on and off.

With gas, you need to design for the following:

1. Insure there is adequate fresh air inflow to support complete combustion, otherwise there is a carbon monoxide hazard.
2. A gas flow cutoff device is required to stop flow during flameouts.
3. A reliable igniter system, so that you can relight the flame as needed. It cant
be on all the time. And if you wanted to throttle the flame, you’d need a very sophisticated and reliable flow controller. For ignition, you need electricity. At the minimum battery type power to drive an electrostatic generator to make a spark. Even then, spark ignition is not entirely trustworthy. In modern gas ovens, an electric glowbar is used to fire the flame. You could use a pilot light, but that is wasteful of resources, more reliable than spark, but not reliable as glowbar.