I prefer gas. Hubby electric. BUT, since I do  the cooking...

First I want to want to say these comments are not directed to Allen (Whirlcool) only to those who may say something like this below.   So

 let's look at this for a minute.

Lots of members have stated that gas is dirty, it sucks the oxygen out of the air and makes it hard to breathe, it poisons your house, etc. 

1.  gas is dirty

That may be the case.  All of my grandparents, and parents had/have gas appliances.  We have gas appliances, and my in-laws did too.  For the most part my relatives that live in town have gas, and those in rural areas have electric.  I much prefer gas over electric for the same reason as Charlie, "when it's on, it's on, and when it's off, it's off".  I've never had a problem with the stored heat in the grates.

P.S.  There hasn't been another GE range (other than the avocado Versatronic) even close to yours on my local CL since finding the one you have.  The stars must have been aligned just right that day. 

And I'll make the Hash Brown Supreme to go with it. 

(Trinity cookbook) 

Part of the reason for the elimination of oven flues may be due to the fact that during the 40's, 50's, and 60's is when utilities were switching over from man-made coal gas to natural gas.  Old fashioned coal gas is a distillation of coal and contains a variety of gases including hydrogen, carbon monoxide, methane, and to a lesser degree carbon dioxide and nitrogen.  Given the size of oven burners, the fumes given off could be very toxic if not vented properly.

Having both, I far prefer the electric range over gas.  I've been using the gas range more, lately, to balance the age/use factor, and that has only firmed my preference.  Handy in case of a power outage, though.  

Of this there can be no doubt:  My next electric will be induction.

GAS all the way!  I find gas to be much more controllable and conducive to the my professional cooking style.  Of course professional kitchens are almost always gas.  I could see the point for electric in the home kitchen when ventilation or cooking style come into play. 

That being said I have had only HORRID experiences with electric commercial cooking equipment.  Much slower,  less desirable product, lower yields for baking and roasting and higher operating cost!  I will let the results on the finished plate, the time the customer has to wait and the cost of cooking it dictate my preference. 

Just a take from someone who knows. 

WK78

But those chefs had no need to pout.  If they could cook on gas using the electric coils on high as you said would yield similar results as cooking on a solid surface hot top(not to be confused with a flattop grill) for sautéing and other high temp short order cooking.   However I have never found ANY electric or gas home oven that can bake like commercial gas convection oven. 

WK78

However having had an induction hob for the last 3 years I have to say it leaves gas in the dark ages its quick efficient and so easy to clean, You can even leave it to switch itself off and it has warning lights to tell you whats hot etc. Foolproof I would say :o)

Austin

Gas. I grew up with electric but once I used a gas range I never looked back. Currently using a 1950 O'Keefe &Merritt but have a '49 Roper Town & Country that will be replacing it.

As for numbers on gas stove controls, they might not be calibrated...but I wonder if they wouldn't be "close enough" for many people. Also if one uses mostly one burner, the numbers--once memorized--would presumably enough. It wouldn't be calibrated, but the control should, I'd think, stay pretty much the same--#4 today should be pretty much the same as #4 a year ago. (Of course, more ambitious cooks might use more than one burner... But I'm single, live alone, don't do dinner parties. Back when I had a working stove, I tended to use one burner for pretty much everything, and when I used additional burners, they were used for stuff that didn't need much control. The Primary Burner might gently simmer the spaghetti sauce, and some other burner would be on high to boil pasta water.)

As for me, pretty much every stove I've used has been electric. My only "gas" stove experience was a propane stove. I don't recall trying anything that would really benefit from gas on that. But I do recall it could be temperamental with pilot lights going out, and the oven was hugely frustrating--it was very easy to burn stuff.

At times, I was interested in gas just because it was what was said to be best, and I was a more ambitious cook. That argument has some merit, plus I think the flames are pretty and appeal to my Inner Caveman. But electric seems to work acceptably for what I do.

I'm curious, too, about induction...but that's too expensive, even for hotplates, given the nature of my cooking these days.

I do believe electric ovens make for better baking, enough that if my toaster oven were big enough or I could do one cake layer at a time I would give it a try

I've used toaster ovens heavily for nearly 20 years now. At times--like now--they've even been my only oven. Good toaster ovens seem to get the job done quite nicely--although I'm not doing anything horribly ambitious. But I have baked lots of loaves of bread, muffins, biscuits, etc. At times, I had a big oven available...but still went with the toaster oven. I figured it probably heated up faster, and might use less energy.

It helps, of course, that I'm alone, and typically bake small quantities of something (e.g., one loaf of bread). But even if I were cooking for another person or two (as was once regularly the case), a toaster oven would be good enough for a lot of baking (e.g., one loaf of quick bread, or a few muffins to go with dinner).

But absolutely unimportant for ANY cooking operation, If you need the heat off in a hurry you do what every professional chef [ or Julia Child ] does you lift it off the heat, I only buy cookware with handles, LOL.

John L.

Here we our in August this year canning in 2 All-American aluminum canners and two aluminum Mirro canners on electric ranges, I have never heard that these don't work well on electric ranges, there is nothing about that in the manual.

Roughly 70% of Americans cook on electric ranges and probably even a larger % do in the mid-west where home canning is probably even more popular.

John L.