I know most people have a preference for using either gas or electric ovens.  For those of you shopping for a new or used one to purchase, I thought I'd point out the basic costs of running them so you can weigh out the pros and cons using your local electricity or gas costs.  I'll base this example on the two ovens I use; one is electric and one is gas (LP).

Electric ovens are rated in watts used per hour or KWH (thousands of watts per hour).  So an oven that is rated at 11,000 watts uses 11 Kilowatts per hour or 11 KWH.
The electric company bases their charges on KWH, mine is $.057/KWH.
That means my electric oven costs 11 x $.057 = $.63 per hour to run.

Propane and Natural Gas ovens are rated in BTU/hour (here anyway).  My LP oven uses 60,000 BTU per hour.  It takes approximately 1 gallon of propane to burn 90,000 BTU.  So my oven uses (60,000/90,000) .67 of a gallon of propane to run for 1 hour.  Since propane cost me $2.19 per gallon, my running cost per hour is .67 x $2.19 =  $1.46 per hour.

Of course these are approximates based on the manufacturer's specs, plus different ovens take longer to heat up than others and retain their heat more or less. 
There you go.

-Mark

http://TheBackHomeBakery.com

Hello I just joined this wonderful site a couple of weeks ago and keep on making new discoveries all the time. Thanks for sharing all your experiences.

Or is a Hobart just as good as any other commercial oven. It seems as if Hobarts have a lot of reputation attached to the name, yet I see Blodgett, Bakers Pride etc with similar features and pricing. I sometimes see Hobart listed with GE/Hotpoint, why is that?

Hi all,

Just wondered if anyone is baking in, or is investigating, a used restaurant range? In the last 12 months I've twice blown out the electronic sensors in my not-very-old home Maytag.  I've explored the Viking, Aga, Jenn-aire and KitchenAid models, but wonder if there might not be great value in a used commercial range.  Would appreciate your thoughts.

Sylvia