this post was submitted on 18 Oct 2023
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They're not hard to reach for a normal sized adult.
But you're reaching over the hot parts. It's way more normal to have them at the front edge in front of the hot bits
You might disagree but walk into home depot, this style is plenty popular. I would say more popular when I was renting.
I'd rather have them at eye level easier to see from across the room and have them away from kids.
It's amazing how many people project their wants and needs based on their limited experience.
It's propably a local thing. The same stove design is not popular in every country. At some places every stove might look like this and at others people might have never seen such a thing.
You should probably mention that to the guy projecting.
Is home depot a generic name or do you mean the chain called Home Depot?
Brand. In most of the states we'd call it a hardware and lumber store as a generic.
I'm assuming you're from Europe, and as such probably are using a gas stove. The front makes sense for gas because it's wasting a ton of gas to heat up air that goes around your food instead of into it. This means the air above the stove is really hot and will likely burn you, so the dials need to be in the front. For electric stoves, there's a lot less energy wasted. Almost all of the emerge goes directly into your pots/pans so the air above is relatively cool, unless you're boiling water or something. Having the dials in the back is easier to see while cooking and more childproof.
This explains why I, as an American who has really only known electric stoves both in my homes and friends homes, am more familiar with back controls, but the fancy cooks I watch on YouTube with gas ranges have them in front (though the cooks are still American). I kind of just associated front controls with “rich people stoves” which was a false equivalence since most of the online cooks I know happen to be rich but it’s the fact they’re gas stoves that makes the difference lol. I also follow one who has an induction cooktop with touch controls which seems kind of annoying.
Or "soviet people stoves"
I had same stove in same color
Ah, is this electric? Interesting!
Yes
Never seen a stove with knobs on the front outside of restaurant kitchens. I've been in many houses of varying wealth levels, and never seen that unless in a residential kitchen.
This is regional thing. In Europe it is in front, which is of course superior. /s
American here and I agree. They even do trucks smarter. The boxy version makes it so much easier to judge spaces and distances down over the hood.
But of course, we have to be stubborn and ignorant, because we measure things in feet and fingers and spider legs and bags of salt.
If it's really big they always say how much of a Texas it is. As if anyone really has a good grasp of how big Texas actually is. After all even if you live there it's literally impossible to see all of it at the same time.
People are just bad at scale in general, even for objects we obstensively know about, it's just better to give the actual numbers in my opinion, like, off the top of your head without looking any of it up, is the Eiffel Tower bigger or smaller than the Empire State Building. And what is the difference, are we talking closer to 30 ft or 200 ft?
I agree it's better, but not normal. Most ranges are like this
*Most ranges in the very small part of the world you live in
You have to reach over hot bits in the front to get to hot bits in the back when cooking anyways... once again, for a normal sized adult this poses literally 0 risk of anything.
What if you don't have hot bits in the back? The design seems annoying
I've used both styles of stove and really don't have a preference either way (other than anxiety about accidentally bumping into the front ones). My current stove has back controls and it really has never registered as a problem.
Yeah but reaching over a pan that is spitting oil everywhere because it's too hot is not fun.
I've never known a modern stove to have the controls anywhere else, and I've never really considered reaching over a pot or pan to turn the thing off. Most of the time, I'll take the pot or pan off the stove first so it doesn't burn. And if I am simply turning down the heat to go from boiling to simmering, I go around not over.
I can totally see where you're coming from tho. I grew up with this style; I've been tempered by the grease and steam of experience lol
That's really odd. I had never seen a stove with controls over and behind the hobs like this until today. If you just google "Stove" then 90% of the images are with the dials on the front, both home and commercial ranges. I don't think it's the norm to have controls positioned potentially hidden by superheated objects and seems like something that could even fall afoul of safety laws in the EU.
Try searching for "electric stove" and you'll see that 95% figure swap the other direction. I'm in the US and probably 95% of the stoves I've seen have the controls in the back like this one.
I'm guessing gas ranges are more common in the EU and more commonly have front controls but they aren't as common in the US. Our house has natural gas but only for the fireplace and furnace. The stove is electric. Of all the people I know, I think only one has a gas stove in their home.
I've only had electric stoves everywhere I've lived for the past 20 years of my adult life across various EU countries, along with every friend, family or airbnb I've stayed at. I didn't even know the controls could be positioned back there! It seems wild to me that could ever be the norm.
The EU has very poor safety controls.
Do you have anything to back that up, or just the conversation above that indicates the contrary?
Burner controls on the front. No regulation on toxic chemicals in consumer products. Highest levels of cancer because of toxic chemicals in consumer products than any other region.
I don't understand why you think the controls on the front are a hazard rather than the ones directly behind the hotplates/burners.
You must be talking about the PFAS stuff getting legislated on currently. Despite the disappointing u-turn on a blanket ban, they still plan on banning some of the worst offenders. As far as I can tell no other country in the world has banned any at all. The US has phased out manufacturing of some chemicals but still imports and sells products containing those same chemicals.
State your source for the "highest levels of cancer because of toxic chemicals in consumer products". Research is only just really beginning on the impact of PFAS, so it would be interesting if you had worldwide data directly connected to their cancer causing impact in humans from consumer products specifically.
The EU makes up only 5% of the world's population but has 23% of all cancer cases.
Sure, that's a stat, but it's 23% of all new cancer cases.
What makes you think that's solely down to toxins in consumer products? There's lifestyle aspects, pollution and population density to add in there.
Also two thoughts: I have a gut feeling that the reporting of cancer cases is likely to be higher when health care is free. Additionally, the stat is for Europe and not the EU. EU countries are likely to have more safety regulations than non-EU countries.
That's probably it. There's probably some EU law somewhere that says that this obviously dangerous design is dangerous and you can't have it, and then the US is like, we don't care about our citizens anyway, go right ahead.
Different views of dangerous—knobs in front are more easily turned on by children. So they both have their risks.
That's why most off them have to be "unlocked" first. Usually they need to be pushed inwards for a second and then they jjmp out and can be turned. It's realy just a regional thing between US and EU