Are gas stoves supposed to produce a sticky residue?
I have had both electric and gas stoves, both with and without vent hoods, and have encountered the nasty, sticky buildup with both kinds of stoves where there was not adequate ventilation. I suspect you hear about the buildup more in relation to old gas stoves, because they tend to be installed in older homes where the kitchens were badly ventilated. (The really terrible apartments I’ve had, where the kitchens had zero ventilation, almost universally had gas stoves because they’re cheaper than electric ones.) In places where there were vent hoods, electric stoves were more common except in the last apartment or two I’ve rented, where they’d been refinished recently enough to have gas, because that’s now back in style. I lived in a house once with an electric stove and no ventilation whatsoever in the kitchen, where there was enough grease on the upper cabinets (above about 5′ or so) that you could write your name in it with a coin. In all seriousness, if they’d scraped all the flat su
I’ve had gas ranges all my life (piped natural gas and propane both), and it’s not inherent in cooking with gas (I rarely use the vent hood, either). It may be that they’re cooking over too high a flame or with a lot of oil and the grease is spattering — cooking over too high a flame is a common mistake for people who switch from electric to gas ranges. I’m still trying to get Mr R to understand that you don’t need to use anything above 6 unless you’re boiling water or quick-searing a roast.
I’ve had this happen to me, two apartments ago. It was a 1970’s era gas stove. The residue is greasy, sticky and hard to get off. If I recall correctly, I don’t believe it was a result of cooking with oil. I didn’t have a problem with it getting on the walls, but it did cover the stovetop pretty good. I’m curious to see if anyone can corroborate or knows what this yellowish sticky film is and what caused it.
I disagree with the general thrust of the other answers: I think it could be residue from the gas. A freely burning gas flame from a gas stove does generally burn very cleanly (leaving aside for the purpose of this post the hydrogen sulfide which is a component of much natural gas at the wellhead, and the sulfur-bearing odorants added to all natural gas in the US). However, gas flames have definable zones containing various combustion products, and often when you cook on high heat with gas, the flame is not burning freely; it impinges directly on the bottom of the pan and can run up the sides. Before the pan heats up thoroughly, at least, the flame is playing across metal far below combustion temps and I think this can cause some precipitation of partially burned combustion products from some of the internal zones of the flame– including carbon particles– onto the cool metal surface. Later, when the pan heats up a bit, I think such precipitates can evaporate or smoke off and redeposi
