A few months ago, concerned like many by rising energy costs, I bought a mini oven. Although I don’t use the oven much - most of my cooking is done with the slow pot - it did seem a waste to heat a big oven just to say crisp up a jacket potato, cook a pizza or a part baked baguette which, very occasional baking aside, pretty much sums up my oven usage.
The mini oven I bought was the Argos brand Cookworks, priced at the time at £58.50 but with some Nectar points and vouchers I ended up paying £28.50. Details HERE. As of September 2022 it’s currently £65.00
The power rating is 1380w and can cook at up to 220 degrees. There is no fan.
My main oven, which came with the flat is a Neff electric fan oven. There was no documentation with it, so I don’t know the exact power rating, however using the smart energy meter display it seems that the oven itself is rated at 2500w, with an additional 100w for the fan.
Based on this it appears that the mini oven uses just over half the power of the main oven and is of course heating a smaller area.
However I was curious to see just how much less electricity the mini oven would use - and how much less it would cost to run, so I decided to conduct an experiment. Sadly this meant eating bacon baguettes two days on the run but I was willing to make this sacrifice in the interests of research!
The research ‘sample’ in question was a Co-op baguette - I’ve bought and cooked loads of these in the past, both at home and when away in the caravan and I like them a lot.
First up, the mini oven. I cooked the baguette at the temperature directed (200 degrees) for exactly 10 minutes, ignoring the instructions to pre-heat the oven. For the record the mini oven took 2 minutes and 40 seconds to reach the desired temperature.
Using my ‘phone stopwatch I monitored the oven and recorded that the oven was actually heating - i.e. drawing power - for 5 minutes and 41 seconds.
Using the power rating of the oven, this gave an electrical consumption of 0.13 units (kilowatts per hour) and with a current cost of 30p/unit the cost of cooking the baguette was a shade under 4p.
And for the record it was well overcooked, the thankfully still edible!
Next up, the main oven. Again I didn’t pre-heat the oven and cooked the baguette at 180 degrees as directed - the lower temperature thanks to the fan. However it became clear that 10 minutes was not enough. The oven took 9 minutes and 47 seconds to heat up. In the end the baguette was in the oven for 14 minutes. Nowhere near as over done as in the mini oven but I can confirm that with some butter and a couple or rashers of bacon it was very tasty!
During that time the oven was heating - drawing power - for 11 minutes and 24 seconds, the fan was of course on for the whole 14 minutes.
Combining the consumption of both the fan and the heating elements this gives a figure of 0.477 units and a cost of just over 14p to cook the baguette in the main oven, compared to 4p in the mini oven. A substantial difference.
Points to note:
- I cannot be entirely sure that the required temperature was achieved - the dial on the mini oven was a bit vague.
- Equally I cannot be sure that the thermostat in either device was accurate although I thinks that the main oven may have been better in this regard.
- I cannot be sure of the accuracy of the smart meter display - used to calculate the current draw of the main oven. I did my best to isolate other household devices to try and calculate what the main oven was actually using.
Conclusions:
- The mini oven is undoubtable cheaper to use, by some margin and, living on my own it’s small capacity wont be a problem. It’s ideal for what I mainly use and oven for - baguettes, pizzas, jacket potatoes etc. In addition it’s compact enough to take away in the caravan to save on the gold plated Calor gas.
- I will still use the main oven for baking - the addition of the fan means more even cooking and, given the brand, I would expect good temperature control too.