>> "Realising that Auckland would
>> undergo more power cuts in the years to come, we chose gas
>> appliances for water heating, cooking and heating. This week,
>> with a 24 hour power cut in Orewa, we have discovered that all
>> our new gas appliances have been very carefully designed to need
>> electricity to operate the starters. We couldn't override the
>> automatic starters and hence had no hot water, no cooking and
>> no heating. ...
>
> Well the central heating and hot water I can understand - modern gas 
> water heaters need fans to run the air in and exhaust out, and 
> obviously
> active safety features such as flame-failure detection and overheat 
> prevention need electricity, but a gas cooker?  Surely that should 
> just work by
> turning on the taps - of has the safely culture gone mad and there's 
> electronic control of gas rings now?

Madness is is.
But possibly not even safety.
Possibly just really stupid design decisions.
But I have seen other gas cookers that needs mains voltage to operate.
The good old days bimetal strip gas safety cutoff must be in short 
supply :-)



        Russell



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