Why diesel cooktop?
We chose to go with a diesel cooktop because it was an integral part in our hope to run our entire household off of one fuel source and solar. Additionally, a diesel cooktop vents to the outside, which prevents combustion products such as CO, CO2 and H2O from collecting in the living area. Since we figured we would often find ourselves in inclement weather, and opening windows for ventilation would not be pleasant this seemed a good way to go. Since the combustion products are vented outside, with a blower the stove can turn into a backup for our furnace, providing some redundancy for heat generation. The cooktop is expensive, and has similar characteristics to an electric range with a couple minutes to warm up and a few minutes to cool down.