All gas and electric ovens have passive-vented (via thermal convection) baking cavities to dissipate moisture emanating from the cooking food. There may be a poof of steam/moisture come out when the door is opened, but passive venting is still occurring when the door is closed. In some cases the exterior location of the cavity vent may not be apparent. The house my parents built in 1964 had an electric wall oven, the vent outlet was hidden at the top behind a chrome frame that surrounded the unit. Venting the oven cavity and cooling electronic controls are not the same thing. Ovens that don't have electronic controls do still have passive venting for the cooking cavity. Electronic controls are often power-cooled by way of a fan, but oven cavities are not ... it would be counterproductive to attempt heating the cooking cavity and at the same time be actively blowing/exhausting room air through it. Convecting baking is not the same thing -- the fan circulates air *within* the oven cavity, it doesn't exhaust/vent the cavity. Ovens, wall ovens in particular, that garner complaints about a noisy fan blowing hot air into the kitchen are not venting the cooking cavity via that fan ... the air flow is exhausting accumulated heat from *inside* the unit's exterior shell where the control boards are located, but *outside* the baking cavity. Stooxie, yes absolutely, my GE Profile range has the oven vent located toward the right side beneath the control panel. The control panel rises 11-inches high from the cooktop surface with 4-inches of it being a "toe-kick" space. Cooktop controls are rotary switches but the oven controls/timer are a flat electronic panel. There is NO cooling fan for the panel, and it does get VERY warm during self cleaning ... to the point that last time I ran a cleaning cycle, I set a small fan to blow across the panel (helped a lot).

This is a previous thread on the subject. While there are differences in humidity-gas being drier due to more ventilation(also more heat in your kitchen) and electric being moister due to it being more closed and less ventilation, the difference is in the technology available in some electric ovens. I have two different electric ovens and use all the modes. I love being able to direct the heat from above for roasting. The roast mode with convection is a beautiful thing. My neighbor on the other hand hates convection because "It makes things too brown". I love having self clean. If you decide on a brand, gas or electric, search that brand on this board and you might find people that have experience with that specific oven. There is a huge difference in the way ovens are made gas or electric. Here is a link that might be useful: gas vs electric ovens

There are gas wall ovens if you want one. I posted this on the chowhound cookware forum and this is the gist of what I posted. It used to be conventional wisdom that gas was moist heat, due to the release of water as part of the products of combustion and electric dry heat. No one has actually measured humidity, that I can find, in ovens to say if this is the case. I have used both kinds of ovens over many(50) years and found very little difference. I almost think that gas may be a little drier,due to the following reasons. There is much more ventilation with gas so the humidity from the products of combustion are ventilated out. If you read the bread baking forums, you will find they have a hard time keeping steam in a gas oven needed for the first part of baking and resort to covering the bread to steam it. I have read stories of roasts being better in a gas oven. Sometimes they will say it makes a better crust or is juicier. People will attribute this to the moist heat but in reality it is not going over the optimum internal temperature that makes a roast juicy and it is a drying effect that makes the external parts crispy. This is why convection is such a good thing. On the other hand the electric oven is more of a closed system and does hold the humidity given off by food or added humidity better. I think an electric oven may be better for baking cakes and things that rise better because it does hold a little more humidity and allows the rising action to work a little more before it sets and have read baking forums that say this. I have seen it advised to open the door of an electric oven a little, a few times to let the moisture out toward the end of baking a cake. Another consideration is that once you raise the temperature of the air, the relative humidity is much less in both and not that different percentage wise. All these things are going to depend on what you are cooking and the build of the oven. Some advantages of electric that may depend on the brand and features it has. Some ovens have a thermostat that has a very narrow temperature swing, as litle as 2 degrees. Some have the more conventional 25 degree swing on each side of the setting. Some electric ovens have a third element around the convection fan that can produce a more even heat especially when it is full. All gas oven and some electric have just the fan. There may be additional baking and roasting modes that make use of top and bottom elements to produce certain effects. For example a roasting mode may utilize the top element more to produce more browning from the top. Electric ovens are more inclined to be self clean but there are gas self cleaning ovens. Gas ovens may have an infrared broiler. Good Luck in your search.

“I've never had anything but electric, but I've always turned my baked good 180 degrees at least once. None of my ovens have ever had the same temperature front and back...the back half always cooks faster!” To the food, it makes no difference what kind of heat is being used. Heat is heat, simply BTUs. However, how the heat is delivered will make a big difference on how the food end up being cooked. Here is the science on heating (cooking) food. There are three main and different ways to heat up food: 1. By microwave, which I will not discuss because it’s OT. 2. By infrared radiation 3. By conduction. Before I move on, let me point out that “Convection oven” is somewhat a misnomer. It should be called “Forced hot air”, because all heat produces convection, with or without a convection fan. Infrared (IR) heating is when you are in sunlight, you can be heated up even the air temperature is freezing. Conduction is when you park your car under the sun and you first entry your car and you feel that blast of hot air. Electric oven has electric heating elements which can generate IR only. The IR hits the food and the oven walls, raising the temperature of the walls and the food, which then heats up the air, the air then heats everything by conduction. Gas heats by exothermal chemical reaction. The heat generated heats the air and any objects near the flames. The heated food and objects then heat up the air by conduction. IR is a form of light, which is electro magnetic radiation, and light travels only in straight line, therefore anything in shadows will not be heated. Furthermore, Dark color objects get heated faster. Gas heats up the air, hot air moves by convection and heats the food all around. Electric heating elements are either on 100% or off, there is no in between. When it is on, the food gets the maximum IR heating. Electric heat is 100% dry heat. Gas heat is valved from low to high and gas combustion does produces water as one of the by products of the chemical reaction. All the above, combining the particular design characteristic of the physical oven, will give you different end results, depending your cooking skills, habits and recipes. I am not sure I answered your questions. :-) dcarch