Siri and I finally found our new place and moved in the other weekend. Immediately we smelled a bit of gas in the kitchen so I turned off the valve for ancient stove that is there. This thing is from the 60s or so and is in fairly good shape.
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| The dated stove. |
After we finished moving everything in on the following Sunday we still smelled a bit of gas. As this was an old valve like we had in the St. Francis house I figured it was probably leaking around the threads. So we went to Lowe's to pick up a few things including a new valve and flex line for connecting the stove. When I moved the stove out to get better access to the valve and flex line the hose broke off from the valve and I heard gas coming out of the shut valve. I ran outside with my biggest pliers and shut off gas to the house.
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| Moving the stove out. |
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| Flex line broke off. |
After ventilating the area for a while I returned to work on it and removed the old valve and flex line. I used the yellow thread tape for gas lines and attached the new valve. I also attached the new flex line but found that the stove has larger fittings than what is standard today. A return trip to the store and a bunch of testing connections in the plumbing aisle later I found the adapter I needed. This was fit to the stove near the back left burner where the supply is connected.
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| Old valve and hose. |
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| A new valve for fewer explosions. |
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| Adapter for connecting the supply line. |
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| New flex supply connected. |
After all this was done I turned on the new valve and tested all of the connections with soapy water. No bubbles meant that the connections were sealed and I could use the stove again...or maybe not. Being an older stove I didn't realize that I needed to relight the pilot lights for the burners. I lit the pilots and burners with a lighter and everything seemed okay at first. After turning off all the burners the back left one wouldn't relight. After letting it set for a while I smelled gas again. So I shut my fancy new valve and we haven't been able to use the stove since but we also haven't smelled gas at all and we haven't exploded. We've been shopping for new appliances now so that we can actually cook a meal in something other than our rice cooker and Crock Pot.
