Gas smell around gas stove?

Hi,

How much of a gas smell is too much?

I have a really old gas stove (probably from the 1970s, hard to tell though since the brand name is mostly rubbed off!). It lights though constantly burning pilot lights and everything seems to work fine (all the burners light on command, the flames are blue, and the stove works fine) except for this faint gas smell in my kitchen. It's especially noticed when I've been away for a couple of days an my place has been closed up. The smell seems to emanate from the burners, but I'm not entirely sure as it's hard to pinpoint exactly where on the stove it's coming from. It's been this way since I moved into my apartment and I'm not sure if this is normal or not. Perhaps I'm just overly sensitive to gas?

Thanks for any help!

 

The gas has an odor for a reason -- there is a leak somewhere that should be corrected immediately. Call your gas company right now and they will come and find the source of the leak. Make sure your kitchen is well ventilated. I recommend you shut off the supply to your range -- the shutoff valve should be right behind the stove, near the top, reachable without having to move the stove, or you should be able to pull the stove away from the wall far enough to reach the valve. Turn the valve so that the handle is perpendicular to the gas line.

The most common culprit is the flex gas supply line. Repeated movement of the stove for cleaning cause these lines to fail.

 

Hello borderline. Welcome to my Gas Appliances topic and the Do-It-Yourself Web Site.

No gas smell should be evident or noticed. The presence of any indicates a leak. Which can be from the flex connector as already mentioned, if a flex connector is used. Not all cooking stoves use a flex connector. Some use aluminum tubing. Which amy allpy to both nat or propane gas.

If an odor is detected by smell and seems to be coming from the burners, that is likely and possible. As one potential source. Usually a top burner valve leaking or passing gas through it to the burner.

May be a small tube which provides gas to the pilots or a larger tube that supplies gas to the oven temp control or to the oven burner gas valve, etc. Or the oven gas valve can be doing the same thing as a top burner valve, passing small amount to burner or the oven thermostat can be leaking or passing gas to burner, etc.

Much depends on how the gas distribution is supplied within the specific brand and model of appliance. All of these types of small leaks can be difficult to determine exactly where the leak is coming from.

If all the pilots are on and odor is present, best to have a qualified person or service rep check the appliance, find the leak, fix it and be done with the problem.

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Thanks for the suggestions. I will call my landlord and have him come take a look. I would call the gas company, but as I don't pay my own utilities I have no idea which company to call! I doubt it's the hose, as it's brand new. This stove was just installed due to a similar problem with my previous stove (though the gas smell was far stronger and much more worrisome with that stove - most likely due to the fact that it dated from the 1940s and had never been maintained). I feel that the problem is somewhere in or on the stove itself, probably because it's so old. I suspect my landlord will not be pleased with this development, but I'll keep working on him.

Thanks again!