gas stove woes

Never had a problem with properly adjusted gas. Sounds like you need to adjust the air/gas mix on the burners. Your owner's manual should explain that. If that doesn't work, call the installer for adjustment. I have heard that some "professional" or "restaurant" stoves like hgtv hypes all the time only cook on what we would consider high. If that is the case, maybe you can return it? You shouldn't need a diffuser if it is adjusted properly.

We bought a new big fancy stove a couple of years ago and wen shopping we discovered that many new stoves do not have what I would call "simmer" any more. My mom's old gas stove (bought new in 1956) had simmer with a smaller burner ring inside the main one, about the diameter of a silver dollar--wait, do people know what one of those is? not a Suzy B dollar or the gold colored one, but a real one. Anyway, this had about 6 or 8 flames the size of a match flame when on low simmer. Being kind of a dummy, we sold that stove in the early 1980s instead of having a serviceman look at it, and haven't found many stoves with a real simmer on them.

So--your stove may not really be able to have a super low "simmer" flame on it. But I have never had any luck with electric stoves either.

That stove does not sounde "right" to me! I love gas and have had it all my life. There is a way to adjust the height of the flame and your service tech who installed it should have done that. Since the stove should still be under warranty, you should call and complain (loudly!) and have the place you bought it from send out a tech to adjust it. Someone mentioned that it may have been set up for natural gas and you may be using propane, and that would cause this type of problem (or the reverse situation would as well). May sure the idi. . -- errr, service tech checks the orifices to see that they are what they should be for the type of gas you are using. And, when you call the store to complain and get some service, you might want to mention that you're "afraid the stove will catch the house on fire!" Couldn't hurt!

Good luck!

MaryNY

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"I love gas and have had it all my life."

Ugh. Do you live alone?????

There is a adjustment on the gas cooking range for the flame. When I first got mine, my flame was too high too. On the oven too. Dh had to adjust it. We didn't have a gas man to install it, so he found the directions in the manual.

The burners being too close is something you can't fix. That has to do with the size. My stove has five burners, though the middle burner has a griddle built in. So it has plenty of room.

If I was you, I'd contact your gas man who installed it. It should be his responsibilty to adjust that for you.



katlupe

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Reflections of katlupe

Call the gas co. Have them check the gas pressure feeding the house, and at the stove. Also check if it's set up for the proper gas.There should be a packet with orifices,etc. to convert from NG to LPG. Make sure whats in the packet is the oppisite of what you need.If it was a floor model, it may have been returned by someone who had it converted.

Tabitha,
I know what you are talking about. I thought that I was just never satisfied with the way appliances operate but my recently purchased on sale Hotpoint gas (converted to LP gas) stove leaves much to be desired. My focus was on having heavy grids that don't move when a pan is slid around on the stove. So my purchase included those type grids (which I really wanted), self-cleaning unit feature (not an important issue for me), a glass door, 1 large, 2 medium, and 1 small burner, and a broiler inside the oven (which is a messy feature if used frequently). I have found that the burners have only two adjustments - high flame and low flame. I use cast iron pans mostly for cooking and sometimes stainless steel. With the cast iron pans lids on, the simmer low flame is what I'd call a boil. Maybe if I had purchased a higher quality stove the adjustments on the burners would be better from high to low flame. The other thing I don't like and noticed even on other more expensive stove tops is the cheap, easily stained metal around the base of the burner orifice. Products are just not made to last anymore.

So now you know you are not alone in your complaint. Hope this makes you feel better...and for me to express it makes me feel better too!

Nappy

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Is there a chance this stove is a natural gas stove that is being run on LP?

That WILL cause a large flame.

I can get the individual flames down to the size of rice grains on my stove.

This is what I am thinking.

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Well I have some new input for this thread. We recently bought a new gas stove. When you turn the control knob for the burners, the first setting you come to is the "lite/high" setting. If you turn it further, you will go to the "low" setting. The low setting is not low in my definition. It is medium. Way too hot for cooking rice and such. As far as I can find, there is no way to adjust this. If you want really low you have to turn it back past high, toward off and adjust the flame that way.

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Are you using natural gas piped to the house from a utility or are you on propane? Has the stove been converted from one to the other?

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I was able to adjust the "low" setting on my stove. Turn the burner on. Pull the knob off (just pull straight out). You see the piece of split tubing that the knob sets on. On my stove, inside that split tubing is a little tiny screw that lets me adjust how low it goes. Turn it until you get the flame you like!

Kathie

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Holy Canolly! there is a tiny little screw head awayyy back there. I'll have to get back to you after I find a screw driver small enough
We are on propane. All the converting has been done

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You may have different BTU outputs on different burners. Check the knobs for labels like "simmer burner" or "power burner". Other giveaways would be the actual difference in sizes of the burners. The other suggestions on adjusting the flow with the knob are important.

Did you by any chance convert this to/from LP vs. natural gas? If the conversion was done incorrectly or the burner nozzles were mixed up or not swapped out/adjusted at all, you could have a problem there, a potentially dangerous one!

Please check your manual, call the supplier, and call the installer for further questions.

I'm not sure if all stoves have it, but I know some models made by maytag have their own regulator on the back, similar to the ones on bbq grills. I came across one here while back that the maytag man had installed and the lady called us, because the maytag man said "it has to be the propane causing the problem". We inspected the stove and the regulator on the back of it was installed backwards. Was causing high flames, smell of gas. If you can slide the stove out from the wall and look at it, it'll have a arrow for direction of flow.

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if you take the oven knob off , behind it you will see a screw, it will have LP on one side of it, and NG on the other if you are using propane and it is turned towards NG you are getting too much gas. all you do is use a flat head screwdriver and turn it to the left, to LP .

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alos, there are different orifices for both , if your stove is new it should have come with extra orifices to switch from antural gas to propane, they are usually in an envelope under the stove top. they are very easy to change out. turn the gas off at the line first.

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Did the stove come with a manual? Possibly something in there addresses this. In my world that's usually about the 5th or 6th step, looking in the manual comes right behind finding the instructions/manual in the garbage.

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The original poster hasn't ever said whether it was natural gas or propane, and she also hasn't posted in the thread since October. I used natural gas for years and years, then moved to this house which was already fitted for propane (using existing stove that owners included in the sale), and I have the same complaint - can't get the flame quite low enough for simmer. I did ask our propane guy when he was here fixing the water heater, and he said he gets asked that all the time and no, he couldn't do anything to make the flame less.

Now that I've read all these suggestions, I'm going to try them. I did buy a "flame tamer" type thing you put between pot and flame, and sometimes that works the way I expect. I am also having the problem with the flame being so high the pot handles are affected, so I just take care to place the pot so the handle is sorta out of the way.

Another thing is, when the stove relights to get back to the set temp, it always makes a fairly loud bang-sort of noise - I never heard that with natural gas. Not a huge explosion, just a noise that always gives me the willies. Maybe that's normal for propane?

It worked! I had to use a very tiny jeweler's screw driver that dw had. Our owners manual did not address adjusting the low setting (I was getting ready to call the company). Our stove came ready to connect to natural gas. We use propane. The conversion was made by adjusting the regulator, changing all burner orfices, adjusting oven pilot light jet and adjusting the oven burner jet.

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