Antique Gas stove.. Here we go again? Need all the info I can get!

[rp2813]

Match Lighting

I can remember Coral, the mom of the family that lived next door to us growing up, swiping a kitchen match across the inner surface of the oven door at their beach house in order to light the oven, and perhaps even a stove-top burner that the pilot couldn't manage (but my memory is sketchy about that).  I haven't seen strike-anywhere kitchen matches for many years.  Sometimes I wonder just how much fool-proofing is too much.

 

Coral, having a low tolerance for alcohol, managed to singe her hair more than once on their modern ('60s) Norge gas stove at home too, while lighting a cigarette over one of the burners.

 

[foraloysius]

I assume modern gas stoves still can be turned on with a match when the ignition isn't working?

 

[hunter]

some can, some can't

Modern gas ranges usually cannot have use of the oven during times with no mains power. There are some models, like one a neighbor has, where the cooktop/hob cannot even be lit manually.

In the USA and Canada (and maybe elsewhere) some of the ranges from Unique have battery ignition. Link below.

https://uniqueappliances.com/product-category/cooking-appliances/battery-ignition-propane-ranges/

 

[combo52]

You Can Maunally Light The Top Burners On All Gas Ranges

During an electrical power outage, there are only about 3 exceptions I have ever seen to this statement, the most popular are the Thermador ranges with the simmer feature where the burner cycles on and off completely on two out of the 4 or 5 burners, on these ranges you can still use the non simmer burners.

 

Very few ovens with electrical ignition can be manually lite, the exception is gas ovens that use spark ignition that are not self-cleaning can often be lit with a match.

 

John L.

 

 

 

[jamiel]

My grandmother's 1939 Chambers was, of course, match light for the oven (and broiler, and well). I recall her opening the oven, turning on the valve, putting the match down the tube then blowing into the tube to make sure everything was lit. Monkey see, monkey do! Loved doing that for her when I got old enough. I, too, am a little scared by gas--I got a fright when I was about 6 years old and my brother was 2. We were visiting my great-grandmother in Tulsa. She had an enormous house built around statehood with an elevator (!) . The house was heated by individual gas heaters (the kind with the ceramic radiant pieces) in each room. My parents put my brother and I to bed one night, then headed downstairs to socialize. I dozed off, then woke up and got scared hysterical seeing the glow of that heater's pilot light...started screaming. My brother had to toddle down to get my parents---there wasn't really a staircase to shout down (although there was a service staircase, it was back off the kitchen so really didn't provide much of a conduit for his calling out). I still give those kinds of heaters a WIDE berth. Sends shivers up my spine just thinking about it.

 

[ea56]

In the summer of ‘62 when I was 11 my family spent a weekend at some close family friends summer cabin near Guerneville, Calif. (this was before we moved to Sonoma Co.).  One afternoon while the adults were out at a local bar and I was reading my latest Mad Magazine I got a craving for a Swansons Roast Beef TV Dinner.

 

They had a 24” gas stove that ran off of propane.  We hadn’t had a gas stove at home for about 18 mo. after getting an electric stove.  But the O’Keeffe and Merritt gas stove we used to have had a pilot light for the oven and burners.  

 

So, I put the TV dinner into the oven , set the thermostat to 350F and continued reading my Mad Magazine.  After about 20-30 mins I checked to see if the TV dinner was done. Well, the oven was cold.  

 

Stupid me then noticed the little hole at the bottom front of the oven that said “light here”, so I got some matches and lit one.  BAM, the stove leaped about 6” off the floor, the explosion threw me back across the room, all the while as Gene Pitney  was singing “Town Without Pity”on the radio.

 

 The front of my crew cut was singed off, along with my eye brows and eye lashes.  Miraculously, there was no fire and I wasn’t burned otherwise. Whew! I was glad the adults weren’t home because I sure would have been in trouble!

 

Undaunted, I checked to see if the oven was now lit, and it was, so I closed the oven door and waited for the TV dinner to get done.  

 

I guess fate was on my side that day, thinking my family had already been thru enough tragedy that summer having lost my dad in a auto accident the month before.  But I’m certain I used up one of my nine lives that afternoon.

 

And I also learned to be very careful with gas stoves and space heaters after that near miss with terrible injury or death.

 

Eddie

 

[fan-of-fans]

I recall the story being told where my great grandparents had a gas stove. My great-grandfather tried to light a burner one day to make some coffee, and the gas exploded and blew out the window in the kitchen! Fortunately he was unharmed.

My father also got his eyebrows singed when he tried to light the pilot on our gas furnace where we lived at the time. He wanted no part of gas furnaces after that and promptly had the system changed out for an electric one. I believe there was some defect on some of the 80s gas furnaces that caused them to backfire when the burner or pilot was lit.

 

[fan-of-fans]

I think some of the very BOL GE/Hotpoint gas ranges that use battery ignition have an oven that can be lit manually (though they are battery powered so you'd still have that.) I think it's basically a pilot light oven that is modified to use a spark ignition for the pilot since domestic ranges can no longer have standing pilots. When the oven is off, the pilot is off though.

 

[warmsecondrinse]

Some cooktops/hobs and stoves have a battery ignition. Summit makes a few models that do; see links.

My grandparents had 2 stoves that were match lit, a Welbilt and a later one with a vented space heater. I'm blanking on the name of the second one, but for some reason I associate that name with Western Auto, weird as that might sound.

I've no memory of anyone having any problems or incidents regarding match-lit stoves........

https://www.summitappliance.com/search?utf8=✓&c=39&ign[]=2

https://www.ajmadison.com/cgi-bin/ajmadison/ZNL05PX.html

 

[tomturbomatic]

A brand of heaters and gas stoves that I thought was beautiful and picturesque was "Warm Morning." It sounded soft, soothing and comforting.