Pilot lights on commercial range

[fan-of-fans]

I happened to see a commercial gas range up close recently . I've always been a little afraid of gas appliances but had never seen a commercial one up close. Each burner on top had a tiny pilot flame burning in the middle constantly. A small flame smaller than the size of a candle. I never knew the commercial pilots were like that. To me it seems dangerous to have exposed pilot flames like that. If someone set something on top either intentionally or accidentally it could catch fire. Or set a plate up there and it would shatter. And how can all of those pilots, plus some for the ovens and griddle as well be energy efficient?

Were there any household gas ranges with exposed pilots like that?

It seemed there was a decent amount of heat coming from these pilots also.

 

[toploader55]

Hi There. I am a Chef by trade for the past 40+ years.

 

Yes, all commercials ranges have standing pilots.  I do remember Domestic Ranges having standing pilots. There was generally two per burner.  Each burner had a tube from the front and the rear burner that ran to the pilot.  The burner is designed to have a few jets right by the tube to push gas toward the pilot igniting the burner flame.

The oven pilot was sort of the same arrangement.  It's odd to me being brought up around standing pilots how the Age of Electronic Ignition has made people so thoughtless about placing things on ranges that have standing pilots resulting in fires and burned hands occasionally.   Some of the Older Ovens (I'll guess at pre 1958 or so) you had to light a match, open the oven door, hold the match to the pilot hole and then turn on the oven and wait for the match to ignite the burner.  Sort of "Living on the edge". This was a time when you had to pay attention to many things.  Unlike today's "automatic world" where people have been so "Safety-tized", they don't give danger a thought until after something happens. Then it's Happy Lawsuit to the manufacturer and try to get compensation for one's own stupidity. 

 

If you are looking to purchase a Gas Range, My advice would be to look for anything pre 1980. Don't know why I chose that exact year, but generally Older Vintage Ranges are just so well built, have the Real Deal of Porcelain Enamel and will last sooooo much longer than the Crap made today with "sealed burners" and "electronic ignition."  I hate that Click,click, click sound waiting for the burner to light while gas is coming out of the burner. Standing pilots usually ignite o much quicker than electronic. (Now, you know there will be people here that will disagree with me) but that is my preference. Probably because of my experience professionally and my age growing up around standing pilots, simpler times, and quality made appliances as opposed to most of the new Crap.

 

[launderess]

Electronic ignition

On gas ranges/stoves is a fairly new thing. Grew up during the 1970's through 1980's and well beyond without seeing the things. Ditto for gas ovens.

If the pilot light went out you light a match to light the burner or oven and or to relight the thing itself. That event probably is the reason for electronic ignition taking over; fears of gas leads causing subsequent explosions and or asphyxiation.

In fact coming up most all gas or oil fired appliances from water heaters, boilers, dryers, etc.. all had pilot lights.

Great thing about pilot lights for ovens and ranges/stoves is they often gave off just enough heat you could use for things like making yeast goods rise in cool kitchen.

 

[suburbanmd]

Wok Range

If you want really scary, look at commercial wok ranges.  Some of them are water-cooled.

 

[wayupnorth]

Yes, Laundress, My 20 year old Whirlpool gas range has the first of the electronic ignition. But mine has a click, click to light the oven pilot with a safety. Nice thing by having that setup, instead of the glow plug is I can use my oven and top burners in a power outage. We were all gas growing up for cooking, drying and hot water and every one had a standing pilot except the manual light oven.

 

[gusherb]

My grandmothers 1960s Caloric cooktop has two pilots in the center of two burners and each has a tube with a jet going back to the pilot. I always thought this was the standard setup prior to electronic. It lights off quickly and every time without ever giving any trouble. I've always loved that cooktop. Her Caloric wall oven has a little tiny pilot that's always on, then when you actually turn the oven on a second pilot ignites, heats up a thermocouple that in turn allows the gas valve to come on. I thought that was pretty safe for if the pilot ever goes out you won't have an explosion if you turn the oven on and walk away.

Up until 1996 every single gas fixture in her house had a standing pilot, she even had a gas lamp post and natural gas grill. That's 6 pilot lights that were always lit in her house at all times.
Nowadays just the cooktop, wall oven, and water heater have a standing pilot.

 

[launderess]

On Rare Occassions

My part of Manhattan, NYC has suffered a power outage was able too cook something and or have coffee first thing in the morning. Young kids in the building were gobsmacked. "How do you have a working range when the electric is out", (all ours here have electronic ignition); my response was "have you never heard of matches"?

 

[rockland1]

Gas Pilots

From a former salespersons perspective....I read somewhere that on a range
with pilots over the life of that range, 1/3 of the gas it burns, is for
the pilots. When I was growing up, we always kept the crackers in the
oven to keep them fresh....that is till someone turned the oven on to
preheat and didn't take the crackers out. Ah....that would have been me!

 

[tomturbomatic]

I did some cooking on an OLD commercial gas range. It had a small pilot in the middle of 4 burners. The pilot was surrounded by a round enclosure with 4 holes in the side. If you wanted to light a burner, you turned it on and then pushed in and held this little red button in line with the dials. It increased the gas to the pilot so that flames shot out in the 4 directions of the burners, sort of like a fire-breathing dragon. It was pretty near instantaneous ignition.

 

[wayupnorth]

Ed, you are right. Pilot lights use 1/3 of the total gas usage. I am a BPI certified energy auditor and will not have pilots constantly running in my house. The commercial gas stoves I have ever cooked on were never cleaned, nasty and pilots mostly didnt work. So there were always matches and you had to frig with that.

 

[norgeway]

I LOVE!

A stove with pilots, I wont have that miserable click click stuff, and as for a oven, im not the least bit afraid of it if it doesent have a pilot,a match works fine.;;but a oven with a pilot is great because its a perfect  place to let yeast doughs rise.....and if the power goes out you can still cook and bake...and have hot water if you don't have one of those damnable new fangled water heaters the d#$% government has shoved down our throats!!!I have switched back and forth thru the years from electric to gas cooking, truthfully I think baking is better on a gas range but simmering is easier with electric, that said I can switch back and forth easily.

 

[gusherb]

When the whole family stayed in Mexico one Christmas the range in the vacation rental my parents rented was a propane fired 24" range that the oven and cooktop all had to be lit with matches. There was a gas cooktop upstairs in the rental us kids stayed in and it too was matches only. Talk about old fashioned. I felt like I took a step back into the 20s having to do that, not even a thermostat on the oven. We survived though! Managed to cook many good dinners on the range and even in the oven without a thermostat.

 

[blackstone]

Burners don't always light...

even though the pilots on the stovetop are lit. I can see the air pressure pulling the pilot flame toward the pipe leading to the burner, but the burner may or may not light. The problem is more obvious when one or more burners are already on. Sounds like a gas pressure problem, but I don't want to mess with anything here.

 

[davey7]

My mom got a Kenmore range in the early 80's with electronic ignition. I think I've seen ads for TOL ranges in the mid-60's with it.

I had a range in college which was so clogged with grease that a few of the burners would not light without a match or a "pont" as one of my roommates called - essentially a thin, soft candle.

Seems to me, at least from cinematic experience (the parts of Europe I've spent time in, i.e. in a house or apartment, were all electric) that a lot of European ranges didn't have pilot lights and needed to be manually lit until electronic ignition came around.

 

[g3bill]

I keep a BBQ lighter setting in the old kenmore oven handle to light the burner . I turned off the burner pilots to save some on gas and pilot wont damage pocelain. I do have standing pilot on the good old floor furnace and water heater. If I had electric at the water heater could save some but seems the more I try to save the more the prices go up, just cant win