LG Gas Range

This is our new stove that was delivered yesterday. In preparation for this delivery, I slid the old stove away from the wall, leaving enough room to clean out the corner where it had sat for 35 years. It was not a pretty sight. I left the old stove’s flexible gas line connected. We had paid extra for the delivery men to disconnect the old stove, cart it away and install the new stove. When the delivery arrived, one man busied himself unpacking the new stove from the truck. The other man began disconnecting the old stove’s gas connection.

It soon became apparent that he was having difficulties. He couldn’t budge the gas shutoff valve lever. He soon gave up and offered me the choice of accepting delivery the new stove and not having it installed and not having the old stove removed or they could put the new stove back on the truck, not to return for two weeks. Neither choice was very appealing.

Our house is over eighty years old. The presence of a coal chute and an oil tank in the basement indicate that gas was not necessarily initially available. The problematic valve looked pretty ancient though and I know that it hadn’t been touched since we first moved into our home. The delivery man went back to the truck and I tried my hand with the valve. After some percussive adjustments, I got the valve unstuck. Don’t try this at home…

The delivery man came back and although he was now able to turn the shutoff valve, he still couldn’t turn off the gas. We went back out to the truck. I experimented with the valve. The delivery man had left the valve turned 180°. I turned on the gas at one of the old stove’s burners. Electricity was unplugged and the kitchen was well ventilated, with the backdoor wide open. When I quarter turned the old valve, the sound of gas flowing ceased. The delivery man came back again and seemed satisfied with these new developments. The old stove was finally disconnected and removed.

The new stove was brought in and soon connected. Once operational, the delivery man commenced a bake-in process that was intended to remove any factory oils from the range. It also stunk up the house. At this point he thanked me for my help and left shortly later. The cleaning process took about an hour and after its completion all smells had dissipated. For dinner last night, I boiled water on our new stove top, with pasta and we had leftover spaghetti. Not a very auspicious initial usage, but Thanksgiving is next week and were ready to go.