MetaChat - Baby can you light my... pilot light?

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22 April 2008

Baby can you light my... pilot light? In the basement apartment of my house there's an old electric gas stove, with pilot lights, and for the life of me I cannot get the pilot lights lit. I'm hoping against hope that this stove isn't completely dead and that I'm doing something wrong.
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I've never had to deal with pilot lights before, and my experience of gas stoves is limited to the one I have now, so bear with me.

The stove is a Danby Diplomat, if it matters, and it does appear to be quite old. It's been unused for at least a few years.

I'm pretty sure from googling that the pilot lights are under the range top and between the burners. But when I try to light them, nothing happens. I haven't quite figured out where the pilot light for the oven is, but it does seem to be under the panel in the bottom of the stove.

The stove is plugged in to a working outlet and connected to a gas hose. When I turn the nut on the hose I smell gas, so it seems to be properly connected to the source of the gas. Could the connection between hose and stove be turned off somehow? I don't smell gas when I turn the oven or stove knobs. Shouldn't I? That would mean there's a jet of gas to light, wouldn't it?

That's all I can think of.... I'm hoping one of you bunnies knows your way around an antiquated gas stove.

post by: Orange Swan at: 20:12 | 11 comments

I just found this gem in a thread about lighting a pilot light:

You might need to pull up the bottom plate of the oven. When I moved into my house it had a "Holiday" stove which is the extremely cheap model made by Tappan. Using the oven went like this: Pull up bottom plate of oven. Lean all the way into the oven a la Sylvia Plath. Light pilot. Replace bottom plate of oven. Pilot light goes out. Pull up bottom plate of oven. Lean all the way into the oven a la Sylvia Plath. Light pilot. Replace bottom plate of oven. Pilot light goes out. Pull up bottom plate of oven. Lean all the way into the oven a la Sylvia Plath. Light pilot. Replace bottom plate of oven. Pilot light goes out.

Call for pizza.

Heh!

posted by Orange Swan 22 April | 20:36

Are you sure there *is* a pilot light? I don't encourage you to play with matches too much around that thing, but what if you just turn the knobs and then hold a match near it, do the burners light that way? My guess though based on what you've said is that there's some other "on" switch to the hose between the nut and whatever will go on on your oven, some sort of a safety thing.

posted by jessamyn 22 April | 21:04

Crap, too bad I don't visit Toronto anymore, otherwise I'd stop by and give you a hand. It's hard to troubleshoot this stuff via the internet tubes. Having an electrical and a gas hookup makes it not THAT ancient of a setup. Not like my old O'keefe and Merritt stove I owned in Napa. I've done a lot of this kind of stuff, but I don't know this particular brand. Often what happens with pilot lights is that they get carbon on them and thus don't get enough oxygen to maintain a flame. My water heater has had this problem recently.

That lighting quote is funny.

Anyways, if you want to pick my brain more, email is in my profile I think.

posted by eekacat 22 April | 21:30

Light the main burners with a match; it'll get the pilot started.

posted by Doohickie 22 April | 21:40

Ah... but you say the main burners aren't getting gas, huh? There must be a main valve somewhere.

CAUTION: It's been over 10 years since I've touched a gas stove!

posted by Doohickie 22 April | 21:43

If it's old, it may not have pilot lights at all. I used to have a gas oven with a grill that had to be lit with matches and it used to send out a billow of flame through the door when the stupid thing finally lit because, by then, it had filled the grill area with gas.

You should be able to hear the gas coming out of the burners on the stove top if you turn them on full. Sometimes it is difficult to smell the gas from a stove top if there is a breeze to blow it away (which may be why you can smell it in the oven).

The fact that there is an electrical connection hints that there may be an alternative to pilot lights.

posted by dg 22 April | 22:13

When you say "electric gas stove," is it one that lights with an electrically produced spark? Because those don't have active pilots. The gas only flows when the burners are on and all the way up.

Do the burners turn to a setting called (or looking like) "light?" Do they click as if sparking? If nothing happens, try it again with the match near the burner holes.

For safety's sake, when screwing around like this, use a long-handled fireplace match, or a wooden barbecue skewer, and stand back to avoid the inevitable FOOF.

posted by Miko 22 April | 22:20

Another possibility: I have a 1940s Wedgewood stove here, and it's got safety switches for the pilot lights -- basically, any time the stove decides there's a possibility of danger, it shuts off the pilot lights, and you have to find big red buttons and push those a couple times before it'll let you light the pilots.

I don't know how common a feature this is on stoves made more recently than 60 years ago, but you might poke around and see if you see any buttons that don't seem to do anything.

posted by occhiblu 22 April | 23:28

I don't hear or smell anything at all when I twist the knobs. The stove looks to me like it's a good twenty years old - I'd actually estimate that it's an early 1980's model - and even if by some miracle I could get it working it wouldn't be all that efficient or safe and would likely die in the near future. I really do dislike the idea of my tenant screwing around with pilot lights, especially if it's this problematic.

I've resigned myself to having to buy new stove and am pricing them online. I'll put the new one in my kitchen and put the one I currently have in my kitchen in the basement. It's less than 5 years old, and although it's also gas it just turns on.

I do wish I'd discovered that the stove didn't work before I bought a piano this weekend, but oh well.

Thanks, everyone, for the help!

posted by Orange Swan 23 April | 12:25

In my internet trawling, I also came across this joke:

A man jumped out of a plane and then couldn't figure out how to get his parachute to open. He struggled with it, and then saw a man below him soaring upwards through the air. As they passed one another, he yelled out, "Hey, do you know anything about parachutes?" The other man yelled back, "Sorry, no. Do you know anything about lighting pilot lights?"

posted by Orange Swan 23 April | 12:32

I had nothing helpful to add, but must thank you for the jokes, Orange Swan. *guffaws*

Might it be helpful (and possibly cheaper than replacement) to get someone to look at the stove you have? It could just be something simple that hasn't occurred to any of us.

posted by elizard 23 April | 14:52

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