Oh CC folks, you’re my go-to for questions that the web doesn’t quite answer easily.
Who (electrician? plumber? both?) do I contact if I want to get quotes for converting an electric stove to a (natural) gas stove? I have gas in the house (water heater) - but my kitchen is electric.
I’m doing an update on my kitchen right now (new quartz counter tops, refacing cabinets - they’re walnut and in amazing condition), new appliances. I’ve wanted gas in there for the last 20 years and am wondering if the cost to convert is worth it at this point. I’m not concerned with resale value - been here 20 years, with no plans on moving anytime soon.
@eb23282 - so contact a plumber for quotes? I think of plumbers for “water” related items, never considered talking to them about gas related items. Alright - thanks!
Be careful about converting to natural gas. It is on the hit list in some cities. City of Berkeley BANNED gas anything in new construction. Others are expected to follow. I would not remove the line for your electrical stove even if you are switching to gas (unless you need the circuit for something else like a car charger). Plus… many stoves are dual fuel. Gas top and electric oven. I hate gas ovens… they are not as good as electrical ones.
You’re getting good advice. You want a plumber. Ask where you buy the stove, the local appliance stores usually have plumbers they work with regularly. It may be easier to schedule through them than to try to do it independently. Note that I said local appliance store, ymmv with the big box stores.
You would need a plumber licensed to do gas line work to run the gas line to your oven. Same plumber can probably hook up the stovetop to gas (the latter part is simple). Do you have an independent appliance store in your town? I would check with them who they would recommend. They usually know the right folks.
Some gas companies will run the line for free. We converted to gas heat last year, but they only brought the connection to the foundation. So our plumber will run from that box to the stove location, do everything per code.
If they need an electrician for any reason (clock or panels, maybe a different outlet for the new appliance,) the plumber will usually call one in that they work with.
Make sure you investigate induction before you go to gas (I assume you are looking at dual fuel with just gas burners?). I would trade gas for induction, and as above, gas is going to become the bad boy on indoor air quality. What sort of range are you considering?
To add a gas line for the stove is not an easy task, if the access is difficult. For example, in an extreme, if your stove is in an island and the house is on a slab and has no crawl space. The cost could be in the 10’s 000s, because you might have to retile the whole kitchen, some times even redo the cabinets. In my house, that means to retile the whole first floor(about 1000 sf).
In addition to hire a plumber, when you getting the quote, you also should ask him what’s involved. A plumber will not fix tiles, repair holes in the wall, painting or possible cabinet damages.
At the minimum, you will need a permit and a pressure test to the entire gas lines. I’ve done several of them.
Instead switch to gas, try induction cooking appliances. Its lot cheaper than new gas line.
To run a gas line from, say, your furnace or hot water heater would require opening up walls and/or ceilings and/or floors. You would have to run it in the walls behind your cabinets and they would have to be pulled out to get access to pulling off drywall to run the line.
Call a plumber and have them look at what it is going to take to run a gas line.
When we redid our kitchen we opted for induction to replace the electric cooktop as running gas to the kitchen was a huge expense (we’re on a concrete slab with no easy route from the existing gas line). Went with Wolf because it fit the space and had a downdraft vent option that we wanted. Very happy with the performance and clean look.
Is there an advantage of a gas oven vs electric? Ours has a convection option that I rarely use and a “moist” baking mode that I’ve never used.
Electric ovens are much better than gas ones, IMO. I use the convection roast feature of my oven all the time. Moist baking mode probably uses a burst of steam (we have a steam oven). Love that feature.
One of the reasons I really hanker for electric over gas is that it is going to be able to have or plug into some kind of smart interface. I want to be able to make sure I have turned it off if I leave the house and have a funny five minutes.
It really depends on the configuration one one’s home, for sure. I already have a gas stove (propane fueled actually) but in my home if I needed to convert from electric, it wouldn’t be hard with a walkout basement and a slide-in range. Cabinetry wouldn’t have to be touched at all.
We have a dual fuel range with convection mode for the oven. I’ll replace with the same when needed.
For folks who have a steam oven, what do you use it for? I could see some bread recipes, cheesecake, custards, anything recipe calling for a bain marie. Anything else?