Old Gas Stove Pilot Light

Open the oven and expose the pilot and burner assembly by removing the cover plate and flame spreader if there is one.

Old gas stove pilot light.

Before you light it turn on the two back burners on the stove to bleed air from the gas line. The older gas ranges need to have the pilots burning 24 7. Without a pilot there would just be gas flowing for who knows how long waiting for a spark to ignite it and potentially causing everyone to pass out in the meantime. We just turned on the gas and lit the pilot light on the oven yesterday evening.

Regardless it s always good to have. We used the oven last night and everything seemed normal. Some ranges have two pilot lights one for each side of the range. A correctly adjusted pilot flame is steady and blue between 1 4 and 1 2 inch high.

If you re concerned about children in the house at least if the stove had a pilot and one of them turned a knob the burner would light. This may require the help of another person. I can t recall ever seeing a gas stove with knobs anywhere other than up front but if you can find one with knobs on the console that would probably be ideal. The pilot is typically shut off before the stove is moved or installed or in seasonal situations where it might not be used for an extended period.

Modern gas stoves use a piezoelectric igniter to generate a spark that ignites your gas. If there s no pilot light usually you just turn on the gas wait just a bit then light the burner. It took a while to get the pilot light lit so i know some gas escaped into the room. One pilot light usually serves all the top burners of a gas range.

Older models use a pilot light in the oven and another for each burner as their method for lighting the flame. This afternoon when i got home after work i smelled gas as soon as i walked in the door. If the flame goes out repeatedly or if it s yellow at the tip it s getting too little air. The pilot orifice is at the end of a small tube just above the oven burners.

The pilot light is still lit on the oven though.