DIY Gas Range Installation

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My old electric oven quit working safely some time ago, and I recently got a new-to-me gas range. I had a stub in the gas line installed near the kitchen when I had the gas line extended to the gas dryer. But now I needed to get that stub extended from the basement to the kitchen. Here is my construction photojournal.


This is the wall behind the space where the stove/oven lives. As you can see, the old electric stove 220V outlet is there, as well as a register for the furnace. This particular duct is amputated and non-functional.

Conspicuous by its absence is a gas line. Not for long!



Welcome to my basement, please overlook the mess. The yellow line is my gas line. The yellow line is CSST, corrugated stainless steel, a flexible (slightly so, a bend radius of approximately 18 inches. Not exactly supple, except when compared to black iron pipe.) On the left is a 1 inch line, then a iron tee/reducer 1"-3/4", then off to the right is a 3/4" line that runs all the way to the dryer. This line runs parallel to the wall you saw in the previous picture and somewhat "behind it".



Here I've rotated 180 degrees and am looking up at the bottom of the floor shown in the first picture. On the left you see a gray curved conduit, that's the conduit that carries teh 220V electrical for the stove. a little to the right is the underside of the furnace duct/register. You can see the amputation at the upper right of this picture. Also prominent in this picture and the previous one is the black pvc pipe. That is my kitchen sink/dishwasher drain. I installed this new run a few years ago (a different DIY story). The spiral half-inch conduit is armored conduit for my electical runs. Inside those conduits are cloth covered electrical circuits. The white painted valve and the copper lines are the remnants of the relocation of the electric water heater and its replacement with a gas fired unit.



Are you oriented now? The tee points in the direction parallel to the joists, and is located a couple of feet to the left of the previous camera position and slightly behind it.

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Now you can see the tee and the space where I was holding the camera for the previous spot. Also notable in this shot is the long run of *flexible* CSST. This becomes important and useful for the last part of the installation as you'll soon see. See where the CSST turns "right" and exits the frame? I'll need to make use of that "slack" to connect the rigid iron pipe.



This is where the CSST "exits, stage right". Kinda. Exits the frame of the photo; the line runs all the way to the cas meter/source of course.



I drilled through the floor in the kitchen as close to the wall as possible. I chose this lateral location after measuring and I picked something between the joists. I picked the vertical/toward the wall location because the back of the oven has a brace all the way across the back bottom that, the valve will not fit underneath. So, I want the oven to be as close to the wall as possible, that means the pipe needs to come out of the floor as close as possible. Then, I dropped a thin piece of wood into the hole (as vertical as I could manage) so I'd have something to measure to once I went back to the basement.



Back in the basement. This is taken from up in between the joists with the top of the camera hard against the bottom of the floorboards. You can see the lower end of the stick from the previous picture. It's gonna be difficult to get a pipe wrench in there.

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Here's the pipe assembly dry-fitted, in the orientation it will be under the floor. The standard method for installing rigid pipe like this is to start at the fixed starting point (that capped nipple) then add one piece at a time, working your way to the destination, in this case the oven at the end of the brass valve in this picture. It will start with the 90 elbow on the left, long pipe 90, short pipe, 90, medium pipe, tee, medium up, valve, tee-short down, cap. Easy, right?!







A triptych of the iron pipe where it will be installed in the basement, and one glamour shot of the valve where it will live behind the stove, if I live through the install.

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This is the cherry on top, the valve.



The meter. I tried to shut off the valve at the upper right but it would not budge. I didn't force it, I think it's set to stay open with a setscrew at the three o'clock position on the valve body.



But I was able to shut it off upstream of the meter. I didn't bother to lock it out though.




A little explanation first. I tried to remove only the capfrom this tee here at the beginning of the installation process. But when I put a wrench on the cap, the whole nipple came out with the cap still on it. FINE.

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I went ahead and took the nipple off and decided I'd use it further downstream at the bottom of the tee I had to put in as a moisture trap. I simply replaced it with the coincidentally identical nipple I'd bought at the store.



Here is a shot of the instructions on the joint compound. Honestly, I took a picture of the instructions so I could look at the back of the camera and zoom in and read them.



I had to remove the bracket holding the CSST/tee/CSST section to the bottom of the joists so I could turn the nipple into the tee.

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Then the elbow, then the long pipe.



Then, trouble. Instruction number three reads "Tighten pipe to ANSI standards." Yeah, right. Who knows what that means. As I got the long pipe on, it acted as a long lever and gravity loosened the tee/nipple/elbow connection. Now this was my second biggest worry abou this installation. I'd feared that the install would require me to turn an elbow to a specific direction and tightness, but that those two qualities would not both be acceptable at the same time. In this case, I turned the elbow until it was (kinda) tight, not over tight, but so it was pointing in the right direction. I then found out that THAT particular rotation was not tight enough.



So, it had to be taken apart and turned another 300 degrees to make it line up properly again and be another turn *tighter*.



I put the bracket back on so I could put some real torque on the long pipe.

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Then the same routine for the next elbow, which became tight here.





But needed to be vertical, so around another 270 degrees.


Now a short upward section, but I "cheated and put the elbow on at the vise before I took it over to the install location.

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It turned out ok, elbow to be facing toward the kitchen.



Next I'm moving toward the hole in the kitchen floor.



Imagining where the next section will go.



I decided to install the tee on this long straight pipe first, so over to the vise.

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The purpose of the tee is to act as a moisture and junk trap that will collect any crap or condensation in the pipe before it gets to the appliance.



I wasn't too worried about this additional apparatus on this section since it could all rotate inside the space between the joists.

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Eventually, I got it turned right and tight so I went upstairs to see how this all lined up. In this first picture, it looks really good! You can see right down into the pipe!



Unfortunately, the angle of that shot isn't perpendicular to the floor. Here I've put the camera against the wall shooting straight downward and you can see the hole and the pipe don't line up. This was my greatest fear, that my pipe wouldn't be long enough.



And downstairs, this angle looks good.



But this angle doesn't.

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Once again I removed the nearest brackets holding up the CSST to loosen the whole assembly.



I was able to touch the pipe to the elbow at this point.



I would like you to note these knuckle-skin-eating nail points coming through the bottom of the floor, right where I'm going to be moving my hand on the wrench. You can bet I noticed them.



The angle was very awkward. Trivia--this is a very rare self portrait of my own right hand. Also very awkward.

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But I was able to line them up, get them started, (then I took a break), and then tighten it up as tightly as I could manage.



LOOK! There's my gas stub! Only one piece left!



So, I put the joint compound on the male threads, carefully started the brass valve body on the iron pipe and discovered that the valve handle fouled against the wall.

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Ok, ok, no problem. MOVE THE WALL.


And I did. Notice the paper towel in the pipe to keep the crap out of it.



This was the final clearance.



I got it on tight, and then I reassembled the wall and the base cove. As if anyone will ever see it.

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The testing process calls for COMPLETELY ASSEMBLING your pipe system, then turning on the gas (!!!) then soaping up all the joints and looking for bubbles.

I soaped all the joints.



Including the one in the kitchen.

No bubbles anywhere!!!

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A little backtracking. I really, really didn't want to mess with fire, all joking aside. So, at the very beginning before I messed with any pipes, my plan was to turn off the gas at the furnace, turn off the gas at the water heater, TURN ON THE DRYER, the appliance furthest from the meter and make sure it was blowing hot air. THEN I went outside and turned off the gas at the meter. My intention was to bleed/burn the gas lines dry. I ran the dryer until it flamed out and ran cool, then I turned off the gas at the dryer too. Then, I began the pipe install by removing the nipple/cap.

Now, back to the present. Having verified that my plumbing work was gas tight (and the valve was shut in the kitchen and the top of the valve stuffed with a paper towel to keep the dust and crap out, I turned the gas back on at the dryer and started it. It worked. I followed the procedure for relighting the pilot light to the water heater, I could not immediately test this, since it takes a lot of water moving through my pipes to cause the water heater to kick on. The pilot was clearly on, so that was good enough for now. Lastly, the furnace.


I turned the temperature at the thermostat waaaay down, like, 48 degrees. I had Twil standing by at the thermostat. I went downstairs and took off the access panel to the furnace.



I turned the gas to the furnace on, and hollered for Twil to raise the temperature on the thermostat, to say, 80 degrees; heat it up!!

Then the gas turns on.



Now the motor to move the air up the exhaust stack starts spinning, then the igniter starts to glow.



Then it starts heating the house. Success! I put it all back together and moved up to the kitchen.