Is my stove working as it should?

November 10, 2023 4:05 AM

The stove burners in my newish rental apartment don't put out enough heat to keep two quarts of water at a rolling boil or to get onions to brown without remaining greasy. It's a low-end, small (20") gas range (Premier SAK100OP) that was converted to run on propane and per model information online, each burner is 9100 BTU. Is this issue likely to be an inherent quality of this stove, something done improperly in the propane conversion, or something else? I've had many cheap gas stoves before and never had this issue.

To head off some possible thoughts:

1) I got a full tank of propane delivered recently and other appliances which run on propane are fine
2) I have a carbon monoxide and explosive gas alarm which does not show either being in my apartment
3) Per my landlord on round one of stove issues, it was purchased more than a year ago and there is no recourse via the place she bought it or the person who initially installed it.
4) When I boil water in my electric kettle and then pour it into a pot, the stove cannot maintain a real boil - it's like...almost boiling, but not enough to cook pasta in the normal way.
5) This happens with all burners, and all of them are supposed be the same power - 9,100 btu.
6) When it was converted, instead of following the instructions for converting it without adding parts, my landlord was advised by the stove manufacturer to order some kind of propane conversion part and a professional installed that.

The reason I am asking rather than just immediately trying to have my landlord fix this/have a professional come in is that when I moved in, the stove had not been properly converted to run on propane (as evidenced by a big flash when lighting, yellowish flames, soot on my pots) and it was a huge to-do getting landlord to get a professional in to convert it. If it is unlikely to be able to be improved by a service call, I believe it would be wiser to shop around for an inexpensive (maybe scratch and dent) different, higher-quality range rather and use the service call to have it installed. [My relationship with my landlord is complex--I'm paying below market rate, which she knows, and I'm very lucky to have found and been chosen to rent this place, so I kind of need to do a dance of not being extremely difficult/trying not to be spendthrift about the need for service calls while also getting what I need in order to cook.]

posted by needs more cowbell to Home & Garden (15 answers total)

I’m not sure if this will help, but our current GE gas stove is weirdly terrible at boiling water and after years of being annoyed I think it is because the burners are slightly too high above the flames. I do have one two-ring burner and that one will reliably boil water, but the other three can’t get above a simmer.
posted by chocotaco at 4:08 AM on November 10, 2023

Response by poster: Oh also, the (tiny) oven seems OK - I have been able to bake brownies in a normal amount of time and roast brussels sprouts.
posted by needs more cowbell at 4:14 AM on November 10, 2023

The parts they added were probably jets. The gas going to each burner has to pass through a brass fitting with a tiny hole drilled in it, and the hole size for propane is substantially smaller than the hole size but NG. The other thing they should’ve done is to configure the stove’s pressure regulator to operate at the higher pressure that’s appropriate for propane. If they didn’t configure the regulator and it’s still set for NG pressures, then the burners won’t be getting as much gas as they’re supposed to.
posted by jon1270 at 4:35 AM on November 10, 2023 [6 favorites]

Setting aside the "how to deal with the landlord" issue, if this was my own stove, my first step would be to get a competent repair person in and tell them "I think it might have been incorrectly converted, can you please give it a careful inspection and confirm?" (Here, there are two appliance repair services, the good one and the not as good one. So, if you have the ability to choose who does the repair, that can help.) Only after that would I look into replacement.

I recently replaced an old gas stove. The reason for replacement was some unrepairable problems, but it also boiled water frustratingly slowly. It would get to a boil eventually, but only after much longer than it should have. From talking to the repair people who gave the thumbs down on fixing it, they thought that the burners were set for the wrong altitude. All of that to say, over and above the likely issues from the conversion you are dealing with, there can be other ways in which a gas stove can be incorrectly functioning that might need to be checked.

Dealing with the landlord, especially in a situation where you are kind of trading under market rent for them being less responsive, is a trickier question that others will probably have better input than I can. I always found that difficult to navigate when I was in that situation in the past.
posted by Dip Flash at 5:45 AM on November 10, 2023

Response by poster: Part of what I’m figuring out is—it’s a very low-quality stove. No oven light or window, low ish power burners (I think most ranges have at least one higher than 9100 but), etc, so I’m wary of either me or my landlord investing much in service calls that may not be fruitful if I could shop around for something better from a scratch and dent place for $500 or so (which I think I could).
posted by needs more cowbell at 6:02 AM on November 10, 2023

Boiling water is a core competency of a cooktop. This is not correct or OK.

If I didn't want to mess up a very under market rent situation, I'd buy an induction hot plate and make sure I had pots and pans that worked with it. I mostly use cast iron and carbon steel, but I might add a stainless steel induction ready pot from TJMaxx/Marshalls for boiling pasta if I didn't have one. They have really good deals on single pots.
posted by advicepig at 6:32 AM on November 10, 2023 [9 favorites]

Premier has instructions for the conversion and a video. My guess is that they didn’t change the setting in step 4 of the instructions.
posted by zenon at 7:50 AM on November 10, 2023 [3 favorites]

Response by poster: I have an induction burner that I bought when it took time to fix the stove the first time. Most of my cookware isn’t compatible (an odd oversight on my part, I was mentally confusing “good quality” with “induction compatible”), it’s a pain, and a month or more in, it has just been making me really sad to cook or think about cooking (a big part of why I wanted to live alone was cooking more easily, I’m a homebody.)

If I have to throw some $ at stove replacement I would be up for doing that, but it would be ideal to figure out if what’s here can be brought to the level of function I need since that’s way easier and cheaper to navigate. But I am wary of another expensive service call (paid for by my landlord) and then still not having functionality.

It’s hard to compare what was actually done to the YouTube videos because instead of adjusting the parts that came with it the repairman added something to it, which had to be ordered and was decided to be an easier fix. Initially my landlord planned to convert it herself following the YouTube instructions but that got complicated and didn’t happen and I asked for a professional to be brought in.
posted by needs more cowbell at 8:39 AM on November 10, 2023

Are all four burners doing this? Does the oven get up to temp if you put a free-standing thermometer on the rack? I'm wondering if the propane tank is opened completely. That stove was less than $700 according to a search online. My plumber charges me $218 to walk in the door and then we go from there (parts, hourly labor, etc.)

A quick Google shows a whole bunch of Propane READY stoves in the same high $500-700 price range, even from Home Depot, Lowes, and Best Buy. Summit, Amana, and Hotpoint are all decent brands. If you can stick it out a couple of weeks to Black Friday, I'm sure you could get even better deals.

Personally, I wouldn't be too keen on weekend warrior repair work powered by YT with something attached to a propane tank in my kitchen, but that's me. Yes, I replaced a bunch of stuff on my 15 year old Weber grill, but they make it intentionally easy to do that stuff and it's *outside*. One would think your landlady would like to keep her property intact (along with her tenants), no?

Also, please make sure you have more than just one CO detector/alarm in the house!
posted by dancinglamb at 9:23 AM on November 10, 2023 [2 favorites]

Whatever is going on, it’s likely the oven will be affected differently from the burners, because the oven burner is thermostat-controlled and heating an enclosed, insulated space. Reduced fuel at the oven burner would prolong preheat time, but wouldn’t necessarily affect the eventual temperature or baking times.
posted by jon1270 at 9:54 AM on November 10, 2023 [1 favorite]

Typical natural gas pressure delivered to a gas stove is less than 10 psi, but the pressure in a propane tank is 120-200 psi.

So any conversion would need to reduce the pressure from the tank by more than a factor of 10.

It sounds to me like the conversion reduced the pressure to the stove too much, or perhaps the tank has less pressure than the person who did the conversion expected, but either way it sounds like your burners aren’t getting enough gas and that should be changed.

I would say talk to the person who did the conversion and tell them your issue. If they did the conversion before the recent fill, they ma have anticipated greater propane pressure than you actually got. There should be a meter on the tank saying what the pressure is, and you might want to know what the number is before you call
posted by jamjam at 4:10 PM on November 10, 2023

The conversion has several steps- the first step involves replacing the regulator with a new part.. The second is switching the burners and oven to the correct mode. The third is adjusting the actual burn with their “Adjust Air Shutters” which I assume is in one of the videos.

The machine is already crippled so you can’t break it further and there is little risk you’ll make things any worse.
posted by zenon at 7:15 PM on November 10, 2023

Response by poster: Update: my landlord says the stove manufacturer says they sent the wrong part(s) previously, and they are sending new parts to a local appliance repair company who will swap them out. I am still a little doubtful about whether this stove, when working properly, will get as hot as I'd like, but it does seem like it's not operating correctly right now and that's the avenue my landlord is pursuing.
posted by needs more cowbell at 2:00 AM on November 20, 2023 [2 favorites]

Response by poster: Someone came and did more things to it, including putting in a new part. Now it can boil water but it’s back to orangey flames (see pictures) and some soot. I don’t know what else to do at this point.
https://imgur.com/a/DdLFcjC
posted by needs more cowbell at 9:11 AM on December 7, 2023

Response by poster: These photos are at a medium setting, not high. The repair person said it this was ideal, that "you want orange tips". I know some orange is OK but this seems like a lot. I don't know how much to worry about incomplete combustion. I do have a carbon monoxide and flammable gas detector.
posted by needs more cowbell at 9:16 AM on December 7, 2023