Grrrr!

Go downstairs to cook something. Turn on the gas cooker's oven, close oven door and walk off. Return fifteen minutes later to what should be a nicely preheated oven. Somehow the fire in the oven has self-extinguished and God knows how long the oven has been filling the place with gas.

I've opened the oven door, the external kitchen door and all of the kitchen windows.

How long should i wai before re-attempting to cook my lunch?

As long as you get a good draft going through the house it should dissipate fairly quickly.

Also IIRC it needs quite a high concentration to burn effectively. i.e. if it's very low it won't ignite and blow up the flat.

No idea how long you should wait though. Think of a reasonable amount of time and add 5 minutes to it

I'd forget about cooking and call a gas engineer if I were you.

This troubles me though..... Surely, if you switch on a gas oven and then, for some reason, the pilot light goes out and doesn't light the main burners, the gas supply should shut off !

Ok... so forget the gas engineer. Get yourself off to Comet or Currys or whoever sells them these days and buy a new one. Mine's electric !


On a slightly more compassionate note... glad you're ok and nothing worse than a spoilt meal occurred.

There will be very little gas, because the main burner will have turned off as soon as the flame went out. The only gas will be from the pilot light, assuming it's an old fashioned one where that doesn't shut itself off too.

To cause explosion at NTP the gas concentration has to be between 5 and 15%. That is quite a lot in an average sized room.

It should be fine by now.

i ended up waiting fifteen minutes before attempting again and it was fine.

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Electric ovens suck compared to gas. Get a new gas one.

I've had the displeasure of using electric ovens in university halls of residence. Could never cook properly because I'd need to adjust the heat up/down quickly.

The gas cooker is well over ten years old but otherwise works fine. Reluctant to buy a new one.

I've never had a problem with electric ovens.

Electric hobs however - what a joke!!

Combination ovens FTW. I do a lot in mine. Steaming baking grilling zapping or even a combination.

No main line gas down here so we're stuck with oil, always-on oven (and heating/hot water!) FTW.


I love AGAs.

Is it not a Rayburn? Agas that do water and heating are very rare if not non existent, I thought?

Definitely an AGA. And really it does the hot water, we use a separate system for the hot water (not to say it isn't capable).

Interesting, never seen one that does water before, you live and learn!

I had a similar experience a couple of years back, but the discovery was the next morning

'Twas definitely over the ignition limit - I've never opened the windows so fast in my life! Then front door and back door, and switched off the boiler that was about to switch on with the timer...

We now have electric everything (you don't get away with that sort of thing more than a couple of times) to save me from being a muppet!

Induction hobs FTW