Safety
A Gas Smell in the Kitchen: What to Do First
A gas smell is not a repair question, and this page will not treat it as one. It is here because people search for it, and because the correct sequence of actions is short, specific, and easy to get wrong under pressure.
Read this first
If you can smell gas right now
Leave the building. Do not switch anything on or off, do not use a light switch, and do not use a phone inside the house. From outside, call your gas utility's emergency line or 911. Utility emergency response for a suspected leak is free and it is what that number exists for.
Do not go back in until someone from the utility or the fire department says the building is safe. Nothing in a kitchen is worth being in the house for.
What a gas smell usually turns out to be
Natural gas and propane have no smell of their own; the sulphurous odour is an additive put there so that leaks are noticed. Three ordinary causes account for most reports in a kitchen. A burner knob left fractionally open, which is the most common of all and clears within minutes of the room being ventilated. A pilot or burner that has gone out on an older appliance and is releasing unburnt gas. And a loose or aged connection at the flexible supply behind a range, which is a real leak and needs a licensed gas fitter or the utility, not a homeowner with a wrench.
What never to do
- Do not look for the leak with a flame, ever
- Do not operate any electrical switch, appliance, doorbell or garage door — a spark is a spark
- Do not attempt to tighten a gas fitting yourself
- Do not assume a faint smell that comes and goes is nothing; report it and let it be checked
Where this business does and does not fit
Sub-Zero Repair Winchester works on refrigeration — refrigerators, freezers, ice makers and wine cabinets. None of that equipment burns gas, so a gas smell is never coming from the appliances this shop services. Gas work belongs with your utility and a licensed gas fitter, and that is where it should go.
Winchester Highlands sits on the hill on the north-west side of town, where a good number of houses are of an age at which supply connections have been reworked more than once. That is a reason to take a faint smell seriously rather than a reason to worry.
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Pages next to this one
Sub-Zero Repair Winchester is a refrigeration business. Where a page on this site covers something outside that, it is written to be useful rather than to sell you a visit.