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.
Cost
Quoted in full before anything is opened
Flat $95 service call covering the visit and full diagnosis, credited against the repair once you approve it. The bands below are where most repairs land once the fault is known.
- Door gasket or seal replacement$290–$760
- Evaporator or condenser fan motor$320–$650
- Defrost heater, thermostat or sensor$280–$680
- Ice maker, water valve or supply line$300–$700
- Electronic control board$480–$920
- Compressor or sealed-system repair$1,000–$2,330
Worth repairing? A comparable new unit runs $8,270 to $19,510
A comparable built-in refrigerator, appliance only — before delivery, installation, custom panels or cabinetry work. Undercounter and wine units sit below this band; a column replacement is usually two purchases rather than one.
What moves a job inside its band
Which circuit failed
A door seal, a fan motor, a defrost heater and a sealed system sit at very different points on the same range. What failed decides most of the figure before anything else does.
Whether the part is still made
A current platform part arrives in days. A superseded board or a discontinued evaporator means a supersession lookup and a longer wait, and that shows up in the quote honestly.
What it takes to reach it
A hillside house with the unit backed onto an exterior wall, or a column boxed in by a stone counter, is more work to open than a unit that rolls forward. Access is quoted, not discovered.
One trip or two
If the part is on the van it finishes that day. If not, the return is inside the quoted figure rather than added to it afterwards.
Keep reading
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.