Gas pressure

[clifto]

I've suspected for a long time that our natural gas pressure is too high coming into the house. I first asked about it a while back; an alarm we had was malfunctioning, and while we had a gas company dude here to double-check I asked him if the furnace didn't "WHOOOFF" a little too loudly when it lights. He said it was fine.

But lately we've been having trouble with the oven, and the other night when I went to check and set the flame, it looked too large to me (about 1-1/2") even with the air chimney all the way closed; in fact, it didn't look like the air chimney had much of any effect on the size of the flames at all. I realize the stove has its own regulator, but it's only designed to take the edge off 7 inches or so of pressure and I wouldn't expect it to handle any significant overpressure.

Am I worried about nothing?

[Ken]

If you think there is something wrong with the gas pressure, call your gas company immediately. Most homes have a regulator at the gas meter that he can check.

[barry]

Do get the pressure measured. Meanwhile, what is the "air chimney"? Do you mean the device that mixes air and gas for the burner? (gas carburetor)

If "yes" to the latter, and you've done what I'm guessing you've done, you've possibly made the mixture way too rich, and are running a CO generator. This would correspond with yellow flame, and would be _very_ dangerous.

For your safety, do ask the gas person to adjust it properly, after you explain what you've done.

What is this CO2 emissions noise? They're not good either- they just don't asphyxiate you.

HTH, J

[clifto]

Air shutter. Don't know where I got "chimney".

Wasn't hard to put it back where it was; it was as wide open as it could possibly be. Service instructions suggest there'd be at least a trace of yellow in the flame if it had too little air (in fact, they suggest that a tiny trace of yellow at the tips is normal). There's no yellow at all in the flame. There's a CO detector less than five feet from the oven.

[EXT]

I used to work for a gas utility. They made their own pressure meter. It was a bent plastic tube in a J shape with a soft flexible tube attached to the lower portion and fitted over the gas pipe. The tall part was filled partially with water, when attached to the gas line and the gas turned on, the gas would push the water up the long part of the J. A simple ruler would measure if it moved 7" which would be the pressure of 7" of water. Call your gas company to see if your regulator at the meter is working properly, they do fail.