Electric to gas cooker install

[Gareth]

My 25 year old Belling electric cooker is about to die and I'm not able or willing to throw more money towards a regular repair.

I have a good gas cooker stored in a garage - or at least it was good when I last used it 2 years ago.

Question is this: to uninstall the electric cooker do I need an electrician and to install the gas cooker do I need a gas fitter?

There's no way I can find two in one and I'm not even sure such a person exists in the UK. So I would have to pay two tradesman for what is essentially a fitting job.

So I was thinking of diy uninstall of the electric cooker and diy install of the gas cooker.

In respect of the electric cooker. If I turn off the cooker circuit at the fuse box and disconnect the wiring from behind the cooker plug what can go wrong?

But is it lawful for me to install the gas cooker myself? Do I need to have a gas fitting qualification to fit the gas cooker?

In terms of risk if I did need to spend £50 for unfitting/fitting would it be better spent on uninstalling the electric cooker or installing the gas cooker?

Or is this not worth the risk of diy?

[Toby]

Un-installing a standalone electric cooker should be pretty straightforward, there should be a cooker outlet behind the cooker that will have the cable for the cooker connected into by screw terminals, so power off the consumer unit, as just tripping the MCB or pulling the fuse will not disconnect the neutral, so to be on the safe side, just power off everything.

Pull out the cooker and undo the cover on the cooker outlet it should resemble somthing like this

the conenctions and remove the cooker cable Screw up the screws so they cant fall out and replace the cover

The cooker is now unisntalled.

Installing a gas cooker may be very simple if you already have a bayonet connection

there, what do you have behind the cooker?

[John Rumm]

Uninstalling the cooker - probably not. Chances are you can turn off the cooker point, and then disconnect the cable from the terminal point if its separate. If it connects directly to the cooker switch, then turn off the circuit for that.

not much...

Assuming there is a gas connector ready and waiting, and there is already a hose fitted to the cooker (which it sounds like there probably is), then its just a case of plugging the hose into the bayonet connector. Those are designed to be user serviceable.

If you need to install the hose kit on the cooker, or install a bayonet connector on the fixed gas pipework, then that is a job for a competent person (which may or may not be you)

Note also that there are additional ventilation and room size requirements for gas cookers that don't apply to electric ones. See BS

6172:2010 (downloadable from your local library's web site probably) for the full detail.

There is no real risk taking the old one out. If you need new pipework for the gas side however than based on the level of your questions (no offence intended!) its probable that you need to get a gas safe registered fitter in for that.

[Dave Liquorice]

There should also be a cooker switch somewhere near the cooker. These are double pole so certainly trip the cooker MCB and switch off at the cooker switch but killing the whole house seems a bit OTT to me.

As others have said the installtion of the gas cooker might be very simple. If it is just a case of connecting up the hose and bayonet connector I'd still put a bit of slightly soapy water over *all* the joints just to make sure there are no leaks.

[Owain]

Leak detector fluid please.

This is uk.d-i-y not uk.british.gas :-)

Owain

[NT]

Before you do all this, what's up with the belling? I can't imagine a fault that would genuinely need repeat repairs.

NT

[Andrew Gabriel]

You do a pressure drop test to test for leaks. You use leak detector fluid to find the leak if it shows you have one.

[stuart noble]

There are fitters who do both, but they mainly work for independent appliance retailers. We had a dual fuel cooker fitted for about £100, which included a length of gas pipe and new wiring back to the consumer unit. If you have complicated questions, the guy in the shop will probably tell you to ring the fitter direct. Devious, but it got me the guy's number