Gas oven - flexible gas pipe NOT allowed!

[Lobster]

Just had a Corgi round to install a built-in Baumatic gas oven with hob above. However, he and I were both scratching our heads over the oven installation instructions, which state:

"Warning: the use of a flexible rubber tubing attached to the outlet connector is prohibited because it cannot be inspected".

Now given that the gas hob definitely needs to be fitted with fixed pipe work, how the hell can the oven also be fitted that way? There's no way to access the back of the oven. We wondered about the wisdom of making a large access hole in the external wall of the house but that seemed a

*tad* like overkill, so the Corgi just fitted the oven in the normal way using a rubber hose/bayonet connector.

Bizzarre or what? Anyone able to shed any light on this?

David

[Rick Hughes]

My understanding is that a fixed hob cannot be plumbed in with a rubber pipe and must have a copper fixed pipe. Rubber pipes are still allowed on cookers/ranges with wheels ... but a safety chain should be fitted to avoid stressing pipe of the moving unit.

[Andrew Gabriel]

Yes, the hose he used is not "a flexible rubber tubing" (which is indeed not permitted). It is a flexible metal hose with a rubber covering. I would have expected a CORGI to know that.

Flexible rubber tubing is what you had on a bunsen burner at school.

[Ed Sirett]

I've only fitted one gas oven and I used a flexible connection that was a few years back. However I do note that the safety guidelines as found in some recent (2005) gas fitting texts state that rigid pipework is to be used.

The only way I can think this might be achievable is to make the service isolator accessible in an adjacent cupboard (say). Then make a compression joint behind the oven accessible from an adjacent cupboard. Thus the pipe can be disconnected and the oven removed.

I really need more info why the flexible hose is not permitted here.

[Lobster]

That would make sense, but you'd maybe expect the instructions to make the distinction between pipe types a bit clearer? Though I have to say that in other respects they are as clear as mud; it took me several reads-through to understand the ventilation requirements!

David

[<me9]

The safety chain is a good idea. I recently was asked to move my sister's cooker (freestanding and on wheels) When I looked at it I found it had been previously moved too far, and the hose was soft at one end, where the metal part had pulled out of the bayonet. I told her it was dangerous, and her boiler maintainer, when visiting the next week condemmed and isolated it.

[usenet]

Baumatic instruction books/leaflets are truly diabolically awful, I have a couple. Both the installation instructions and the user instructions are equally flawed. The examples I can remember from our dishwasher instructions are:-

Dishwasher installation - it tells you to adjust the door closure and tells you how the catch can be moved back and forth. However it doesn't tell you how to judge when it's correctly adjusted. Dishwasher use - it has a list of the dishwasher programs (there are eight) which have descriptions like 'heavy', 'very hot', 'severe' etc. but absolutely no indication of whether 'severe' is stronger or less strong than 'heavy' for example. The programs are not in 'strength' order either, they appear to be entirely random so it's completely impossible to decide their relative washing power. The only way to guess, approximately, is by their duration.

[sPoNiX]

Fixed ovens and hobs MUST be installed with fixed pipework. As the instructions state it's impossible to move a fixed oven to inspect the hose.

Moveable cookers can be installed with flexi-hoses.

sponix

[sPoNiX]

Oven hoses are made of rubber. I don't recall seeing any metal in the actual hose part.

sponix

[Doctor Drivel]

To fit the oven it is possible to have access via the kickspace void beneath. Fit a pipe on the oven and access this via the kickspace void. A compression joint can be used here for a disconnection device.

[Andrew Gabriel]

Try sawing through one...

[powerstation]

[Lurch]

On or around Fri, 11 Nov 2005 16:25:38 +0000 (UTC), "powerstation" mused:

Nope. If it got that hot around the oven then surely the worktops and adjecant units would have to be of some non-flammable construction.

[John]

IIRC solid piping was required for some commercial catering equipment to prevent things being moved out from under flue hoods where applicable. I wonder if this is based on the same logic.

[powerstation]

But if the hose comes into contact with the hot rear metalwork of the oven it can exceed the rated temperature of the Gas hose. I am Corgi registered and fit the appliance's strictly as per the installation instructions, as required by the GAUR.

[Lurch]

On or around Fri, 11 Nov 2005 18:24:35 +0000 (UTC), "John" mused:

Doubt it as it's a built in oven which doesn't require any extraction and the required kitchen extraction isn't required by CORGI so it has nothing to do with gas ovens. Even if there was extraction in the kitchen it isn't neccesarily over the oven.

[Lurch]

On or around Fri, 11 Nov 2005 18:28:43 +0000 (UTC), "powerstation" mused:

The rear of the oven shouldn't get that hot though. Is the above a guess or is that a statement of fact?

[Rob Morley]

I'd have thought that screwing it to the floor would have been a better solution.

[powerstation]

FACT The regulations state the hose should not come into contact with hot surfaces or exceed its temperature limit, that is fact. "The rear of the oven shouldn't get that hot though" that IS a guess isn't it ? Have you got access to the manufactures test data, are you prepared to leave it on full heat for hours in the summer, then measure it, if not you must follow their installation instructions, which do not permit the use of a flexible gas hose, period.

[John]

I'm thinking along the lines of a wood/chipboard top to the unit possibly with a gap at rear. Moving the oven forward "might" result in the heat from the oven vent being under the top, unless the vent is hidden in a grille at the front. As many kitchen units are fully enclosed at the rear presumably any manufacturer will have been asked this point before and maybe a question to them might be better than asking us to guess from here.