Many people believe that cooking with gas is better, as gas is more responsive than electric. However, gas stoves can also pose a safety risk in your kitchen and home. Keep reading to learn the safety precautions to consider when buying a gas stove to keep your home safe.

Does the Stove Have Safety Features?

If you’re considering buying a gas stovetop but are concerned about safety, then look for stoves that have built-in safety features. It will still be important to make sure that the rest of your kitchen and home are safe, but since the gas stove itself is a potentially dangerous appliance, it makes sense to buy one with safety features.

A few common stovetop safety features include safety valves to regulate the flow of gas and electric igniters which provide extra safety by limiting the amount of gas used when lighting your stove. All of our high-end gas range tops are equipped with safety valves, electric ignition pushbuttons, an electric baffle to limit the temperature of control elements and knobs, and even feature a flame failure system to cut off the gas supply if the flame extinguishes. These features will help protect you and your family from potential carbon monoxide poisoning and prevent other cooking accidents.

Do I Need a Range Hood?

While a range hood is not a requirement for a safe kitchen, they help clean the air and remove any harmful smoke, odors, fumes, and contaminants that pose a threat to one's long-term health and wellness. Since gas ranges do have the potential for dangerous fumes such as carbon monoxide, having a range hood in your kitchen is a great way to ensure that such fumes are quickly removed from the air.

If you’re installing a range hood along with your gas cooktop, make sure it meets the minimum power requirements. Determine the number of thermal units that the gas stove gives off and then calculate the needed power in your range hood from there. If the range hood isn’t powerful enough, then it won’t be able to properly clean your air.

Are Carbon Monoxide Alarms Installed?

With safety precautions such as the flame failure feature in your stove and a range hood above the gas cooktop, you shouldn’t need carbon monoxide alarms to alert you of dangerous fumes. However, they are still a good idea to have. If the gas were to leak from a pipe and not the stove itself, then an alarm would be the only way you could discover a problem before smelling it, at which point it may be too dangerous to enter the kitchen to investigate.

Your home should already have carbon monoxide alarms, but if it doesn’t, then install them low to the ground in rooms outside of the kitchen. Natural gas falls, so the lower they are, the quicker they will catch a gas leak. However, if they’re in the kitchen, they may give a false alarm, so put them in surrounding rooms only.

These are just some of the safety precautions to consider when buying a gas stove, but they are important and provide maximum safety when paired together. Choosing a gas stove with safety features, using a range hood, and installing carbon monoxide alarms are the three best ways to keep your home safe while cooking with gas. If you have any questions or concerns, the team at ROBAM is happy to assist you.