My brownstone has a gas lantern in front, now defunct. I received a flyer for a repair from “Allen.” Anyone have any experience with him? Thx.


What's Your Take? Leave a Comment

Leave a Reply

  1. We are considering fixing our gas lamp but were wondering about how much gas it uses. Did you notice much of an increase in your gas bill since having it repaired?

  2. Allen did a great job and it looks lovely! And my understanding from reading other posts is that this kind of lantern flame is not so high-impact. We’ll see with the next gas bill!

  3. If the problem is with the gas line itself rather than the lamp, he can’t fix that. He replaced the valve, changed our burner from invert to upright and also put on that little crossbar thingy that ours had lost some time ago. It all came out to about $150.

    Mopar, there’s a dedicated gas line for these lamps in the basement. It’s probably shut off down there. You can check to see if the line outside was capped or not by simply turning that line back on in the basement (it’s the only little pipe leading out into the front yard), then go up where the mantle should be and see if you smell gas. If it’s a matter of just putting a new lamp, valve and burner on, it’s not that big of a deal (if you can find the right parts).

  4. So if he’s not a plumber, what does he do to get it working?

    How much does it cost?

    I was thinking of buying a place with a gas lamp. The top was broken off. I don’t know if or how it was capped.

    Also I wonder if I turned on the gas if the house gas pipes would suddenly be full of gas too.

  5. We just had him fix our gas lamp and it now works great, and the price was indeed reasonable. He’s not a plumber so he can’t do those kind of fixes (and if that’s the case he won’t charge you) but we didn’t need a full-on plumbing job and certainly would have been charged a lot more by a plumber for the same work. He’s a neighborhood guy who just does this on the side, and for once what you read on a flyer is actually the truth.