What\'s involved with disconnecting a gas appliance
so the real answer is, talk to a licensed plumber with a gas card:-)
thank you,
Brownstone Home Inspection
in Plumbing 4 days ago
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6 replies
umanish | 1 weeks ago
We have two gas dryers – 1 upstairs and 1 downstairs. The one upstairs is basically never used. My understanding is that it’s not a straightforward thing to get rid of it. Is that true? Am I going to be shelling out serious money to get a plumber to disconnect, re-jigger pipes, get inspection, etc., etc?
Brownstone Home Inspection | 1 weeks ago
ok. first, as a customer of mine who wrote a very good review of me on here, i hope you know that you can email me about stuff like this any time you wish and sometimes something like this might be better off said off line:
Until a few years ago, we (us mortals) could disconnect or connect gas appliances (now a licensed person is required). I used to do it all the time when i installed kitchen cabinets and even did this for pay in buildings where i was doing other things. Reality is, it is easy. Pull the appliance out a short way and turn the gas valve so the handle is perpendicular to the direction of the pipe. that is off. It should be easy to do, with your fingers, if the valve is newer and has a plastic handle. i did one here for a neighbor a decade or so back and that valve was old and metal and hard to turn. people who do a lot of work like this know, that if valves (or nuts or other things) do not turn easily, we do not force them. also, these do not turn all the way around so they must be turned in the correct direction. if you do it the wrong way and it won’t move and force it with a big enough pliers, you can snap something (we hear stuff like this all the time; people do not understand the amount of leverage a big pliers can put on something). Once the gas is turned off, you can turn the flair nut on the gas line to disconnect the appliance. counter clockwise.
when doing this, do not pull that appliance out so far that you stress the line. i am not sure how much the line to the appliances can take and keep in mind, if a gas pipe is not strapped to a wall and sticks out of the floor by 3′, pulling the appliance out hard can snap an old line off at its threads (been there, done that when i was much younger).
there is no reason to remove the line and i see them in houses all the time where old appliances had once been. But you will want to do this: remove that flair fitting from the pipe and put a cap or plug on the pipe using a pipe thread compound approved for gas. You may have to “back turn” on the valve to keep it from unscrewing with the flair nut.
the reason i say put a cap on that is in case a child comes along and turns the valve and opens it.
if you wish to have this removed into the wall or disconnected down below, i would get a plumber. i do not think they have to pull a permit. or if they have to, you will find one who will do it without filing. people do small things all the time w/o filing. the important thing is that the person is licensed and insured in case anything goes wrong.
i would also add a gas detector any place you have gas appliances and even a gas pipe and valve.
FYI, after what happen on St Mark’s Place and considering where the three people who caused that ended up, i would never do anything like this for anyone.
cate | 1 weeks ago
You can call a plumber whose licenses and specialties include gas (“black pipe”) to come and cap the line. No inspection is required. This will take them about 15 minutes, so they will charge you whatever their minimum is. $200-$450 or whatever. Typically plumbers who handle heating such as boilers including oil and gas will have the correct license. (AFAIK no filing is required to cap, only to install a new gas fixture, and if filing is required, it is extremely minor and your plumber will handle it.) If it were me I would not shut off the gas nor remove the line, since restarting the gas or putting in a new line will be a major undertaking. (Restarting gas will require inspections.)
chrispetriplumbing | 1 weeks ago
Removing a Gas Appliance requires a LMP to pull a Cap and Remove permit and does include a city inspection involving a Rough Test and Finish of the Gas Line you are disconnecting it from.
It is not as simple as removing and capping the line.
At least the legal way to get it done.
Brownstone Home Inspection | 5 days ago
Chris, can we parse this out a bit?
The way i see it, there are two issues: A remove the line down and inside the wall and cap (which you address below) and this:
Some valves are in places where an appliance had been (a stove) and that might have been installed (illegally) and/or removed decades ago. what i often see is a gas valve with a flare fitting down stream from the valve. these are old metal valves that (because they were behind a stove) are caked with decades of dust and cooking grease. in the event someone had removed an appliance (in the past, while homeowner’s could still do this legally) and had left a flare fitting downstream of the valve, did it historically require a licensed master plumber to leave the line and perhaps remove the flare fitting and cap the line (downstream of the valve)?
in the event that that had been an illegal apt and the stove was removed as in a sale and the new owner does not want to rent it out or cannot get a mortgage with it there (think a basement apt) and leaves this line or were to cap it after the valve, will this historic situation draw the attention of a plumbing inspector? if someone wanted to legally make changes to any other part of the system and a licensed plumber pulled a permit, might someone from the DOB come and see this and it cause a problem? or what about a required ll152 inspection, will they look at old and possibly illegal appliance installations? should they be pulling permits to cap and replace them back into the wall and will that be enough to put them on the right side of the law or can there be other consequences for something that a past owner did?
I see so many of these when doing home inspections that i might not address it in writing in a report because i am not a plumber but i do like to verbally advise people where they might have exposure.
thank you,
Steve
chrispetriplumbing | 4 days ago
Steve
Good questions!
-You can never have an open ended Gas Line; Gas Systems are finite and must go from meter to appliance.
-The city doesn’t care what was there prior or who did it; once you own the home you are responsible. You are meant to do “do your due diligence” before purchasing the home
-Once you pull a permit, the entire Gas Line is inspected; including the appliances on the line.
-LL152 inspections are meant to catch the above, but they are done by retailers so there is a large margin for “ignorance” to keep clients happy
-All of the above is the Letter of the Law; I have seen non-code pass inspections before
-All of the above is nulled if you hire someone without a license; they will do whatever you want as long as you pay the bill and understand you assume the full risk of liability. They are likely nowhere to be found or hold no liability if something goes wrong for the homeowner