REGULATIONS AND THE REGULATORS THEY BEGET

In the past five years Chicago residents have witnessed one of the largest, most widespread and often irritating infrastructure improvements in the city's recent history:  the upgrading of the natural gas distribution system by the local utility People's Gas.  Streets and parkways are torn up, parking can be disrupted and restricted for weeks, gas meters are relocated from inside to the outside of many houses, often requiring rerouting of inside gas lines.  To top it off, the different phases of the work in any block can be spread out through a year or more, with very little communication provided on what work will be done and when it will happen.

For many owners of vintage stoves, including Chambers, the change can have drastic implications.  This is due to the fact most vintage stoves built prior to the mid 1960's do not come equipped with built-in gas pressure regulators.  People's Gas employees are directed to disconnect any stove not so equipped.

Here's the back story:  All gas stoves and other gas appliances are manufactured to operate with a uniform standard pressure of gas:  If that pressure is exceeded while the stove is being used, the burner flames will be drastically higher.  If the stove is not being used, certain components of the stove, mainly the valves used to turn the gas on and off, can be overpowered and raw gas will escape past them and into your kitchen.

Avoiding this problem was originally the sole responsibility of the gas utility, which utilized the "gas supply regulator" installed on a home or apartment building.  It's a disc-shaped device (about 10" wide) attached to the building's gas supply pipe just before it enters the building.  You can see it in the photo on the upper left.

Some old regulator installations are inside the building.  There may be a meter between the regulator and the building, or the meter may be inside.

The purpose of the regulator is to "regulate" (decrease) the pressure of the gas from the high pressure "street" supply, to the lower standard pressure for a building's gas appliances.  It also prevents any accidental "spikes" or "surges" of "street" pressure from entering a building's gas lines and appliances.

Since the mid 60's, all gas stoves (as well as furnaces and water heaters) must by law have their own regulators built-in for safety redundancy.  The reasoning is this:  if the utility company's supply regulator fails, allowing high pressure gas into your house's gas pipes, the stove's regulator prevents the surge from entering and overwhelming the stove's components.

Many old neighborhoods in Chicago still have low pressure gas supply systems that date from the original installations of the late 1800's to early 1900's.  For various safety and efficiency reasons, those and many mid-century systems are being replaced with a new high pressure supply, and when they are being replaced, new exterior "supply" regulators and meters are being installed.  It's at this point in the process when your vintage stove will be tagged and disconnected.

When the gas company upgrades a building, they must first turn off the gas supply, attach the new equipment, then turn the gas supply back on.  Before they leave the building, the utility's personnel are required to enter each residence to relight any pilot lights on water heaters, furnaces, and stoves.  They must also check any vintage stove to check to see if it has its own built-in regulator and modern flexible connector (stainless steel or plastic coated).  If not, the stove is summarily disconnected, the supply to the stove plugged, and the owner is told that it cannot be reconnected until one or both have been installed.

Fitting a regulator to your Chambers is a fairly straightforward job that any plumber should be able to handle in an hour, two at most.  If you don't have a modern yellow plastic coated flex line and an on/off valve between your stove and the pipe coming out of the kitchen wall or floor, now would be the time to update everything.  You can buy all the parts for about $100, though regulators are not usually available at hardware stores:  check professional appliance supply stores in your area.

Of course if you are not qualified to work on gas systems, leave this upgrade to a professional.  If you need this work done and you haven't had your Chambers looked at in a while, please give me a call.

IN-A-COUNTER COOKTOP ENCOUNTERS

Having serviced quite a few Chambers "In-A-Counter" cooktops recently, I've come to appreciate their unique characteristics, compared to their free-standing sisters.  Typical Chambers design and build quality, together with distinct features, makes it clear why Chambers cook top units were so incredibly popular from their introduction in the 1950's until the company's demise in 1987.  Anyone considering a cooking appliance should take a close look at the "In-A-Counter" cooktops.

(For clarity, this post is discussing full size cooktops, rather than non-griddle units like these).

 



Our family shares ownership of a farm near Dodgeville, Wisconsin.  The farm is in what's called the "driftless" region of Wisconsin, a very hilly area that the last few glaciers didn't plow through and render flat, like most of my Illinois homeland.  Us flatlanders are easily impressed, and particularly enamored with this part of Wisconsin:  the contour plowing, classic farm buildings, and winding blacktops provide a beautiful quilt of color and textures.  The farm's former owners nurtured Sugar Maples and apple trees near the farmhouse, and we strive to keep up their tradition of bringing in the harvest.  So this recent weekend we and our farm partners spent our post Labor Day "vacation" as we often do:  working like dogs processing our crop of apples into cider.   

This year's crop was particularly abundant, and fortunately, our farm partner's son brought three of his college buddies along to share in the harvest work.  The farmhouse has a horrible electric range, which we all hate, and in the remodel of the kitchen that we've been dreaming about for years we've of course known that it will include a Chambers range.  However, while feeding the Apple Cider Gang of ten, with the In-A-Counter cooktops on my mind, it became clear to me that the Chambers range just won't do:  it will have to be a Chambers cooktop and wall oven.

Besides not having an oven, he basic difference between "In-A-Counter" cooktops and stoves is that cooktops do not have a ThermoWell.  Some Chambers purists argue that the lack of such makes a cooktop less than a "real" Chambers.  Everyone's entitled to their opinions:  I absolutely prefer the aesthetics of Chambers stoves, and love the unique fact and function of a ThermoWell.  To my eye, cooktops come across as visually cold,  even stern, compared to their more colorful and curvy companions.  But two nifty things I'm admiring about the cooktops are its four surface burners, and the extra space around each of them.

As the one doing most of the cooking back home in Chicago, it is annoying how the crowded burners on our Chambers Model B range will not allow large pots and pans to all sit centered on their burners.  It's not due to the range's small size.  Ask anyone who's had to accomadate their existing cabinetry to a Chambers range:  37" side to side, compared to the standard 30".  It's the placement of the Griddle/Broiler on the left of the range resulting in the burners on the right being crowded quite close together, so much so that large skillets and pots will not be centered on their burners.

The In-A-Counter units still have the standard countertop depth as ranges, and gain only 1/2" of extra space between the back burners and the backsplash.  Not much, but it is an improvement.  The big difference is the increased width, devouring even more prime countertop real estate than a range:  a massive  forty two inches!  That extra width, and placement of the Griddle/Broiler at the center of the cooktop, between the left and right banks of surface burners, results in much easier placement of large pots and pans on a busy surface.  

I love the look of our white Chambers B, and whose heart doesn't skip a beat at the sight of a gorgeous red hiback Model C?  But when push comes to shove, when ya gotta feed alot o' pancakes, eggs and bacon to alot o' hungry people, you want to do it easy and fast.  Give me that spacious In-A-Counter cooktop!  

One issue with the majority of Cooktops is their bad "idling" habits, requiring two to three pilot lights:  one for the left bank of burners, one for the right burners and griddle, and a third if the unit has a "Burner with a Brain."   If you want to prevent this amount of heat from escaping into your kitchen and melting the polar ice caps, you can do one of two things:  turn off the pilots and use a hand-held grill starter to ignite the burners,  (Click here to check out that post), or seek out the last In-A-Cooktop versions that utilized electronic ignition.  Very nifty, very simple and robust. 

As an ardent Model B fan from day one, I'm certain to have guilt pangs when looking at that cold, soul-less, stainless steel In-A-Counter cooktop some future morning after we've remodeled the farm's kitchen.  But while enjoying it's extra capacity and conveniences cooking up the huge breakfasts and dinners required to feed our workers, er, guests, at harvest time, I know those pangs will be forgotten.  

And who says that the new addition can't accommodate both a cooktop AND a stand alone stove???