moving gas range in NYC apartment

11 years ago

I am redoing my kitchen and wanted to move my gas range to the wall next to where the line exists (just extend the flexible pipe). I've had several contractors come out, none thought it was a big deal, and then the last one told me that in order for it to pass inspection we would have to do a gas inspection on the entire building. I live in a prewar on the 5th floor and he said, it would most likely be a huge problem for the entire building costing tens of thousands of dollars. Does anyone know anything about this? How do people deal with this in NYC? Do they just not register it with the DOB?

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Comments (3)

nycbluedevil
11 years ago
I live in a prewar NYC building too and have been president of my board for 20 years. People move gas lines all the time. However, we would never, ever allow any work that would require the building gas to be shut off temporarily during hookups and then turned back on because that would be a disaster. Con Ed does testing in that situation and we have heard horror stories about buildings being shut off for weeks and worse. Whatever you do, the gas must not be shut off building wide.

I have never heard of apartments being subject to inspection generally. The job gets filed with the city and the contractors sign off on the work.
doddfj
11 years ago
We are currently gut renovating our prewar apartment and just went through this since we moved the location of the range from one wall to another. I'll try to explain in layman's terms (which is basically all I understand at this point!)

To get final signoff on the new location, someone (DOB?) is going to come in and test the pressure on the gas line. They test to a particular pressure (3 lbs?) which is more than you'll every need in a line, but I guess they stress test it to ensure it's ok in a worst case scenario. If they apply the pressure and the line holds, then you're fine. If they apply pressure and it doesn't stay steady at that level, then there is a leak somewhere which it is your responsibility to fix. For our renovation we replaced the branch line back to the riser in our apartment (which I'm sure you have to do, especially if you're moving the line). So, in your case, that line won't have leaks. Next your gas person will have to test the two remaining areas SEPARATLEY: the building riser and the horizontal line feeder line in the basement. If the horizontal line in the basement has a leak (ours did), it has to be found and plugged. If the riser has a leak (our did not, thank goodness) then that is $$$ and quite difficult to fix because it likely requires access to others' apartments.

Ultimately, you want to do all of this before the city inspector comes because you do not want to fail the inspection since it will delay your entire project.

Sorry for the rambling, but this is the extent of my knowledge!

doddfj
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live_wire_oak
11 years ago
Flexible gas connectors are limited to 60". If you need to move the range further than 60", it will require adding additional hard piping, which will require the gas to be shut off shut off and trigger all of the horrors that you are being told about.