Indoor Gas Cooking?

[autonomous_unit]

We are looking at a house in BKK with no kitchen in it yet, just a big empty room. There is a tiny outdoor "Thai kitchen" which we think would work best as a laundry area and future barbaque silo. The Thais we've spoken to seem to think an indoor gas cooking range is dangerous, but I grew up w/ natural gas cooking and do not want to settle for electric for a new long-term housing arrangement.

Can you get good quality gas cooking ranges for residences in Thailand? Is it easy to find good quality (safety wise) installers to pipe in gas from a tank placed outdoors? Are there relevant safety codes which signficantly restrict installation and plumbing like this? Are there services to come

refill a fixed tank, or would we be looking at exchanging bottles periodically?

I'd love to hear from folks who've had good experiences getting a western style indoor kitchen w/ a reasonably large 4 or 5-burner gas range and a real vents-to-the-outside exhaust hood...

[Khun Ngo]

I think fixed tanks are not so common here. Even bigger kitchen at shoppingcenters

use bottled gas. They usually have a cage behind the building where there are ten

or so big bottles connected with a pipe system.

But an installation like this is not necessary for home use.

You will just need a medium or big size bottle, which can be in your kitchen or outside.

The medium tanks will last for a Month, if you cook several meals for a couple of ppl

each day. If you only cook a little it will last for ever, almost.

I am using only a so called "picnic" , thats a small, five kilo content bottle, with a burner

directly on top of it. I do make two three times coffee and tea a day, und cook about

4-5 times a week on it. It lasts about a month.

There are gas-shops everywhere and they do deliver the bottle to you home right after

you call them. For the picnic it cost just 10 baht more for delivery. The bigger size

probably a bit more.

The gas stuff ist, strange though, pretty save here . I have never had a problem

with it, in almost four years. Only ever heard of on accident at a bottle filling shop,

due to them not working to instructions.

Four flame gas stoves with ovens are available at bigger shopping centers, starting

form around 7000 Baht. The thais usually use only two flamed cookers.

[Thetyim]

Never scene a fixed gas tank here, only the replaceable bottles.

We have a western style kitchen with gas range.

It is made by Technogas, has four gas burners, one electric plate, a decent size oven with rotissiery and thermostat .

Works very well, the only gripe I have is that the oven does not have automatic ignition same as the rings.

Your builder only needs a bit of common sense to install it.

I am not aware of any regulations covering installation

[dutch]

My installer did not have a clue that the Siemens burner needed adapted nozzles.

I found it out myself after they continued to claim that the gaz was not good

The burner produced half meter high flames!

The siemens was build fot the low pressure eart/city gaz.

After 6 weeks delay I could start using the (european) kitchen with gaz bottle.

Used the same for the past 6 years in Indonesia

[lopburi3]

If the we includes a Thai and you expect to be doing any amount of Thai cooking would strongly advise using that outside kitchen for cooking and food prep. Thai cooking is not conducive to splatter free fry and an outside tile area that can easily be washed down is to be preferred.

You can buy both built gas ovens and built in types and the major Home Pro stores have a good selection. Price range from about 6-7,000 for local units with oven to the moon for some imported types.

As mentioned gas is served in containers and a phone call triggers home delivery, replacement. As also mentioned you may want to be sure about the type of gas the stove is built to handle before you buy - probably few sales people will have a clue if talking imported units.

[Sir Burr]

For safety's sake, always have your gas bottle outside of the house, not in the kitchen. You can use a stainless steel pipe with fittings and a hoke-valve at each end. If the bottle explodes, hopefully, nobody will get hurt.

[autonomous_unit]

Thanks, all.

It figures that if I would have know the right sub-forum to post to, I would have seen a long thread on gas bottles before. I completely agree regarding the safety concerns for the bottle, but was confused as to why the Thais we spoke with seemed to think the stove itself was a hazard. Perhaps we just accidentally asked gas-paranoid locals?

I think we figured out a better place to put a laundry machine, so we'd probably build up the current outdoor kitchen to house a stove w/ the bottle removed off 5 meters or so down the outside wall... now we just need to actually buy the house or not!

[Khun Ngo]

Yes, you probably spoke to "gas paranoids"...

I just remebered how someone at work told me to close the lid of the copy machine,

as "the light comming out of it would cause eye cancer".....

For safety's sake, always have your gas bottle outside of the house, not in the kitchen. You can use a stainless steel pipe with fittings and a hoke-valve at each end. If the bottle explodes, hopefully, nobody will get hurt.

I always wonder why ppl always believe that gas bottles will explode??? I don't want

to say that it can not happen, but it really is a rare phenomenom.

As I mentioned, in almost four years I have not heard of any gas bottle that exploded

in somebodys home.