Gas range parts · Los Angeles
Orifices and LP Conversion
In one sentence
An orifice is the small brass fitting that meters gas into one burner where it leaves the manifold, drilled to suit the gas the range was built to burn. Change the gas and that drilling has to change with it, which is most of what anybody means when they talk about converting a range.
Viking Pro Appliance Repair Los Angeles · (213) 516-4020
Why two gases need two sets of jets
Natural gas and propane are not the same fuel and do not reach a range the same way, so what suits one as a drilled hole does not suit the other. That is why conversion parts arrive as a matched set rather than as a single component: every burner the range carries, plus the regulator feeding all of them, belongs to the same gas. Fitting half a set is not half a conversion. It is a range running on a fuel it was never set up for.
What a range running on the wrong jets looks like from the kitchen
You need no instrument to suspect it. The tell is that everything is wrong at once and wrong in the same direction: flames lifting and roaring on every ring, or refusing to come up on any of them, yellow where blue belongs, and black on the underside of the pans. One misbehaving burner is a cleaning job. A whole cooktop that has never looked right since it changed house, or since anything changed about the supply, is a question about what it is jetted for — and that is answered from the rating plate and the parts themselves, never by eye.
An orifice — healthy, failing, and what it costs to leave
| Part of the assembly | Healthy | Failing | What ignoring it costs |
|---|---|---|---|
| Flame shape | A tight even crown that sits down on the burner and holds still. | Flames lifting clear of the ports and roaring, or crouching low whatever you ask of them. | Pans heat unevenly, the ring gets run harder to compensate, and everything above it bakes. |
| Flame colour | Blue right through, with at most a soft tip of another colour. | Yellow on every burner at once, and cleaning makes not the slightest difference. | Fuel that is not finishing its burn fouls the cooktop and masks whatever else is wrong. |
| Soot on a pan | A clean base after an hour of stock, with no black film to wipe away. | Black marking underneath every pan, from every ring, however new the pans are. | Soot spreads through the kitchen and never improves on its own once it starts. |
Follow-ups
Can a Viking range be changed over from natural gas to propane?
Some can, some cannot, and the answer turns on the individual range rather than on the badge. It is also not a swap to take on at the weekend. Say what you have to Viking Pro Appliance Repair Los Angeles on (213) 516-4020 and you will get a straight answer about the job.
We moved in and the flames have never looked right. Could it be the jets?
Worth asking, especially where a range came with the house or arrived from another address. Jets meant for a different gas give themselves away on every burner at once, which is a useful clue. Viking Pro Appliance Repair Los Angeles can read what it is set for on (213) 516-4020.
Is it safe to carry on cooking on a range I think is jetted wrong?
Treat it as a fault rather than a quirk. Yellow flames and black marking on every pan mean the gas is not burning cleanly, and a kitchen is the wrong room for that. Turn it off, ventilate, and ring Viking Pro Appliance Repair Los Angeles on (213) 516-4020.
Signed by
Keiko Mabuchi
- Works on
- Service technician — cooktops and ventilation
- Years on the tools
- 11
- Certified
- EPA Section 608 certified
The flame tells you whether the range is jetted for the gas it is getting — reading flame colour shows how.
Jets and regulator are set together, never separately; see the pressure regulator.
What a range is jetted for is read at the appliance rather than by eye, and that reading is part of a range repair visit.