If your gas oven burner is giving off black powdery soot, you’re flirting with potentially deadly carbon monoxide (CO) poisoning. Sooting is one of the tell-tale clues of incomplete combustion and is always accompanied by high levels of CO. No, Grasshopper, it is not normal for a properly adjusted gas burner to give off soot, not even a little bit.
Sooting is caused by one of three things:
- range not set up to burn the fuel you’re supplying (i.e., natural gas or LP);
- insufficient primary combustion air, usually corrected by simply opening the air shutter;
- too much gas — measure the gas pressure at the orifice using a manometer.
A diagram of how gas burner flames should and should not look is here.
Soot in my oven.
The Wolf rep said all is fine,
at my funeral.
