The suppliers of natural gas tell me that the opimal color of the flame on a gas range should be entirely blue, and that the addition of yellow indicates incorrect oxygen/gas mixture. What could possibly account for red flames??

I was told that too much yellow meant too much oxygen, and a red flame meant too little. I have always thought that there should be a very small yellow part within the blue, at the top.

Red indicates very poor combustion and is the coolest part of the flame. Sounds like a very poor mixture of fuel/O₂. If the flame gets any cooler it will start releasing soot.

It appears that the red flame condition occurs when the demand is lowest in the area. When weather is mildest and very few apartments are even doing any cooking, etc. That, to me, would indicate that the pressure of the natural gas coming in to the buiding is higher and therefore the oxygen to gas ratio is lowest. The flame appears to be higher and redder than when overall demand is greater.

The apartment management first replaced the stove's regulator, without improvement. Next they replaced the stove, again with no real change in flame consistency. That means the cooking failures, if due to pressure variation, were not changed although 3 different regulators were involved: 1: original. 2: replaced in first stove, 3: in second stove. Isn't it likely that the incoming gas pressure varies over a greater range than the stoves' internal regulators are capable of adjusting for? Should this be posted somewhere else?

I should mention that there are six apartments in our building. Each apartment has a gas range with four burners and double ovens, a gas furnace, and a gas clothes dryer. A huge gas-heated water heater serves all six apartments. I suspect that effective correction may be too costly and the owners would rather lose an occasional tenant.

Has anybody done a carbon Monoxide test on the equipment or could you loan a detector (check the tool hire store) to check the air inside the Building?
Do this as a matter of urgency Or Inform City Hall and they may send somebody over to check or tell you Who to contact
As DG says a Blue Flame is the Right Color Slight yellow may be impure But Hot gas...But Red Is Very Weak and Its Not Burning Well

Looking elsewhere Think back to the days when you'd look at sparking plugs and The color of the Spark across the electrode ...The Exact same Principle applies here

while we're on the subject,
what about the cool-turquoisee-green we sometimes see,
and why do we associate orange with the word fire?

Pin~Jinx / anarchist

A slight orange tip with light blue and dark blue is a proper flame. The orange is just the dust particles burning.

An improper flame has some yellow in it. This means that the flame is air deprived. This is going to give off carbon monoxide.

There has to be a regulated air/gas mixture for the flame to burn properly. It it doesn't combust then you will get the carbon monoxide. (That is that yellow tip)

The blue green color is caused by copper.



I don't remember studying about red flames so I looked that up.

Strontium chloride causes the red flame.
See here

thnx Clarebear,
and frankvan , bedstor too

for enlightment on this issue.

Copper?
Meaning our burners have a copper plating on them? But trust me, whether you wipe off the grease or not, they always stay black.

Red is yet dangerous in this situation aswell!
I see............thnx for the imp info b

Pin~Jinx / anarchist

HomeGasTest

Clarebear may be interested in this, among others.

Frank, your link doesn't work. You have an extra "http:" in it.

Here you go.

Well I see you fixed it.

Delete this please. Why can't we delete our own posts?