Gas appliances can be dangerous and cause health problems even when installed properly, so a piecemeal job is all the more worrisome.
One Redditor showed how badly things can go in a post from a couple of years ago.
The user shared three photos of a gas line connection with two adapters on each end and said Lowe's had installed the customer's gas range.
"No words can describe how impressively bad this is," they wrote.
The post on the r/HVAC page had users tripping over themselves to discuss everything that was wrong.
"You have to work really hard to fail this badly!!" one said.
"Lowe's doesn't install it," another wrote. "They contract out cheap idiots until they get enough complaints then they go to the next idiot. At least that's how they do it by me."
The poster responded: "Correct. But by contracting idiots with no brains; they are directly responsible in my mind. I actually think I am going to take this one up with a local news station because who knows how many of these time bombs are out there right now."
One user suggested having the gas company do it.
"Most people don't want to wait or pay that amount," they said. "This happens so much that these installation companies get so much demand they don't feel a need to change their business model."
A better option might be an induction cooktop, which uses the clean energy of electromagnetism instead of the dirty energy of gas. Induction stoves are better for air quality, are up to three times more energy-efficient, and are even easier to clean than their gas counterparts.
Their lower rates of air pollution could be especially appealing as countries work toward keeping the Earth's temperature from rising more than 2.7 degrees Fahrenheit above pre-industrial levels, though people with pacemakers are advised to avoid them due to possible electromagnetic interference.
A 2022 study showed that 12.7% of childhood asthma cases in the United States were attributable to the use of gas stoves.
Jokes about the piecemeal installation ranged from "I heard you like adapters" to "That thing has more threads than all of Reddit."
"Well see if you can adapt from one adapter to another adapter then you'll just need an adapter to adapt the adapter from one adapt to the other adapter," another user quipped. "Y'know.... To adapt it."
The original poster noted the appliance had been running on the faulty setup for two weeks. They had been called to check out a humidifier leak and were also asked to move the stove.
"No clue how it was not leaking," they wrote. "They stripped the threads in the gas valve so it was being held in by the power of Jesus."
"It's all fun and games until a house explodes," another Redditor wrote.
Someone else echoed that sentiment: "It's a wonder nobody died."
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