There is good news for heating soup but not so much for baking bread.

We had a ton of discussions about this subject right after Superstorm
Sandy. Rather than tell you to search a lot of old posts, here's my summary of what I learned.

If you are looking to replace your current stove, the good news is that most current gas and dual fuel stoves will allow you to light stovetop burners manually. There are still numbers of models that, like your current stove, run everything through an electronic controller which means those cannot be lit with a match during a power outage. That seemed like a dumb idea to many people in the aftermath of Sandy. Still, some folks and some manufacturers love electronic controllers so some gas stoves models are still made that cannot be lit in power outages. So, you have to check out your candidate stoves.

For others who might want to know if they can or cannot manually light a particular stove's top
burners -- to know in advance of a power outage, that is --- just look
at the user guide/owner manual. Any model that allows manual lighting
will describe the process in the user guide. If the user guide does not
mention it, then that is one of the stoves where you cannot manually
light the burners.

Ovens are a different story. Almost all ovens in almost all gas stoves use glow-bar ignitors (rather than sparkers like on the stovetop), and gas will not flow without power to both the glowbar and the flow valve solenoid. This allows your well-insulated oven to turn itself on and off to maintain a set temperature (say 350°). Basically, you turn on your gas oven and wait for the glowbar to power up and get hot enough. The glowbar needs to get hot enough for long enough for electrical
resistance to hit a certain level -- something llke 3.2 to 3.5 ohms,
IIRC. That signal opens the solenoid that lets gas flow. The glow bar is
hot enough to ignite the oven burners. When an oven reaches its target temperature, say 350°, the
thermostat/thermocouple signals to shut off the gas flow. When the oven
cools sufficiently (say, down to 300° or 325°), it signals the glowbar
to heat up again.

There is no way to circumvent that. (Well, there is no safe or sane way to do so.)

You want an oven you can light in a power outage? Try using a gas barbecue grill. You do not have the same temperature holding problem with a gas bbq
grill because the grill's casing leaks
an awful lot of heat, so much that its burners can run continously. FWIW, the last time I was without a stove for a week, I found I could bake pretty decent bread in my old Weber unit.

The exceptions to the above rule for in-stove ovens: stoves with standing pilot lights and stoves with "cordless ignition."

For standing pilot stoves. you can certainly use vintage ranges if you like that kind of thing. Neighbors of mine happily use a bbq lighter for the burners and ovens on their beloved old (like made in 1948) Wedgewood range. (Not for me, but it makes them happy.)

Production of residential stoves with standing pilots ended in 2011. Commercial and restaurant stoves can still be ordered with standing pilots but are unsuitable for residential use. (If you want to know why, have a look at this faq by cpovey from the old gardenweb: http://ths.gardenweb.com/discussions/2766921/commercial-ranges-in-homes-residential-kitchens )

"Cordless ignition" uses 9v batteries and spark ignitors in place of pilot lights. Mainly normal looking but low cost ranges. Mainly sold in large lots to old public-housing-projects and as cheapo landlord specials. Made by companies like Brown Stove Works and Peerless Premier. Sometimes you can order single stoves (instead of job lots) from large vendors. Examples would be the likes of Lowe's, Home Depot and/or AJ Madison. You can look up the models if at all curious.

We already know we can't light the stove top--I explained in my OP. Yes, I saw those Peerless and Brown stoves. But people on the homesteading websites said that they had older stoves (but not that old, maybe 10 years ago) that would work without electricity. So I wondered if any companies still made them that way.

I don't have time to carefully read your entire post, but I will later. Thank you.

JWVideo said in the post you'll read later that they ceased production on standing pilot stoves five years ago.

Perhaps an Aga cooker would work if you want a nicer look. It has an always on gas furnace and there are different ovens and different surface positions for different temperatures. You have to turn things to get even heating, but they work very well if you want a cast iron stove.

You've done a lot of research and know the issues. An advantage of ovens without pilots is that they tend not to blow up. :) You might want to explore how to make flatbread on the cooktop, making bread in a dutch oven on an open flame (you should be able to do that on a range as well as a campfire) and there are always camp ovens and sun ovens if you're willing to use it outside (might be hard in storm situations). You can also build a wood or gas fired "pizza" oven, which would be excellent for bread, either outdoors, or indoors with a proper chimney.

Or go with a vintage range.

Plllog's comment reminded me that there are stovetop bake ovens. I've seen a lot of those things in third world countries. Some of them are just tin boxes with racks that sit over a fire or a gas burner. I think Amazon sells some.

Plllog's mention of dutch ovens brought to mind a time I baked some bread and a pie on the cooktop in a sailboat galley. (Boy, was that a long time ago!) My memory is that we heated a cast iron dutch oven for a while, put an improvised trivet in the pot -- maybe an empty sardine can or maybe it was a tuna can. The baking dish sat on top of the trivet. With sufficient preheating and the the lid on the dutch oven, the pie was decent but the bread was kinda weirdly dense and unevenly cooked.

I've baked chuckwagon biscuits in a dutch oven in a campfire fire but that was in one of the old-style dutch ovens where you can pile hot coals on the lid. (That was also back when we weren't in a drought with Stage 2 fire restrictions all summer long.)

None of this helps CJ Mac with the present stove, but it sure is entertaining me.

Jwvideo thank you for a peek at a different world!

One kind of cooktop oven is the Omnia, which works on a standard gas flame. I spent a year with a similar one as my only "oven", used on a two ring propane countertop "stove". It's a ring shaped pan with a solid cover, with steam vents, and a separate "flue" that directs the hot air from the flames up through the center. There are Amazon reviews that say that people have made bread. I never did, though I baked cakes, bar cookies and casseroles in mine. The bread would be a funny shape -- more like a coffee cake ring -- but it could work if you weren't too picky. Just a guess, but I think the crust would be uneven. A camp oven would feel more oven-y, and you might be able to adapt one to use with a regular stovetop burner.

Re the dutch oven, you can heat the lid separately, before you put the dough in, just to make sure all the air inside is being heated rather than cooled. Bread is usually baked from the bottom, so I don't think you need the coals. It's been too long since I baked bread in a dutch oven to say for sure how best to do it, but it can be done.

Maybe Wolf. No circuit board

No such luck. Having replaced the glowbar in a friend's Wolf residential range, I can attest that they use the standard electric glowbar and solenoid system described above. There are no electronic controllers --- well, there is spark ignitors module for the top burners. Anyway, the Wolf gas stoves still need electricity for the ovens to operate.

I think that some of the ovens found on boats don't need electricity but I would never install one of those as my main stove or oven. I think the stovetop omnia recommended above would be a better move. But first, I have to ask: Do power outages in your area really last long enough to justify this concern? Another possibility would be to look into buying a UPS system (uninterrupted power supply), they work, but they are heavy and bulky.

Google Hotpoint battery operated gas range

Okay then, let me re-phrase the question: if we're going to purchase a new range in the near future anyway, I would like one that does NOT have this auto stovetop lockout feature when the power goes out. If our power is out for 2 days to 2 weeks (the longest the neighbors have told me it's been out), then I'd be happy if I could simply heat something on the stovetop.

How do I search for that feature (or lack thereof)? I don't want to be told by some salesman, "Oh sure, lady, it'll work in a power outage" and then find out, oops, no it doesn't.

On the other hand, my husband would probably enjoy homechef59's idea. Sure the weather is usually bad when the power goes out, but it would be an adventure. AND an excuse to replace our dinky gas grill.

My Bluestar's burners can be lit with a match, the oven however cannot. But I often use a cast iron dutch oven on the stovetop when I don't want to heat up the oven...with great results.

Second on the Bluestar. Stovetop was great in last power outage.

Looked up Bluestar...gulp. Those prices are way out of our price range.

There are other, more modest ranges, that have been mentioned in this forum in the past, which have burners that can be lit by match. I wish I could could help more on that issue, but at least you know what to look for. When you see a range you like, you can look up the specs and user's manual on the maker's website and read up on all the features. I once had to show the reps in a fairly new Miele studio one of the really important features on one of their cooktops, which I knew from reading the manual. They got out the manual and said something along the lines of "Golly gee!". You can definitely beat out the knowledge of any salesman just by reading the published documentation. RTFM! (Read the flippin' manual) I've never understood why most floor sales crew, whether for appliances or cars or anything else, didn't thoroughly learn all the specs for their own offerings, and also check how they differ from the competition. Knowledge is power, power increases the ability to act, action drives sales. I guess that's too much math for 'em. Whereas, Trevor is kind to all, generous with well founded knowledge and does experiments to learn more. :)

http://products.geappliances.com/appliance/gea-support-search-content?contentId=19226

>>>"How do I search for that feature (or lack thereof)? I don't want to be told by some salesman, "Oh sure, lady, it'll work in a power outage" and then find out, oops, no it doesn't."<<<

Just ask that salesperson to show you where it says that in the owner's manual (aka user's guide) for the stove being recommended. As I said above in my first post, if the user guide does not
mention manually lighting the top burners or lighting them in a power outage, then that model is one of the stoves where you cannot manually
light the burners.

You can find manuals in pdf form at the manufacturers' web sites as well as from online vendors like J Madison, Lowe's and Sears (and many, many others.) For an online vendor, go to the web page for the particular stove. Typically, there will be a tab titled "documents" or "manuals."

Open the pdf and do a word search for "power" or "outage." That should find instructions in very short order if there are such instructions. No such instructions? Then you know that's a stove that you cannot light manually.

ETA-- I see I was posting just as plllog was giving the same info. Sorry for the duplication.

Thanks plllog and jwvideo for the advice. I will do that: look for a range I like and then take a look at the owner's manual. I was all excited that my owner's manual said our range could do it--but then in tiny little print was "except for certain models"--and of course OURS was that certain model.

I have a gas range top. It will light with a match when the power is out. I think its an important feature for people living in certain areas, ie hurricane prone areas or frequent electrical outages. When hurricane Charlie hit us, we had no power or water for over a week. It's a long time if you haven't experienced that kind of event. All of our friends had ranges and gas ovens that could not be lit with a match. We all had tons of food in the freezer thawing so everyone came to our house to cook. It was fun having everyone bring their food and cook it on my 6 burner stove top but I would never have a stove top without the ability to light it with a match. The oven is electric but I can live without that.

My husband went on a long distance kayak trip many moons ago. One fellow was a professional baker who made an oven from a cardboard box. I wasn't there so can't give the details but stories are they ate well with everything he baked from bread to breakfast pastries etc he was the hit of the trip. How one can construct an oven from cardboard and use it to bake over a camp fire leaves me wondering. But...it's a true story

Inga

My KitchenAid had a section labeled "Power Failure" that described how to light the burners in the case of prolonged power outages. Good luck with your search!

I have a propane stove in my camper than can be lit with a lighter or match. Does not require electricity. So why is there not one for a house?

Not sure what you meant by "why is there not one for a house?"

Since the RV appliances that I'm familiar with (Suburban and Atwood brands) all run with pilot lights, is this a question about pilot lights?

Or, are asking us to explain why the UL and government regulations ended production of residential gas stoves with pilot lights in 2011 but did not ban them for RV use?

Or, are you maybe asking about finding a range whose gas oven can be lit without needing grid-power in addition to having manually light-able stove-top burners (and the great majority of current residential gas ranges do allow manual lighting)?

If this is about ovens in ranges, then there are a number of residential range models which use 9v batteries rather than pilot lights or grid power. These are made by the likes of Peerless Premier and Brown Stove Works as well as by Whirlpool and GE (such as this GE-made one which is sold under its Hotpoint brand.)

But, maybe you meant to ask something different?

I was able to manually light up my GE gas range when we had no power for 10 days after Hurricane Sandy. I can't remember the model #, it was a GE Profile range.

I would not worry about not remembering the model number. Manufacturers seem to change them every couple of years.

The big deal is for new purchasers. Best to download and read the user guide/owner manual before buying. FWIW, also good to know that you have manual lighting capability in case one of the stovetop burner ignitors fails while cooking a big holiday meal. Saw that happen to somebody this last holiday season. A further BTW: if you find a manual with the weasely wording "except for certain models," call the maker's "800" customer service line to find out from them if the stove is on of the "certain models."

This is an old discussion, but here are some non-electric options, https://www.warehouseappliance.com/category/peerless-premier-gas-ranges-with-ovens/gas-oven-range-peerless-premier-30-stainless-steel/

This is my old rv stove, still works perfectly. No electric needed, no batteries either. As you can see, I have the option on the oven to leave the pilot light going and turn on the oven at a desired temp or turn it off and no propane comes in. The burner on top are manual light only. I keep the oven in the off position 99% of the time, just turn it to pilot, wait 10-20 seconds then manually light the pilot and turn up the temp. Works great and I'm not wasting gas with the pilot going. I would Love to have a 30" full size stove that does this.. it's smart!

In lieu of a whole house motor-generator, there is always the uninterruptible power supply (UPS). Find out the current draw of the gas stove safety system, multiply it by the number of hours you want it to run to get ampere hours, add 50% for margin, multiply by 120 Vac to find volt-amp-hours, search out a suitable UPS in a networking electronics catalog or site. You will have to change the battery every 5 years, or sooner if it is actually needed for a week. The unit won't be inexpensive for a week or more of continuous stove power. But you could turn it on only when needed. Also, it need not be the double conversion type that provides a clean sine wave.

For example, a common PC UPS rated at 1200 VAH, would provide up to 10 hours of cooking time for a 1A circuit draw. (I have no idea what current flow is relevant here.)