From the post following mine I guess I need to clarify. I did not give any advice. I stated a fact. I did it myself. It is not difficult, if the person knows what they are doing, I do. My work has been inspected and abides by all local regulations. My point is/was that if you get someone who knows what they are doing then moving the line 8", as in the original question, it is not difficult or time consuming. The more time consuming part of the job is if you have to tear into walls or floors and repair them. If you can do the tear out and repair of those areas then the cost for moving the line that short distance should not be too bad. Where I live it is common and legal for plumbers to do this at their normal hourly rate. Actual work time for me to move the line 18" was less than one hour.

We are currently gut renovating our prewar apartment and just went through this since we moved the location of the range from one wall to another. I'll try to explain in layman's terms (which is basically all I understand at this point!) To get final signoff on the new location, someone (DOB?) is going to come in and test the pressure on the gas line. They test to a particular pressure (3 lbs?) which is more than you'll every need in a line, but I guess they stress test it to ensure it's ok in a worst case scenario. If they apply the pressure and the line holds, then you're fine. If they apply pressure and it doesn't stay steady at that level, then there is a leak somewhere which it is your responsibility to fix. For our renovation we replaced the branch line back to the riser in our apartment (which I'm sure you have to do, especially if you're moving the line). So, in your case, that line won't have leaks. Next your gas person will have to test the two remaining areas SEPARATLEY: the building riser and the horizontal line feeder line in the basement. If the horizontal line in the basement has a leak (ours did), it has to be found and plugged. If the riser has a leak (our did not, thank goodness) then that is $$$ and quite difficult to fix because it likely requires access to others' apartments. Ultimately, you want to do all of this before the city inspector comes because you do not want to fail the inspection since it will delay your entire project. Sorry for the rambling, but this is the extent of my knowledge! doddfj

Thank you buehl! That's what I wanted to hear. I'm sorry you felt the need to apologize. I knew, from reading many of the threads you linked, that what we'd been given wouldn't work well. I just couldn't break free from it (given all the other constraints we have). I'd thought of a similar idea for the island last night (swing the seat to the end) and just have a standard base depth cabinet the rest of the way. We initially had a few ideas for the W/D. One was stacking (initially with our existing units, but they're so deep, we would switch to the smaller ones) and one was swinging them under the window, next to the breezeway door. (that I apparently didn't mark as a window). I like the stacking idea. I also like the idea of moving the utility cab to there. Thanks. Moving the microwave to that location works too. We'd bounced back and forth with it, we just didn't want it right next to the laundry. Now it's not. We're thinking of the KA Microwave. They make some that are micro/convection and I wanted one until I saw one and saw the inside. It looked horrible to clean. The GE looked better. I could get behind that. It just seems like another big expensive appliance where I've gotten along just fine with a lil' $200 microwave and one oven forever. (On the other hand, it would mean I would ditch my big Breville toaster oven, which I use as an oven 50% of the time, in favor of just a little toaster, which I wouldn't even keep out on the counter.) The windows are new as in they were installed in February. The house is brick (not normal red bricks, but different gray, really dense and long bricks) and has rounded brick around the sides of the windows. Not that there wouldn't be any way to change window location/size, but we weren't/aren't willing to do it. The first KD had seating under the window, but we agreed we wouldn't use it and we'd rather get as much storage as possible there. When I said dog/cat food, currently, their bowls are in the traffic pattern at then end of the fridge and just to the left of there. I might move them. I hadn't thought of it. But I don't see doing seating there. We currently have a 'desk' area in the kitchen that is just a junk collector. I feel a window seat would be the same. I've only lived with old-school pull-out cutting boards. They are a good height for me and I feel I could even go a bit lower (5'2"). I think I might often be comfortable prepping at the 30" h cabinets under the window. I wouldn't have built in a 30" h area if I didn't have the window-obstacle, but I think it could work well for me. I've tried to think in terms of zones, and it's so foreign because right now we have one zone that's all three (cooking, cleaning, and prepping). The fridge, sink, and D/W are where they will be (moved inches one way or another) and the range is in a peninsula��"they're in a U. There's roughly a 4 ft square of floor space between them. So while the room is...

bry911--your insurance company and mortgage companies would beg to differ. And you'll be begging them in court if anything goes wrong. Mortgages and insurance in condo/co-op type buildings are specified to certain wall surfaces. There are people who work for those companies whose job it is to write and check those things. I have a friend who did that. I have done the entire primer on insurance policies before and I simply don't want to rehash it now. For some reason I did an entire thread over HO3, HO5 and HO6 policies. What is covered and what can be denied. Can you present some reasonable grounds for an HO6 policy to deny a claim based on a two inch notch in the drywall? Please provide some evidence of that happening, because this is something I have looked at several times and I can't find any instance of an insurance company prevailing when denying because of a non-conforming work that was an indirect factor in the damage. Most states (probably every state) will have insurance regulations that specifically prevent this. Let's also not forget that most (really all) HO6 policies specifically protect you from being sued for your own negligence? So the entire assertion is beyond ridiculous. For them to deny your damage they would have to demonstrate that the notch caused the damage. In the end, they are not going to do anything different because you notched your drywall. If they are looking for an excuse to deny your claim they are going to find one and hold to it until someone makes them pay. Finally, if you are actually worried about the wall assembly squirt a little great stuff fireblock in it and be done with it. ----- ETA: Just to be clear (and we are speaking generally because each case is a bit nuanced), insurance has some small leeway to decline to reimburse you for your negligence. However, there are many caveats with this. First, negligence is more than doing something wrong, it is doing something that is unreasonably wrong. I feel confident that I would prevail when the insurance company claimed that making a 4" x 1" notch in drywall to get a range in is not reasonable. I feel confident that I can find thousands of exhibits to prove this is done a lot, and that is all you would really need to do to defeat a negligence claim. Next, in reality that negligence must border on intentional. The classic example given is a water pipe leak that the homeowner lets happen for a week before calling someone to stop it. The biggest reason that homeowner claims get denied is not negligence it is indifference. Written into your policy there is a demand that you act to mitigate your insurance company's liability. You must take reasonable action to stop damage from worsening. Furthermore, the severe negligence must be the proximate cause of your damages rather than an indirect factor. If that were the case insurance would never pay out they would just find something that you did wrong that made the situation worse. For example, you probably have chemicals stored improperly in your home, and in case of a fire those improperly stored chemicals might act as accelerants, and so insurance could walk into practically every home and deny the claim based on that fact. So to prevent this most states (I would presume every state) has rules against using secondary items to deny claims. Finally, insurance would still reimburse your mortgage company if they denied claims on personal property for reimbursement so throwing the mortgage company in was just silly. I could just keep on going, but the point being there are lots of scary stories about insurance but the reality is that insurance is a highly regulated industry and once you have some real insight into the industry you would be surprised how many of those big bad wolf stories are misconceptions.