Thanks cpovey - I was thinking of all the people who use gas ranges with no incident, and likely my fears are overblown. The repairman was patient and with his sniffer, he found the leak finally. DH understands this better than me, but it was the propane valve behind the far right hand knob. Where the valve fits into its metal sleeve? He re greased where these two fit together, and the sniffer no longer reacted. We left the gas on all night, and there is no smell this morning. He said that the rotten egg smell isn't added to propane; thus the "different" smell I had noticed was in fact the propane. Because I was nervous about this, I had been reaching behind our freestanding range to turn off the propane whenever the range wasn't in use. Just to make me more comfortable, we are going to re-route the line so that I can have the on/off switch for it at an easier to reach place on the wall eventually. As this progressed, I had set up a propane/lp alarm right next to the range which never went off - he said it would have taken much more pooling of that propane to cause it to go off, less sensitive than either his sniffer or my nose apparently. I've seen another thread regarding repair issues with BS so here is my input. DH dealt with the new BS service rep Matt, who was extremely responsive and professional. No delays - dh called, and they answered, and immediately authorized service (we had an appt with the repair service for our vent hood set up, so we hoped to do it all at once, thus time was of the essence in authorizing it). We live so remotely that repair/service was a huge concern pre purchase. Took this repair guy over 3 hours one way to get here; yet BS made it happen. DH watched the whole process - these ranges are very well built, and very simple machines so not much really to go wrong, and of course the biggest bonus is the power they deliver. There is not a brand on the market that won't potentially have an issue, but once fixed, none of them will perform as well for me as this Bluestar does. Both of the issues I have had were minor fixes that didn't even require a part (the greasing now, and nothing more than a loose wire prior). This range is in daily use.

Don't know how well it applies to the Bluestar model that you are interested in, but I did a time vs. temperature plot on my Bluestar 30" RCS range right after it was installed (convection fan off): Not sure how representative this is for other models or how much oven burner adjustments at installation would affect the results (The air/gas ratio and thermostat set temperature are adjustable). It is just a single test on a single model sample. BTW, Bluestar RCS and RNB models have a single bottom burner. It is the Platinum model that has the rear wall burner without a bottom burner.

I wouldn't expect any noticeable smell of gas. Does this happen with all of the burners or just with one? Is there anything unusual about your installation? High altitude? LP vs. natural gas? No or undersized vent hood? Recirculating vent hood? If none of the above applies, I'd call Blue Star's service department and ask them if they have seen this problem before. A small temporary amount of leaked unburned gas is generally harmless. But it does seem unusual. I can't recall ever noticing gas smells with my Blue Star.

If your furnace is old and has a pilot light that is lit all the time (even in summer), the fumes from that flame can smell a bit like gas. I just got a new gas range (switched from electric) and when we run the oven (which uses quite a bit of gas when preheating) there is a bit of an odor from the burners. I don't think it's actually gas leaking.