H says the brand we have is not a common brand, and he took it to HD, who said he could only buy it at a plumbing supply store, which you must be a plumber to buy from. We have this info from when we had the gas dryer installed- it was a new gas dryer and we had to add a gas line to the manifold, H tried to do it himself, but ended up calling a plumber when we couldn't get parts.
He does feel comfortable doing it, but wonders if that is a mistake, lol. Basically he does engineering design for chemical plants, he specs all this type of equipment on an industrial scale, so he isn't going to do something stupid, he knows how dangerous it can be. He is the one who safely got us out of the house- I was going to go out through the garage, via opening the garage door. Thanks to his work experience including a chemical plant that blew up when they opened a garage door in the presence of a gas leak, he redirected us out the front door. So I trust him.
It is more, 1. The hassle/impossibility of getting parts, and 2. Stuff like homeowners insurance issues in a case of an accident, or will the gas company even be willing to deal with us- do they want only a licensed plumber to do it before they are willing to turn the gas back on.
Sounds like I will be finding a plumber to call in the morning. I don't know if I should call the ok/cheap one who put the gas line in, or a different one. Not sure I trust the original plumber, but at this point I don't know that he did anything wrong, since we don't yet know exactly what went bad.