It Clicks But It Will Not Light

Spark ignition is a simple idea. A switch in the knob tells a module to fire an electrode, the electrode jumps an arc to the burner head, gas arrives, and the arc lights it. Three things have to be true: there must be a spark, there must be gas, and there must be a clear path between them.

When a burner clicks and never catches, one of those three is missing. Finding out which one takes minutes and saves a lot of money.

Start with the cap

The single most common cause is the burner cap sitting slightly out of position after a cleaning. These caps locate on a small register and they look seated when they are not. A cap that is a couple of millimeters proud lifts the flame path away from the electrode, and the spark lands on nothing.

Lift it, look at the register, set it down properly, try again. That is free and it fixes a genuinely surprising share of calls. We do it first and we tell customers to do it first, even though it means some calls end without a repair.

Then look at the ports

The crown of a sealed burner has a ring of ports, and the flame has to carry around that ring from the one nearest the electrode. Boil-over, carbon and cleaning-product residue block ports. When the ports next to the electrode are blocked, the spark is jumping into a gap where no gas is emerging.

The symptom that gives this away is a burner that lights only when you turn it to high, or one that lights and then drops out as soon as you turn it down. Both are the flame failing to carry.

Ports clear with a fine wire and patience. Never a drill bit — opening a port oversize changes the flame character permanently and cannot be undone.

Then the electrode

The electrode has a ceramic insulator and a tip, and it needs a defined gap to the burner head. Three things go wrong. The tip gets fouled with cooked-on spill, so the arc is weak or intermittent. The ceramic cracks, so the spark tracks to ground somewhere it should not and never reaches the gap. Or moisture has got into the assembly — which in a Florida kitchen after a boil-over is not rare — and the spark shorts until it dries out.

A cracked ceramic is a replacement. A fouled tip is a clean. Moisture is a matter of leaving it alone for a few hours, which is advice worth having before paying for a call-out.

The module and the all-at-once symptom

If every electrode on the range fires whenever any one knob is turned, that is the ignition module behaving as designed on many appliances, or a module with a shorted channel. It is loud and it is alarming and it is almost never dangerous. It is also the thing most likely to get a module replaced unnecessarily.

We test the module channel by channel with the switches disconnected. If it is dead, it gets replaced. If it is not, it does not, no matter how dramatic the noise is.

Gas, and where we stop

If there is a good spark, clear ports and a correctly seated cap, and the burner still will not light, the problem is gas delivery — a valve, a regulator, or supply pressure. We diagnose that and we replace appliance valves. We do not run new gas line and we do not adjust meter-side regulators. That is a licensed trade and it should be.

Anyone who smells gas persistently should shut the supply off at the appliance and call the gas utility before they call us. That order is not negotiable and it is not a repair we would ever try to get ahead of.

Why we work in this order

Cap, ports, electrode, module, gas. Cheapest and most likely first, most expensive and least likely last. Working the other way round is how people end up with a new ignition module on a range whose only problem was a burner cap that was not sitting down.

Flat diagnostic, credited toward the repair. Written estimate before any part is ordered. Independent shop — not affiliated with, authorized by or endorsed by the manufacturer.