Two versions of this call come in weekly. Version one: a burner clicks… and clicks… and never lights — or worse, keeps clicking after it lights, all through dinner. Version two: you turn the knob and get silence and gas smell, and wisely turn it right back off. Both live in the spark ignition system, and both have short, mostly affordable answers.
The endless clicker
Each burner has a ceramic spark electrode; the spark jumps to the burner cap and lights the gas. Anything in that gap steals the spark: boil-over residue, a burner cap sitting slightly crooked after cleaning (the #1 cause on our logs — caps have a keyed position and love to sit almost-right), or moisture. Water from an enthusiastic cleaning session or a boil-over wicks into the igniter and switch area, and the range clicks like a metronome — sometimes all burners at once, sometimes at 2 AM. The fix is often patience: caps off, everything bone dry (a fan helps; give it hours, not minutes), caps re-seated in their keyed positions. If one burner still clicks solo after a full dry-out, its electrode is cracked or its spark switch is failing — both modest parts.
All burners clicking together, forever
When every burner clicks even with knobs off, a single stuck spark switch is usually shorting the shared circuit — the switches are wired in parallel, so one wet or failed switch conscripts the whole orchestra. It confuses owners into fearing the control board; it's usually a $-modest switch, found with a meter by unplugging one harness at a time.
The silent burner
No click at all from one burner: its switch or electrode has died outright. No click from any burner: the spark module (the little ignition transformer) or its power. These are diagnose-in-minutes parts — but note the rule that overrides all curiosity: if gas is flowing with no ignition, knob off, ventilate, and don't keep trying. Repeated attempts stack unburned gas, and that's the one experiment this article won't help with.
The honest DIY line
Drying, cleaning, re-seating caps: absolutely yours. Anything past that — switches, electrodes, the module, and anything touching the gas path — is our side of the line, not because the parts are exotic but because the failure mode of a wrong guess involves gas. Fixed quote, usually one visit, and the range goes back to lighting on the first click like it's supposed to.
