BlueStar range burner lighting issues

6 years ago

last modified: 6 years ago

We have a 36" 6 burner RCS that my kitchen installer hooked up last week. It's propane and was tagged and labeled for propane. We checked for leaks and good to go there. At first light, 3 of 6 burners would click and you would see a noticeable spark, but they would not light. These would, however, light quickly using a clickable butane lighter. As far as location on the range, it's the bottom right, the rear middle and the rear left (simmer).

What we have done- we adjusted the shutters on these 3 burners and that seems to have helped two of them light better. They still take longer than the rest. The igniter is centered nicely over the holes and a spark is seen. The venturi tube is aligned with the gas orifice and we even took a pin to the holes in the burner, although it's brand new and never been cooked on. The wires are all connected and we kept the zip tie around the wires underneath as directed in the manual.

The most troublesome is the simmer burner. It hasn't lit on it's own despite all of the above. When we light it with the butane lighter it works fine but when we turn it off it goes out and then lights up again for a second and extinguishes with a poof/pop sound.

The flames are blue with occasional orange (minimal) and cone shaped. We adjusted the flame heights using the screw behind the knobs.

Any ideas what is going on here? I get that these can need tweaking from time to time and they look simple as heck, but it's brand new from the factory and 50% of it doesn't work- that just doesn't seem right to me.

Featured Answer

John

6 years ago

Propane is heavier than air -- natural gas is lighter than air.

In order for the propane burner to light with an electric igniter, the propane must be pushed up to the spark by the pressure of gas behind it in the venturi tube (since it doesn't rise naturally in air). If the tip of the igniter wire is not at the very lowest opening in the burner, the propane spills out of any lower holes before it gets to the igniter.

The Bluestar igniter electrode tips have historically been optimized for natural gas in that they sit at the level of about the third hole up in the column of holes in front of the igniter. For natural gas, this insures that the burner is filled with enough gas before ignition occurs. For propane, this results in delayed or, potentially, faulty ignition if the burner is not exactly level.

I came up with a simple and reversible modification for Bluestar propane burners that works really well. After the mod, the burners in my RCS range light reliably within four clicks on cold startup and one click if the burner is already filled with gas.

The modification:

Replace the screw that mounts the igniter to the underside of the burner with a 6-32 3/8" long stainless steel pan head machine screw (the original one is the same but only 1/4" long). Put a 1/8" thick spacer between the bottom of the burner and the igniter mounting flange in order to lower the igniter by 1/8". I used a #8 stainless steel nut but you could also use stainless steel washers to add up to 1/8". When tightening the screw, make sure that the tip of the electrode wire is directly in front of the lowest burner hole.

I think that the currently shipping ranges now have igniters that have longer electrode wires that can potentially be bent downward to the lowest hole using a couple of needle nose pliers (to prevent breaking the ceramic insulator). This might also work to solve the propane ignition problem (I have a one year old RCS with the shorter electrode wires).

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Comments (7)

kooopons
Original Author
6 years ago
John, thank you for the advice and excellent detail. I'll take a look at adjusting the igniters. I did feel the tips and they were quite strong feeling and I hesitated to try to bend them as I felt like I would break something. I can't check the range now as they are working in our kitchen, but I felt like they were aimed OK, not too high. I do have a photo of one on my phone that looks OK, but perhaps the angle of my photo makes it appear that way. I'll take a closer look when I can get access. Thank you again.
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John
6 years ago
Happy to help.

Here is a photo of one of my burners after the modification. The electrode tip is centered in the bottom most hole.
stevep2005
6 years ago
Make sure you use stainless steel screws AND spacers, especially with propane. I have an 11 year old BS range top when they had not yet realized the folly of using galvanized screws for the igniters. The steel screws, especially with the propane, rusted, fused really, in place pretty quickly. I've had to chisel, drill and tap some of the screws to replace the igniters. Half my igniters don't light at this point but after reading @John's explanation I might try to readjust - they are all out of alignment from careless cleaning (not me) .
kooopons
Original Author
6 years ago
Update- Our igniters do seem to have a longer tip. We managed to get them all to light by bending the tip down toward the lower holes and also making sure there was enough distance between the tip and the burner holes to create a big enough spark. All of them are lighting within a few clicks now with the exception of the simmer burner which takes a little longer. However, when we place a pot on the simmer burner and then light, it happens faster, so I'll probably just plan to do that. Thank you, John, for the advice!

We did the oven burn off last night and wow, the oven exterior gets hot. I had read this in the past but felt it was from previous models where there were oven door issues and that this was resolved. The two center knobs to control the two center burners were so hot that you would need an oven mitt to use them while the oven was on at this temp. The drip tray could not be touched without an oven mitt either. I am also concerned with the sides of the range which were very hot and transferring heat to the adjacent cabinets. I am thinking over time this could cause our paint issues. This was while running the oven at 450 for 1 hour- but still, I'm not really happy about it.
John
6 years ago
last modified: 6 years ago
Great to hear that you got your igniters working!

The simmer burner will take longer because it has the lowest gas flow (simmer => smallest gas orifice) combined with the larger venturi tube volume (burner in back, farthest from the control valve). I just tried mine from a cold start (no gas in tube) and it took nine sparks to light. Turning it off and then on again, it lit on the first spark.

I recall that when I did my initial oven burn-in that the top of the door, drip pan, and kick panel were surprisingly hot. Since then, not a problem at all. Don't know if it is just me changing my perception of it or if the initial burn-in is different than in normal use (maybe high temperature fumes being burned off?).
kooopons
Original Author
6 years ago
Hoping that's the case John. I haven't used the oven since the burn off. I became attached to the Breville toaster oven I bought during our kitchen reno! I use it every day and don't know how I ever lived without.

BlueStar range burner lighting issues

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