Gas Oven Not Heating: the Igniter, and Why Glow Is Not Proof

A gas oven that has stopped heating is one of the more predictable faults in a kitchen, because the design puts one wear part in the path of every bake cycle. Understanding what that part does explains almost every symptom people describe, including the strange one where the oven works if you try it twice.

How a Gas Oven Decides to Light

There is a safety chain, and it runs in one direction. The control calls for heat. Current flows through the igniter, a ceramic bar that glows orange. That current — not the heat, the current — is what holds the safety valve open. Once the valve opens, gas reaches the burner and the glowing igniter lights it.

The valve is deliberately made to open only above a specific current draw, so that gas can never flow toward a burner that has nothing hot enough to light it. It is a good design and it is why gas ovens are safe.

It also means the igniter has two jobs at once: be hot enough to light gas, and draw enough current to permit gas. As it ages it loses the second ability before the first. So the classic failure is an igniter that still glows perfectly — the owner can see it through the vent, concludes it must be fine, and the oven never lights. A glowing igniter is not a working igniter.

Read the Symptom

The last row is genuinely useful and often missed. Bake and broil usually have their own igniter and their own valve, so an oven that broils fine but will not bake has not lost its gas — it has lost one igniter. Owners frequently assume the whole appliance is finished.

The Two Tests Worth Doing Yourself

• Light a cooktop burner. If the cooktop lights, gas is reaching the appliance and the fault is inside the oven. If nothing on the whole range works, the problem is the supply — check the shut-off valve behind the range and whether other gas appliances in the house work
• Watch through the vent. With the room dim, set the oven to bake and look at the igniter. Time it: a healthy one lights the burner within about a minute. Glowing for several minutes with no flame is the diagnosis, and so is a glow that never appears

Those two answers between them usually settle it, and they are worth having before you call anyone. What is not worth doing is anything involving the gas connection, the valve or the burner itself — a weak igniter is a modest part, and a mishandled gas fitting is a different category of problem entirely.

Where the Boundary Is

Worth stating plainly. We diagnose and repair the appliance: igniters, safety valves, sensors, controls, wiring, burners. Work on the gas supply itself — the line, the shut-off, the flexible connector, the connection to the building — belongs to a licensed gas fitter or plumber, and if the fault turns out to sit there we say so rather than work around it.

And the one thing that overrides everything: if you can smell gas, do not test anything. Do not operate switches, do not light a match, do not use the oven to check. Shut off the supply if you can reach the valve safely, get people out, and call the gas utility. That is not an appliance call.

If It Lights but Will Not Get Hot Enough

Different fault, different part. An oven that lights and runs but bakes badly, browns unevenly or reads well off a thermometer is usually reporting its temperature sensor rather than its igniter — a sensor a few degrees out makes a healthy oven behave wrongly, and it is one of the cheaper parts in the appliance.

The order there is: measure the achieved temperature against the set point with an independent thermometer through a full cycle, check the sensor’s resistance, look at the door seal and the hinges, and only then discuss the control. Recalibrating a control to compensate for a drifting sensor hides the fault rather than fixing it. That case has its own page: oven will not heat to the set temperature.

Two Igniter Designs, and Why It Matters

Gas ovens use one of two ignition systems, and they fail differently enough that identifying which you have changes the whole conversation.

If your oven clicks rather than glows, the diagnosis moves to the spark electrode, its module and the flame sensor, and the “glowing igniter” advice above does not apply to you. Say which one it is when you book — clicking or glowing — because it decides what comes off the van.

What Wears an Igniter Out Faster

• Every bake cycle uses it. Unlike most parts, it is in the path of normal use, so a heavily used oven reaches this fault sooner. That is wear, not a defect
• Self-clean cycles run the cavity far hotter than cooking does and are hard on everything nearby, igniters included
• Spills baked onto the burner area, which change how the flame sits and how much heat the igniter takes
• Slamming the door, which cracks ceramic over time — the igniter is a brittle part on a bracket
• Voltage problems, which stress the element the same way they stress any resistive heater

Nothing on that list means the oven is badly made. An igniter is a wear part in a safety chain, and it is designed to be the thing that gives way — which is precisely why replacing one is a routine job rather than the beginning of the end for the appliance.

What the Repair Costs

Counted the same way across this site: a completed repair is a job billed above the $99 diagnostic.

An igniter sits at the lower end of that band: it is a standardised part, it is reachable without dismantling the range, and the job is contained. That is the honest reason to have the igniter properly ruled in or out before agreeing to anything larger — the same symptom that a $359-median repair fixes can be quoted as a control board if nobody measured the current draw. Part-by-part figures are in the oven repair cost database, and the age question in how long ovens last.

What a Proper Diagnosis Involves

The cooktop tested first, to establish that gas reaches the appliance at all; the breaker confirmed, since a gas oven still needs power for its igniter and control; the igniter observed through a full call for heat and timed; its current draw measured rather than judged by how brightly it glows, which is the test that actually distinguishes a weak igniter from a failed valve; the safety valve assessed only after that; the bake and broil circuits checked separately, because each usually has its own igniter and valve; the temperature sensor’s resistance compared against specification; the achieved temperature measured against the set point with an independent instrument; the control’s call for heat observed; and the door seal and hinges checked last, since a door that no longer pulls square loses heat and imitates a heating fault.

Then the fault is named, the part named and the total quoted before anything is ordered. Oven work in general is on the oven repair page, and ranges on the range repair page.

If it is the microwave above the range rather than the oven itself, and it is dead rather than cold: microwave stopped working.

The cooktop side of a gas range is a separate diagnosis, and it is the one most often fixed with a paperclip rather than a part: gas stove burner not lighting.

On an electric oven none of this applies: there is no igniter, the heat comes from elements, and a failed element is usually visible. See electric oven not heating.

A completely unresponsive panel is a separate diagnosis from an oven that lights but will not heat: oven not turning on.

Frequently Asked Questions