How To Fix A Gas Grill That Won’t Light Or Stay Lit

These are two different faults with two different fixes. If the grill will not light at all, work through gas first, then the ignition, then the burners: check the tank has fuel and the valve is fully open, try lighting a burner with a match, and if it lights by hand the problem is the igniter or its wiring. If the grill lights but will not stay lit, or the flames are weak and yellow, you almost certainly have a gas flow problem, and the fix is usually resetting the regulator.

Neither one needs a service call in most cases. Below is the order to check things in, and how to do each check safely.

Step 1: check the gas

Yes, I know. It is probably the first thing you did. I have to be thorough anyway.

If your grill has a gas gauge, read it, then lift the tank to make sure the gauge is not lying to you. An empty 20-pound propane tank weighs around 16 pounds. A full one is around 37 pounds. The difference is obvious in your hands.

If there is gas in the tank, make sure the valve is all the way open. Turn it counter-clockwise until it stops. It is genuinely common to close it after a cook and forget you did.

If the tank is empty, you know what to do. If it is not, move on.

Step 2: find out whether gas is reaching the burners

This one test splits the problem in half. Open the lid, turn on the gas to one burner, and hold a long match or a wand lighter near it.

Open the lid before you turn on any gas. Gas pooling under a closed lid and then meeting a flame is how people lose eyebrows.

What happens next tells you where to look:

• The burner lights by hand. Gas is flowing fine, so the fault is in the ignition system, the igniter or the wiring.
• No burner lights by hand. You have a clog, a regulator problem or a gas line problem.
• Some burners light and others do not. The dead ones are probably clogged, or on a grill with independent ignition, those individual igniters have failed.

Step 3: check the ignition

There are two common igniter types, and you can tell them apart by sound.

A battery-powered igniter makes a rapid series of clicks when you press the button. Replace the battery before you do anything else. It is the cheapest possible fix and it works surprisingly often.

A piezo-electric igniter makes one single click. If you have piezo ignition and no burner will light from the button, the problem is usually the button itself or the wiring behind it, and that generally means replacing the part. It is fiddly work but not expensive.

If some burners light from the button and others do not, skip ahead. That is a burner or individual igniter problem, not an ignition system problem.

Step 4: faulty igniter or clogged burner

Before you touch anything inside the grill, turn the gas off at the tank and disconnect the regulator. Then take out the cooking grates, the burner plates and the flavor bars so you can see the burner tubes.

A failed igniter

On a grill with independent ignition, every burner has its own igniter next to it. Press the button, or turn the knobs to the light setting, and watch. Each igniter should throw a blue spark. Any that does not is the suspect.

If it looks dirty, clean carefully around it and try again, because grease and debris will kill a spark. If a cleaned igniter still will not spark, it needs replacing.

Some grills instead have one igniter that lights a pilot burner, which then cross-lights the rest. Inspect that single igniter the same way. If the igniter sparks and the pilot burner lights but the other burners stay dark, the problem is not ignition. It is a clog.

A clogged burner

With the grates, flavor bars and burner plates already off, look along the burner tube. A clogged burner has food, grease or debris visibly blocking the ports, so gas never reaches the point where the spark is.

Clear the ports carefully with a stiff wire or a brush. Work along the tube and check that every hole is open. If the burner tube itself is cracked, rusted through or burned out, cleaning will not save it, and you should replace it following your owner’s manual.

Step 5: reset the regulator

This is the fix for the grill that lights and then dies, or that never gets properly hot. Inside the regulator is a bypass valve, and it can get stuck closed or half closed. When it does, it limits how much gas reaches the burners, which is exactly what a weak flame or a grill that goes out feels like. It is a common enough fault to be worth trying before you suspect anything else.

Resetting it costs nothing:

1. Open the lid and turn every burner knob to off.
2. Turn the valve on the propane tank clockwise to shut off the gas.
3. Unscrew the regulator from the tank, turning it counter-clockwise until it comes free.
4. Turn all the burner knobs to high. This bleeds the pressure out of the grill’s gas lines. Wait a minute for the pressure to release and the regulator to reset.
5. Turn all the burner knobs back to off.
6. Reattach the regulator to the tank, hand-tight only.
7. Open the tank valve slowly until it is fully open.

Open the tank valve slowly on that last step rather than cracking it wide.

The grill should now run normally. If it still will not light or stay lit after a reset, the regulator or the hose is faulty and needs replacing.

Step 6: check the connection for leaks

A bad seal at the tank is worth ruling out while you are down there, and it can cause weak, unreliable flames.

Inspect the regulator fitting and the tank gasket for debris, and clear anything you find. Look at the rubber gasket itself. If it is cracked or warped, exchange the tank for one with a good gasket.

Attach the regulator by hand and only by hand. Never use tools on it. Both parts are designed to be tightened and removed with fingers, and a wrench will damage the seat.

Then test it. Mix dish soap and water in a spray bottle, check all the knobs are off, open the tank valve fully, and spray the joint where the regulator meets the tank. Bubbles mean a leak. If you get bubbles, close the valve, disconnect, inspect both parts, and try again, tightening as hard as your hands will go. If it still leaks, try a different tank. If it leaks on a second tank too, the regulator is the problem.

How to light a gas grill manually

If the igniter has failed and you want to cook tonight, you can light the grill with a match. Do it in this order.

1. Open the lid. Every time, without exception. On models that light through the cooking grates you cannot do it any other way, but grills with a lighting hole in the side make it easy to forget, and that is the dangerous case.
2. Check that every control knob is off. Knobs can stick and look closed while still passing gas.
3. Open the tank valve, turning counter-clockwise until it stops. Natural gas grills have an equivalent shutoff valve, if yours has one at all.
4. Find where you are meant to light it. Some grills want the flame brought in through the cooking grates, others have a dedicated hole in the side housing. The manual will say. Many grills also have a match holder, a metal rod with a loop at the end, usually on a chain. Push the butt of a match into the loop and you can use an ordinary kitchen match. Without one, use a long match or a wand lighter.
5. Light the match or lighter first, then turn the knob for the burner you are lighting to high. Bring the flame to the burner and wait for it to catch, then withdraw the match.
6. Light the rest. Most modern grills cross-light, so you just turn on the next burner and it catches from its neighbor. Some want each one lit by hand.
7. Close the lid and preheat on high for at least 10 minutes.

If a burner does not catch, turn its knob off and wait five full minutes before trying again. That lets the loose gas disperse. Trying again immediately is how a small problem becomes a fireball.

When it is not worth fixing

Most of the time this comes down to something ordinary: a clogged burner, a tripped regulator, a dead battery. Wiring faults and stuck safety mechanisms are more annoying, and a rusted-out burner tube or firebox is where you start doing arithmetic on whether the repair is worth it against the cost of a new grill.

Your owner’s manual is worth digging out before you order parts, since burner and igniter part numbers vary by model year. If you have lost it, nearly every manufacturer has manuals free to download.

And since half the causes on this page are grease and debris, a grill that gets cleaned does not do this as often. Our guides to cleaning a gas grill and cleaning rusty grates cover the routine, and there are a few tools that make it quicker.

Watch it done