When I use the oven in my new Kitchen Aid gas range/oven (Architect Series II), it reignites every minute like clockwork. It clicks, then whooshes and then turns off. Sometimes when it clicks, it doesn’t whoosh and I can hear it ticking, trying to light. When this happens I can smell gas, which makes sense since it didn’t light. The oven is able to reach and maintain the desired temperature. My concern is whether it is normal and/or safe for for it to keep reigniting so often? And is it dangerous when it tries to reignite and keeps clicking?
Each time I call Kitchen Aid I get different answers. Sometimes they say it’s normal, other times they say I need to use it more so it can calibrate itself, and other times they say that doesn’t sound right.
The repairman sent by Kitchen Aid said it was normal. He looked at it for about 15 minutes and during that time he didn’t smell gas. It still delights every minute or so, and every now and then it doesn’t relight and I smell a bit of gas. I’m getting used to it, I suppose. My friend has the same model and hers does the same thing, so I think we’ll be ok.
Well that was a frustrating phone call.. The guy that I talked to had no idea about anything and was just reading out of a manual. I escalated to a supervisor which says ‘It’s normal for a gas oven to turn on when it needs to warm itself up’ which I totally agree with. However when I tell them it happens every minute exactly and therefore smells the entire kitchen up with a gas smell, that seems too often. They offered to send someone out but “if they can’t find anything wrong with it, I have to pay for the service call”
Argh… Service men will be here tomorrow between 8-12 and I’m sure will tell me the same thing.
They should not be charging you at all since it should still be under warranty! Good luck tomorrow, and let me know what they say. Hopefully your service guy can straighten this all out.
A very nice man came over the following day and told me it’s normal. I asked him how this could be normal and he stated:
“People used to complain all the time about how much temperature would be lost when we re-heated every few minutes, it could drop as much as 70 degrees during re-heating cycles so kitchen aide changed it to re-heat every minute or so to keep the constant temp”
Whirlpool techs tried to sell you something what I can not name on the public forum. The ongoing problems with the Direct Spark Ignition ovens have been known by Whirlpool for many years. You can learn how this ignition system works from the attached file.
For any further questions post the COMPLETE model numbers of your ranges.
