why is the high setting right next to the light setting on a stove? Wouldn’t the low setting be first with the option to increase and release more fluid rather than suddenly creating a large fire?
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In order to light a gas flame safely you need sufficient gas flow so it manages to catch fire quickly. If you do not have enough gas flow it is possible for the gas to be vented unevenly and take some time before it hits the spark igniter. By the time that sufficient amounts of gas have reached this igniter there may already be a big gas cloud above the stove that will explode all at once. Another danger is that on a low gas setting is possible that a cold stove may not be able to spread the flame to all gas ports at once. So you may end up with the stove half lit and gas venting out of the unlit sections with similar results as in the first scenario.
You must be asking about a gas stove.
The reason is the same as on a gas grill. The “ignite” setting is next to high because you want the maximum gas flow coming out for the spark to try to ignite. Once the gas is ignited, you can then regulate the flow lower if that is what you want.
This is why the ignition instructions (stove and grill) caution against letting the gas flow for a long time before trying to ignite it – to avoid a fireball.
Imagine you want to build a stove. You could make it so the knob goes off-min-med-max. But you don’t want to just have three settings, you should be able to use anything in between, so you put a knob that let you select how much gas you want in a continuous way, marking how much you have to turn the knob to select those “base settings”.
There’s a problem: what if you want to select a lower setting than “min”. Between the “off” and the “min”, there’s a zone where the stove doesn’t lets enough gas out to continuously sustain a flame, and it depends on how much gas the grid gives, how windy it is, etc. How can you solve it? Well, instead of going off-min-med-max, you could go off-max-med-min, and you could calculate how much gas your stove will let off at “min” so it’s still safe. You didn’t eliminate that danger zone, but at least the off is next a setting where you want to maximize the amount of gas, not to minimize it.
In most stoves, the light setting creates this clicking sound. That’s the stove making a spark. If there’s enough natural gas (not liquid thankfully), it’ll ignite, but it has to be a decent amount of gas. The line is open when you turn the knob, but there’s also “loose air” so to speak, in the line which is not particularly flammable to a spark. You need a lot of gas at once to overcome that.
What you don’t want is for a bunch of gas to slowly build up and then the spark to suddenly ignite a fireball. Have done it, do not recommend. You also don’t need to be releasing a ton of natural gas into your home. That’s why if you can’t get the stove to light in a few seconds, you should turn the knob to off and wait a moment or two before trying again.
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