What People Call About
Four complaints, and the first is by far the most common.
What Fails on a Cooktop
Two parts account for nearly everything, and both usually show themselves without a meter.
Wiring and terminals
Heat and years do work on the connections underneath. A burner that works intermittently is sometimes a connection rather than a component.
The control board, on cooktops that have one
Smooth-top cooktops with electronic touch controls have a board, and when it goes the whole surface goes with it. That's the expensive end and it gets confirmed before anything is ordered.
Cracked glass, and the arithmetic behind it
Replaceable in most cases. The reason it often isn't replaced is cost: the glass is a large single part and its price gets close enough to a new cooktop that most people choose the new one. That's their call to make with real numbers in front of them, and you'll get them.
What We Fix on a Cooktop
Repair or Replace a Cooktop?
For a burner fault, repair, almost every time. A switch or an element on a cooktop that is otherwise sound is a modest part in an appliance with very little else in it. People replace whole cooktops over one dead burner more often than they should.
For a dead board on an older electronic cooktop, the answer usually turns, because a board is a meaningful share of what a replacement costs.
For cracked glass, it depends on the number, and that's a genuine it-depends rather than a hedge. The part can be had; whether it's worth having is a decision only you can make once you know what it costs against what a new cooktop costs.
The same question on every other appliance→
What It Costs
$100 service call, applied to the repair if you go ahead within thirty days. After thirty days, a return visit is a further $50 to $100.
No published repair prices. What can be said honestly is that the two most common cooktop faults, a switch and an element, are among the less involved jobs Aaron does, and a cracked glass or a control board are not.
One all-in figure before any work starts, covering parts, labor, tax and the service call.
Exclusions to the 90-day warranty are listed in full on the FAQs.
How the Visit Goes
Why One Dead Burner Is Good News
People tend to assume a dead burner is the beginning of the end for a cooktop. It's usually the opposite, and understanding why is how people stop replacing a cooktop over one part.
A cooktop is a simple appliance. Each burner is essentially an element and a switch, wired to a shared supply. There is no motor, no pump, no water, and on the older coil designs no electronics at all.
So when one burner stops and the others keep working, that pattern is telling you something specific: the supply is fine, the wiring back to the panel is fine, and any control board present is fine, because all of those are shared and the other burners prove them. The fault is confined to the two parts serving that one burner.
The reverse also holds, and it's the reason the first question on the phone is one burner or all of them. When everything is dead at once, the shared side is implicated: the supply, a breaker, or a board. That's a different conversation and a different price. The practical upshot: count your working burners before you call anybody. If three out of four are fine, you almost certainly have a cheap repair and a cooktop with years left in it, whatever a showroom would like you to think.
Why the Manufacturer's Own Troubleshooting Runs Out on a Glass Cooktop
There is a gap in what the manufacturers publish, and once you have seen it the case for calling somebody makes a lot more sense.
When replacing beats repairingTrussville is the one town whose utility publishes descaling advice of its own
What Customers Say
Every review Aaron has, live from Google, in the customer's own words and under their own name.
Questions We Get Asked
One burner is dead. Do I need a new cooktop?
Very probably not. There is a section above on why one dead burner among working ones is the cheap diagnosis rather than the expensive one.
Do you work on gas cooktops?
Aaron works on electric cooktops, coil and smooth top. If yours is gas, call and describe the fault. A gas range whose oven will not heat is a job he takes, and that is on the oven page.
My cooktop glass is cracked. Can it be replaced?
Usually it can. The question is whether it's worth it once you hear the part price, and most people decide to put the money toward a new cooktop. You'll get both figures.
The whole cooktop is dead. Is that expensive?
It can be. Check the breaker first, for the reason given above.
Is my cooktop actually a range?
If there's an oven underneath it, yes, and the oven page covers that machine. A cooktop is the surface on its own, set into a counter.
Which brands do you take?
Whirlpool, GE and Frigidaire. If yours is something else, call and ask.
Can you install a new cooktop?
Installation here is limited to dishwashers and garbage disposals.
What does the warranty cover?
Ninety days on parts and labor for the repair we did. A replaced board is the exception. Full exclusions on the FAQs.
Can I use cast iron on a glass cooktop?
The manufacturers do not agree on this, which is worth knowing before somebody tells you otherwise with confidence. Frigidaire says plainly that cast iron is not recommended on ceramic or glass. Whirlpool lists cast iron in its own cookware guidance without any such warning. What they do all agree on is the mechanism behind the worry: dragging any heavy pan across the surface scratches it, and dropping one cracks it.
The brands this comes up on most
Each of these has its own page with the faults, the parts reality and the model-plate location for that badge.
Where We Work, and How to Reach Us
Cooktop repair across greater Birmingham, north from Gardendale through the city and out to the Over the Mountain communities.
Call or text (205) 883-9703. Tell us how many burners are affected and whether there's an oven underneath. Those two answers do most of the work.
Calls and texts Monday to Friday, 8am to 5pm. Saturday calls are usually answered; Sunday goes to voicemail.
Every town we cover