Why does my stove burner knob make the kitchen lights flicker?

You are likely looking at a dropped leg on your main electrical service. Most electric stoves in North America run on 240 volts, which means they pull from both 120-volt 'legs' of your electrical panel. When one of those main legs goes dead due to a loose connection at the meter or a utility side failure, half the circuits in your apartment lose power. When you turn that burner knob, you are essentially creating a bridge thru the stove's heating element, allowing electricity to backfeed from the active leg into the dead one. That flicker you see is the current trying to find a path to those other lights and appliances through the resistance of your stove burner. It's not a short circuit in the traditional sense, but it is a serious electrical fault. Since the burner element has high resistance, it acts like a giant, inefficient jumper wire. This is why the stove isn't getting hot yet; the power is being diverted to try and run your kitchen lights and whatever else is switched on in the rest of the unit. You need to contact your landlord or an electrician imediately and tell them you suspect a **lost phase** or a dropped leg. If you're in an apartment, it could be a blown fuse in a main disconnect or a burnt-out wire in the meter socket. It's also worth calling your utility company because the problem is frequently on their side of the mast, especially if there was a recent storm or high wind. In the meantime, stop using the stove and turn off any sensitive electronics like computers or TVs. When a leg drops, you can sometimes get weird voltage fluctuations that are way higher or lower than 120v, which can fry circuit boards. This isn't something you can fix by tightening a screw on the stove itself; it's a **main service issue** that requires a pro to pull the meter or open the main panel.

While the previous assessment regarding a dropped leg is almost certainly correct, you should verify if this phenomenon persists with other high-draw 240V appliances like a dryer, as internal bus bars on older range panels can occasionally suffer from localized carbon tracking that mimics a service-level failure without involving the utility side. It’s likely your early 2000s model utilizes an infinite switch that cycles via a bimetallic strip, bridging the L1 and L2 lines through the element's resistance the moment the cam engages, so check if your microwave clock or LED displays are dimming simultaneously; that's a definitive hallmark of a lost phase rather than a simple mechanical short within the stove's chassis.

Seen this plenty back in the day. Before we had these fancy digital meters, we'd go straight for the service entrance. If you've got those old screw-in Edison base fuses or a main pull-out block, check for any 'ghosting' or charring on the copper. I've seen a loose neutral on a center tap cause the same voodoo, making your lights brighten up like a spotlight while the stove acts as the bridge. Don't go poking around with a butter knife, but if you have a reliable old analog volt meter, check the lines. If you're seeing 60v on one side and 180v on the other, you're in for a long night.

Spot on about the backfeeding, but check your Infinite Switch. If it's an old Robertshaw or a generic WB24T10029, the internal contacts coud be arcing and sending a transient spike back thru the line before the element even glows. I once chased a similar ghost on a Kenmore where a loose lug in the terminal block was carbon-scored so bad it was basicly acting as a high-impedance resistor. Grab a Fluke 87V if you can and check the voltage at the outlet while someone turns the knob. If you see it dip below 105V on one side, you’ve definitly got a high-resistance connection at the service entrance or your main breaker is toast.

Totally agree with the dropped leg diagnosis. I've seen this exact 'voodoo' happen more than a few times. One small thing to check while you're waiting for the pro: take a quick look at the range cord plug itself if you can reach it safely. Sometimes those older 3-prong or 4-prong NEMA plugs get a loose connection right at the wall receptacle, and the heat from a heavy load like a stove burner can actualy melt the plastic enugh to break contact on one of the hot pins. If you smell any faint 'fishy' or burning plastic scent back there, that’s your smoking gun.

Update: So I checked and it’s happening with my dryer too, so that 'dropped leg' idea sounds spot on. I looked at the main pull-out block like suggested and there’s definatly some discoloration on one of the copper tabs. Is this somthing my landlord can fix easily, or does the power company need to come out to check the meter?