--- title: "Grills" description: "DCS grills: this is the machine most people mean when they say DCS, and in South Florida it is the one that ages fastest." url: "https://dcsmiami.support/appliances/bbq-grill/" date_modified: "2026-09-14" Appliance type: "bbq-grill" --- # DCS grills ### The outdoor half of this brand has no codes, and that is not a gap Every other make on this fleet answers the question “what is it showing?” with a string on a display. A DCS grill has no display and no error table — its own manual writes the whole troubleshooting section as questions rather than codes. So the useful things a caller can tell us are the color of the flame, how many burners are behaving that way, whether a match will light what the ignitor will not, and what changed in the week before. On this machine those sentences are the diagnosis. ### Salt air is a service history, not a complaint An outdoor grill in Miami-Dade, Broward or Palm Beach is living in conditions the factory rates it for and the owner’s expectations are not. Ignitors, electrodes, burners, fixings and the underside of the hood corrode on a schedule, and a grill four blocks from the water ages differently from the same grill four miles inland. We plan a visit around that rather than around a part number. ### Built into an island is a different job from standing on a cart The cooking platform is the same; the access is not. A grill dropped into stone or block is surrounded on three sides and sometimes plumbed in place, so the sequence of what comes out first is decided by the mason rather than by the manufacturer. It is the reason we ask for a photograph of the island before an appointment on the built-in version. Built into the island, or on a cart · Series 7 and Series 9 Grill repair Built-in and cart versions of the same cooking platform — the surround decides the visit No error codes anywhere on this half of the brand: the grill tells you in flame, smell and sound Salt air is the second owner of every outdoor stainless part in this market The outdoor half of this brand has no codes, and that is not a gap Every other make on this fleet answers the question “what is it showing?” with a string on a display. A DCS grill has no display and no error table — its own manual writes the whole troubleshooting section as questions rather than codes. So the useful things a caller can tell us are the color of the flame, how many burners are behaving that way, whether a match will light what the ignitor will not, and what changed in the week before. On this machine those sentences are the diagnosis. Salt air is a service history, not a complaint An outdoor grill in Miami-Dade, Broward or Palm Beach is living in conditions the factory rates it for and the owner’s expectations are not. Ignitors, electrodes, burners, fixings and the underside of the hood corrode on a schedule, and a grill four blocks from the water ages differently from the same grill four miles inland. We plan a visit around that rather than around a part number. Built into an island is a different job from standing on a cart The cooking platform is the same; the access is not. A grill dropped into stone or block is surrounded on three sides and sometimes plumbed in place, so the sequence of what comes out first is decided by the mason rather than by the manufacturer. It is the reason we ask for a photograph of the island before an appointment on the built-in version. ### Orange and lazy where it used to be blue. That is the grill telling you the air and gas are no longer mixing the way they should, and it is worth taking seriously rather than cooking through. The usual causes are an obstructed burner inlet or venturi tube — insects nest in them, and in this climate they do it every season — a burner port blocked by grease and carbon, or a regulator that has gone into its limiting mode. Some of that is owner work with the gas off and the burner out; some of it is not. The question we put on the telephone is how many burners are doing it: a single one points inside that burner, the whole set points upstream at the supply. ### It will not light at all. Start at the far end rather than at the grill. A cylinder with its Flow Limiting Device tripped will pass just enough gas to be confusing; a natural gas supply valve half closed does the same thing. After that it is the ignition — a battery in the module, a cracked ceramic on an electrode, a corroded earth. If the burner lights from a match but not from the ignitor, that is a very useful sentence and it halves the diagnosis. Please do not keep pressing the ignitor with the dial on and gas flowing. ### Flare-ups every time, and they did not use to happen. Flare-ups are grease finding flame, and where the grease is sitting is the whole question. The radiant trays above the burners and the tray under them are a system for taking drippings away from the fire; when they are loaded or fitted wrong, everything that renders out goes straight down onto the burner instead. We see this most on grills that are cleaned on top and never underneath. It is also the single most common cause of a grill fire in this market, which is why we treat it as a safety call and not a cleaning question. ### I can smell gas. Turn every dial off, close the supply at the cylinder or the wall valve, and do not use the grill or any ignition source near it until somebody has looked. Gas with the dial on and the burner unlit is one thing; gas with everything off is another and a worse one. We do not diagnose this over the phone and we do not ask you to test it yourself. Outdoors in salt air, a fitting that was sound three seasons ago is not automatically sound today, and the joints under an island are the ones nobody ever sees. --- **[Read full article: Grills](https://dcsmiami.support/appliances/bbq-grill/)**