How hot is a gas burner supposed to be? My new range has a 17000 BTU burner (natural gas). It my first gas range. I have the feeling it is not that hot. 


I can barely keep pasta water boiling (8 cups of water) with the broiler on high. I expected I'd have to lower the heat in order to avoir overspils.
I was not able to burn hamburgers in a cast iron pan. Not that I wanted to burn them, but I again I expected I'd have to lower the heat. I kept it on high for several minutes without any serious damage to the meat.


Q1: How can I test if the burners are as hot as what they should be? 

Q2: Can something be wrong with the connection?

Maybe my expections are too high after everone told me how amazingly hot and fast gas ranges are. The flames are blue so that seems to be ok.
Something is very wrong there; you need to get this serviced right away. 17,000 BTU should be enough to keep a full rolling boil going on a pot much larger than 8 cups, or sear the daylights out of your burger. I'd go so far as to say I wouldn't use it until a service tech has looked at it.