Can you?

I can't think of why you can't place a piece of tempered glass over a gas range to catch the spills so clean-up would be easier. I was just wondering if there were some scientific reason this would be a bad idea. YOur reply wasn't really helpful but thanks anyway.

The idea would require probably 6mm or thicker glass with holes for the burners drilled before taking it to a glass temperer. They could run it through their oven and quench it. Should improve its strength by a factor of five. Another alternative is induction with the same power and response as restaurant gas burners and a glass top which does not get hot. Any cleanup is a snap.

I've had gas and electric (coil) now I have induction. The induction is the fastest and cleanest. I can even put a paper towel under a frying pan to catch grease splatters.

The cost of doing such a thing would be prohibitive. A plain thin flat tempered glass tabletop of the size of a range runs a couple of hundred dollars. YOu'd need thicker and more impact resistant than a tabletop and need it moulded to the range's contours. You'd need precision holes located in it as well. You might be talking 1K before you were over for just a flat piece, and moulded would be virtually impossible. ALso, your range is designed to achieve a certain air flow for your burners. Impacting that by placing another surface on top of your range that would affect that could lead to incomplete combustion or other issues.

If easy cleanup is important enough to you to spend that kind of money, go induction. Or go pro range top with a drip pan. YOu'll get much better function from the cooking components, and easier cleanup as well.

Or, the low cost solution to your problem involves just a few cents of heavy duty aluminum foil as long as you're not talking too high heat cooking. Foil's melting temperature is fairly low and it can meld with some oven or cooktop surfaces under high heat cooking conditions. But, you'd probably have to have more than the 12K consumer grade burners to have that issue.

Maybe I'm not making myself clear. I want to just set a thick piece of tempered glass on the range. The racks over the burners would allow for air flow. So instead of the pans sitting on the metal, they will be sitting on the glass.
I'm not going to replace anything since this is a rental home. Just set the glass on the range.

Sounds like a really bad idea. Putting a sheet of glass on top of the burners seems like it will smother the airflow and they won't light. If they do light it's not clear that the heat will come through the glass sufficiently to heat anything. You really want the flames hitting the pots.

If you don't like cleaning the cooktop then don't. As you said, it's only a rental :-)

There's plenty of room between the burners and the grates that fit over them to allow air flow and the pans don't touch the flame as it is.

You may be right about the room for the airflow but you're wrong about the flame not touching the pots. The flame definitely does touch the pots - that's what heats them - it's not the grates getting hot and transferring the heat.

No, the grates are pretty high over the burners and I don't sear everything so I don't keep it on high flame so the flame touches the pans. I only use high flame for getting skillets hot.

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Excuse me?! That was totally uncalled for. I didn't come here to debate a concept, much less be called names.
You could be referring to yourself though. If that's the case, so be it.

Hmmmmm, a "Pilot" above, How "Fitting"!