Kitchen Large Electric Appliances - G.E. oven won't heat up
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jmixer
12-31-07, 01:44 PM
I have an approximately 13 year old GE electric oven that will not heat up completely. I have to set the oven to 575 degrees to get it up to just about 300 degrees. Is this possibly a bad element or T-stat and how would i test for this?
ecman51`
12-31-07, 05:03 PM
Can the element be allowed to glow bright orange-red? Wondering, so I can eliminate thought process of you only having 120 current going through the element.
jmixer
12-31-07, 06:42 PM
The element gets orange but not a super bright orange. It stays that way for a minute or so then you hear a click behind the control buttons like a relay opening or closing and the elements goes dark for a minute then heats back up and the process repeats. The broiler element gets a nice bright orange glow and stays on.
ecman51`
12-31-07, 07:13 PM
Some kind of reduced voltage situation going on here then.
You need to test the voltage at the wires hooked up to the back side of the bake element. Each bake element wire to groudn should be 120, when turned oven turned on, and 240 across the 2 of them.
If you have only 120 and no 240, then you want to UNPLUG (do not just turn off the oven control) the range. Then disconnect the wires from the bake element, and keep them away from metal. Then plug range back in (and being careful) and test each wire again between it and ground (any of the metal on the range will work). Now you will know which wire is not on. Then trace that particular wire back.
One wire will go back to the oven control switch that has the thermostat attached to it, and that is where maybe your problem lies. If they burn out, sometimes you can actually see a discolored area on the plastic oven control and this signifies that it burned up inside.
You need to test the voltage at the wires hooked up to the back side of the bake element. Each bake element wire to groudn should be 120, when turned oven turned on, and 240 across the 2 of them.
If you have only 120 and no 240, then you want to UNPLUG (do not just turn off the oven control) the range. Then disconnect the wires from the bake element, and keep them away from metal. Then plug range back in (and being careful) and test each wire again between it and ground (any of the metal on the range will work). Now you will know which wire is not on. Then trace that particular wire back.
One wire will go back to the oven control switch that has the thermostat attached to it, and that is where maybe your problem lies. If they burn out, sometimes you can actually see a discolored area on the plastic oven control and this signifies that it burned up inside.