Kenmore gas oven - no heat

My wife just called to tell me that our oven wont heat. It is a 6 year old Kenmore gas oven. The burners work and the broiler works but the oven will not heat. The oven had no problems (it worked last night) and now it just wont heat.

Thanks,

Steve

 

Hello and Welcome Steve to the Do It Yourself Web Site and my Gas Appliance forum.

With an oven of 6 years old, most likely the glow coil has burned out. To verify this, be sure all the control panel selections are set to manual.

Turn the oven temperature knob on as usual and see if the glow coil glows. If it fails to glow, chances are very very good it will need to be replaced.

The archives, within this forum, have many other postings with this identical problem. there is also a posting I posted called "Glow Coils and Gas Valves" which should help you with information on replacing it yourself.

Regards & Good Luck
Forum Moderator
Tom_Bartco
Energy Conservation Consultant & Natural Gas Appliance Diagnostics Technician.

 

Tom,

Thanks for the quick response, I appreciate it. OK, I just looked at the Glow Coil and it does glow now and the oven does light. We have not used the oven for a few days but I know it was not heating up on Monday. What would cause an intermitent failure?

Thanks again,

Steve

 

Hello: Steve

Intermitten problems are very difficult to diagnose. Best bet is to continue to use the oven until it totally fails to turn on. This way the exact cause can best be determined.

Another possiblity could be...hold on because the statement I am about to type may cause minor discomfort...

Human Error...YIKES!... ...is the most common problem for intermitten problems. Often, everyone of us, at one time or another, gets into a hurry and fails to correctly set or reset the selections correctly, on the appliances front control panel...

Often times this happens with ovens that have optional selections like "Time Bake" "Pre-Heat" and "Keep-Warm" selections.

Regards & Good Luck
Forum Moderator
Tom_Bartco
Energy Conservation Consultant & Natural Gas Appliance Diagnostics Technician.

 

Tom,

Thanks again. You are right, and it does not bother me, human error could be it. Before switching to sales this year, I was an engineer for a large Internet company. Many times, we were blamed for issues that end up being a human error issue.

Question for you, when I pulled the oven away from the wall, the plug was only in the socket very loosely. Could it have been that the oven could not draw enough power because of the poor connection so the glow coil would not heat up? That's my thought, maybe way off base but I'll do anything to lay the blame somewhere else <G>

Steve

 

Hello Steve

Certainly could be possible it was human error. Fact is: Human error is a lot better than paying for an appliance repair service call when nothing is wrong.

True story:

Of course this is not what I thought several years ago, with my refrigerator. Pulled it away from the wall to clean behind it and you know what? YUP! The plug pulled out of the wall socket just enough to not allow the compressor to turn on, yet the light bulb was on.

So how did I find out? YUP! The refrigerator repair person arrived then next day, used his flashlight to see underneath it and noticed it was really clean there.

Asked the wife if we recently pulled it away from the wall to clean behind it and of course the asnswer was YUP! Husband and sons cleaned behind it and underneath it just yesterday.

He smiled, reached behind the friggy with one palm, pushed the plug further into the wall socket and the compressor turned on.

He then SMILED and asked for a CHECK to cover the service call fee......Could have be a worse repair bill had it been in need of parts plus installation labor costs, so we SMILED in return and gladly paid up...

During my appliance service years, know what? I did exactly the same type of thing when I was making appliance service calls. Find some selector knob or switch in the incorrect position on the appliance, turned it to the correct selection, the appliance snapped into life.

I would then SMILE and ask for a CHECK...hahaha....

Have a good day or evening.
Regards,
Tom