No power rating for electric oven/grills?

[Jeff Layman]

Maybe a bit OT, but it may be of interest.

We have just replaced and old (10 to 15 years? it was here when we moved in) and faulty "Cookers" fitted double oven with a new AEG one. The new one's fan oven appears to warm up more slowly than the old one, and grilling in the top oven takes considerably longer. From memory the "Cookers" grill glowed more brightly than the new AEG.

So I thought I'd check the power rating of both to compare them. We still have the old Cookers manual, and it lists the rating of the top and bottom grill and other elements. But the new one? No - nothing in the manual or brochure. In fact, out of interest I tried to find the ratings of other makes such as Neff, Bosch, Stoves, Zanussi, etc. I only found one mention for a Beko oven. The only figure that seems to be given these days is the oven energy consumption in kW/hour - probably for the EC efficiency rating. Sometimes the total load rating is given (usually around 4 - 6kW), but that's all. When did the individual figures for grill rating, etc stop being used?

[Broadback]

We had the same problem, the grill we had was very fast to heat up, and grilled in seconds. This one is a slow as the PM making his mind up about the vote on the Europe.

[Davey]

Probably getting ahead of the EU after their effort on Vacuum Cleaner power. "We know what's better for you, even though we have no idea what we're taking about."

[Cursitor Doom]

There *must* be surely? No mention of current, VA either?

[Andrew Gabriel]

The appliance has to have a rating plate giving the operating voltage and max power or current consumption. That doesn't mean you can necessarily find the info on the web though.

[tabbypurr]

but that doesn't need to include a breakdown AFAIK. And these days it might not be durable.

NT

[Dave Plowman (News)]

More likely everything has been reduced so it can run off a 13 amps supply.

[Jeff Layman]

Not that I can find on the internet. As I mentioned, you can find /total/ power, but not the individual elements. Have a look yourself at the manufacturers webpages, and see if you can find the info. I have no idea if the grills are rated at 1W or 1kW, so until we've burnt or undercooked things and gained experience, it's all a bit of a guessing game.

It's daft, really. If I want to buy a hob, the individual outputs of the burners are always given. Same thing with those worksurface grills/sandwich toasters; the power rating is always there. So why not fitted ovens/grills?

[Cursitor Doom]

Never come across that before. The obvious thing to do, I suppose is just measure it. Most decent multimeters these days have ranges for RMS volts and RMS amps. If you take these two readings and multiply them together it will give you the VA, which in an oven should be pretty close to Watts. In any event, it will at least allow you to accurately choose a value for your isolation switch and circuit breaker.

[Graham.]

Or else just utter the magic word. Diversity.

[Chris B]

Can you try an alternative approach - I don't know your exact model but the spares page seems to list the wattages of a large number of elements.

[Jeff Layman]

Excellent idea. Says the grill element is 2300W. FWIW, the Cookers grill was supposedly only 1750W. Maybe I'll ask AEG why they don't give the grill element rating with the oven info, but are happy to give it in the spares pages!

[jack]

Likely they don?t realise how useful it is for some who are considering what oven to buy.