Oven conked out while cooking yesterday. Found 240V breaker tripped. Reset it and tried again, Breaker tripped again. Now to figure out if problem is in the breaker or the oven. I'm hoping the breaker.
Can't figure out how to tell which without replacing the breaker. I'm afraid I'm not strong enough any more to pry that old breaker out of the box so I'll have to call an expensive electrician.
Hoping breaker more likely to trip if worn out than oven to short circuit - I'd think oven heating element would open up instead, but what do I know?
Guesses? Suggestions? I'd like to get my oven back at a reasonable cost,
Rare that a breaker goes bad under normal circumstances. I'd bet on the oven. When you said you tried it again, did you mean you turned the oven on and it tripped again? If so, that would make it an oven, not breaker problem.
Heating elements go bad on a regular basis. Sometimes they break, other times they just short out. If you can get a good look at the element you may even see the problem.
The element will only cost $20 to $30 and they are not difficult to replace, but it may take more agility than you have. Figure about $100 for a service call if you go that route.
Along those lines, does it trip with the oven off? If it trips on oven bake, does it trip on broil?, etc. I'd agree the oven is far more likely than the breaker.
Here is a recent crazy story of how easy it is to jump to wrong conclusions and go down the wrong track. I have a 5 year old Kitchenaid side by side fridge. One morning I opened it up and there was no light, the control panel display was out, etc. Not good, right? So, first thing I did was go check the breaker panel. There was a tripped breaker. Not good right? So, I reset the breaker, it held. I go back upstairs, fridge is still dead. VEry bad, right? So, I pull it out, then test the outlet for power. There is power there. Next I pull the back cover off the fridge, go online looking for schematics, etc. to figure out what could be wrong. No breaker or anything in the fridge. So, I plug it in and start tracing the wires measuring continuity from the end of the plug to points in the fridge, everything seems OK. I plug the fridge back in and start probing for AC at various points, first it's there, then it looked like it was gone, but with a test probe, you're never sure if what you saw was because the probe moved a bit etc.
To make a long story short, what it turned out to be was the receptacle was bad. This fridge is counter depth, they use one of those flat style plugs where the cord winds up perpendicular to and against the wall. I've seen those before, but this one, the cable comes off it at a 45 deg angle, so there is always torque on the plug. I have no doubt that contributed to the failure.
So, the only remaining mystery is why did the breaker trip? I pondered that for a day, couldn't come up with a good reason, except maybe if it was going on and off, it could have gotten to an overload that way, but these new fridges use so little power and have overload protection, that didn't seem likely. Finally it dawned on me. I was doing some work in a rarely used bathroom and had turned the breaker for that off a couple weeks earlier. When I went looking for a tripped breaker, I saw one open, figured it had to be the fridge and reset that one. The fridge breaker had never tripped, it was just the bad receptacle. But I was happy, cost of the repair was just a receptacle and a morning of screwing around. Also very lucky that I caught it and fixed it without losing the food in the fridge.
If you're unsure if it's the oven or wiring, etc, I would not leave the breaker on when no one is around. For example, it's possible there is a fault in the wiring somewhere that could start a fire even with the oven off.
I had the furnace go out when I was away on a snowboarding trip for about a week ten years ago. It was my own fault, I had not replaced the battery in the thermostat! IDK how long it was off, but I got lucky too. It had apparently gotten close to freezing, I had one line going into a toilet on an outside wall that had started to leak at one of the compression fittings, flooding part of the bathroom floor. But it wasn't too bad, no lasting damage. IDK if it actually froze or if it just got cold enough that it affected the connection. I didn't have to replace anything, just tightened it up.
You would think all thermostats would have a low temp failsafe mechanical thermostatic switch in there to put it on if the temp fell to below ~40. Some do, but mine didn't. I now have a Honeywell VisionPro which has batteries and power from the furnace too. If I was getting a new one, I'd go with one of those internet capable ones, so you can check and/or adjust it remotely. But I guess that comes with hacking possibilities too, would be bad to find out the North Koreans turned it up to 120F on me.
Same thing happened to me. It was the oven element. With all burners full on, the breaker did not break, so I figured it had to be the oven. Still under warranty, it was the oven.
Still doesn't tell you if the breaker is faulty and tripping early. I'd lean towards the oven though, under the cercumstances. Try the broiler instead of the lower (bake) element.
I've looked at all your responses that show up here and never did see the ? answered of whether the breaker will reset with the oven/burners all off?
If so, they try oven and then broiler and report results.
Are the burner elements all functional -- if so, that actually answers the first question.
There are just two connections to the element at the back of the oven wall behind the mounting plate -- turn the breaker off and remove the bake element and check continuity between the two leads when loose.
I've never had an element fail that actually wasn't obvious -- they make a good arc welder for just a second generally, but they could open without a catastrophic failure.
As Clare says, the particular oven/range would let us know the specific device...
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