Will an electric oven fire ruin an oven thermostat.

[Ricky]

Is a fire in an electric oven likely to totally ruin the thermostat?

I had a fire a few days ago, put it out with an ABC fire extinguisher, and when I cleaned up the mess, I removed the bottom element and checked it for continuity. It was good.

Yet neither it nor the top oven element go on, even when set on Broil.

The top burners work fine.

OTOH, the fire was on the other side of the oven from the thermostat, about as far away as it could be; and I could only find one hit in google that referred to this and even it said just that the thermostat wouldn't be accurate anymore. And nothing else got physically damaged except the oven-door gasket and the plastic handle on one cheap table steak knife right above the fire.

What do you think?

[Hank]

I am not a repairman of ovens, but I would think that anything is possible after a fire. Did you check the upper element for continuity? Heat usually goes up, therefore, I would think the upper element would be harmed before the lower element. Are they connected in some way? I don't know, but check it anyway.

From the sounds of it, I think it would cheaper to get a new stove.

Maybe someone with more info will stop by and assist.

Hank

[Ed Pawlowski]

Depending on what all got heated, other damage may have happened. Before you spend a lot of money on this one, consider buying a new oven rather than replace a couple hundred bucks in parts and hours of labor.

[Ricky]

Are all these thermostats the same? Other than calibration. That is, can I get one out of a stove that's being thrown away, and if it's not the same brand, Whirlpool, maybe the knob won't fit or the temperatures won't match the numbers on the dial, but it will still control the temperature, right??

I mean, iiuc, the Broil element is still subject to the thermostat, unless one sets the thermostat to Broil, which keeps the element on all the time. Is that right? For a Whirlpool. I think the Bake element works the same way, yes?

The oven elements don't turn the red light on and neither element got hot. I guess it's the thermostat.

Not yet.

Me, too.

Only that they both go into the Bake/Broiler switch, but they're not connected there.

I really like this one, and I think thermostats are not that expensive, especially if I can get one out of a junk stove. The oven gasket seems to be about 31 dollars. That's a lot less than 500.

Harry, I guess I'll have to pull it away from the wall, and then I may end up leaving it like that until I fix it.

Thanks, Hank and Harry and Ed.

[Twayne]

It's not the thermostat, though it may no longer be accurate if it got too hot. It's the pilot adjustment and/or the eye that determines whether it lit or not, and/or the igniter isn't heating up because it got cracked in the cleanup. Yes, some ovens have BOTH a ingniter and a pilot that takes over after it's lit, so it can go up and down in heat production. Our GE is like that. IMO those are much more likely culprits. Then again if you want to start at low $ and work you way up, the thermostat will be the cheapest part. But you said it wasn't actually in the fire, so ... .

[krw]

Yup! Many years ago (approaching 40) my wife had an oven fire so threw in a box of baking soda. I asked her why she did that (the oven was never the same). Her:"Every time I opened the door it flamed up." Me:"Don't do that."