Oven tripping electric

J

Jensen.

New member
Hello

A tenant has advised me the oven in the home where he is living is tripping the electrics

The oven is a Candy brand and has 2 sections. The section in question is the bottom half which is fan assisted. The oven was fitted from new circa 6 years ago when the kitchen was renovated

He has advised me that once the (bottom) oven has been switched on, all the electrics in the property will cut off after 30~60 seconRAB. The top half works fine as does the gas and all other electrical appliances within the property

I saw this link which indicates it could be the element. The video is excellent too and makes it look very easy and cost effective to remedy (assuming it is of course the element)

I clearly need to go see whats going on myself and may give Candy a call but thought I'd ask here first if anybody has any advice..

Thanks
 
It will be the element, or one of them if there's more than one.
Our oven did the same, one of the three elements in the oven went and that tripped everything in the house.
Something to do with current draw and ring mains and a big fancy fuse seperate from the individual fuses.
Anyway, it surprised me that an element blowing could trip the whole house too, I thought we'd had a power cut!
Not hard to replace element yourself, but our oven has parts + labour guarantee, so I let them do it!
 
yeah our old one went too, easy enough job. Whenever the oven is used, leave the door open and set the temp to lowest setting and let it cool down. Don't switch it off from 200 degrees leaving the door closed and the circulation fan off, the elements will overheat.

Talking of which the fan in our 2 year old Hotpoint will rotate by itself, need to give it a push. Probably gunky bearings?
 
I replaced my oven element initially with one of the cheaper compatible ones. It lasted less than 12 months. I'ts worth considering paying extra for the manufacturers genuine spare.
 
Thanks for the replies

I will pop over there tomo and get the model nuraber from the oven and order a suitable replacement part. I hope it does turn out to be just the element (I've read about issues with fuses, fans etc)

I recognise the benefit in often purchasing original parts however the tenant moves out in 7 weeks in preparation for the property to then be sold. So whilst it's not a tremendous amount, I am concious of keeping costs to a sensible minimum
 
If the oven is brand new I doubt it is the oven elements breaking down. What tenRAB to happen is when these ovens are in storage the mineral insulation in the elements tend to absorb moisture which can trip the rcd. Is the circuit protected my a 30ma or 100ma rcd?

edit I read the op's post wrong on my phone, scrap that advice, I thought it was a new oven.
 
How do ovens betray the 2nd law of thermo dynamics?

Once the element is turned off, something it will do many times while the power is on anyway, the whole system will cool slowly. If anything leaving the door open could cause more damage by cooling things quickly compared to if it was left closed.
 
Slap in a new element Coffin and all will be well. If you got six years out of the last one that isn't bad at all. There is an Urban Myth/Legend that you can extend the life of an element by cooling it down before turning the fans off, but I know of no evidence to support it. I'm happy to be proven wrong though , (and yes I know there is one manufacturer whose fans run on while it's still hot)
 
I cant for the life of me think why. When you set an oven to max for example the element will heat the oven up to temp, once at temp the element will turn off. Once it cools too much the element will turn on and heat the oven again etc etc etc.

If you cut the power it will turn the element off and everything will cool down. In my eyes if it cooled down too quickly that would risk damage to the element more than leaving to cool slowly.

And anyway, the element is the source of all heat in an oven, it is the hottest part. For the element to overheat the 2nd law of thermo dynamics would be broken as a cold (cooler) thing (the rest of the oven) would be heating up a warm thing(the element)
 
I think the argument goes that the element never gets to full temperature with the fans blowing and so, like covering a fan heater, the element can overheat when the fans stop running. Which of course might be a problem if the power to the elements wasn't cut at the same time as the power to the fans. It also seems to ignore the fact that ordinary oven elements survive quite happily at >500 deg C without any fans to cool them down.
 
It's the same principle as LCD projectors. The fan continues to blow out the hot air, rather than fan is switched off and hot air stays inside the optics.
 
This oven (and last one, I think) has a vent above the door.
When you switch the oven off and close the door, any residual heat in the oven is blown out of the vent.
Is this the oven using the fan to cool the element?
I thought it was a safety issue, but maybe it's a part-saving exercise?
 
I've had a couple of ovens where the fan runs until the oven has cooled down. Different manufacturers as well. Not sure if it makes a difference or not though.
 
It's to stop the glass door getting too hot so it's a safety issue, normally its a completely different fan so that air doesn't go anywhere near the heating elements. In fact if it did it wouldn't work very well if you think about it. Usuallly they draw air from behind/under the oven, drag it across under the hob unit to stop that getting too hot and blow it between two sheets of glass in the oven door, finally coming out of that vent at the front.
 
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