Oven and stove repair

Electric oven

Set bake to 350°F and look through the window. The lower element should glow. Broil uses the upper element. If the lower element has a blister or a break in the sheath, it is finished. If neither element glows and the display is blank, check the breaker. A double oven can trip one pole and leave the cooktop working.

Uneven cakes with a working glow are sometimes a bad sensor, and sometimes a pan blocking the floor of the cavity. One test bake on the center rack, with the oven preheated, tells you which.

Gas cooktop

A burner that clicks and does not light usually has a wet igniter or a port clogged with boiled-over starch. Dry the burner cap and head, seat the cap flat, and try again. If the other burners light, the spark module is fine and the fault is that one burner. A burner that lights and then blows out when you turn it down needs the shutter or the cap seating checked, not a new range.

Gas oven

The igniter has to draw enough current to open the gas valve. A weak igniter glows orange for a minute or more and the burner never comes on. That is a standard repair. Do not keep retrying a gas oven that you can smell. Shut it off, air the kitchen, and if the smell stays, leave and call the gas utility.

Door lock after self-clean

The lock stays engaged until the cavity cools, sometimes for an hour. Forcing the latch bends the hook. If it is still locked after the oven is cool to the touch, the lock motor or the temperature sensor is the part a technician tests.