In my apartment I have a freestanding electrical oven/cooktop appliance. It was there when we started renting the unit and it certainly looks old, but I don't know how old it actually is.
For two months we used it regularly and had no problems. Then, one night, all the power went out while we were using the stovetop. The "Oven" switch had flicked off on our board, so I flicked it back on… but still no power. We went downstairs beneath the building to the electrical room and saw the master switch for our apartment had also flicked off. Flicked it back on, power restored.
Another month passed with no further problems. Then, last night, we had the exact same thing happen again. Doesn't appear to be tied to a particular element on the cooktop as we always use the same ones.
Is it unsafe to keep using this appliance? We currently can't afford to replace it.
And, as a side question, why would it present a problem so infrequently? I've never seen this before.
Best Answer
My guess is that the range is tripping the main breaker due to a marginal switch. Either that, or it depends on some combination of burners operating simultaneously in combination with some wiring fault in the range.
It probably is not safe, so I would discontinue using the range until it is fixed.