Oven has power, preheat light is off, but no heat

ovenrangestove

Question

If my oven has electricity and is set to bake, but the preheat light is off and there is absolutely no heat, what is the likely cause, and how do I find out without buying new parts one by one?

Details

I have a Hotpoint Hallmark electric two-oven range, circa 1973. The model number, listed as CATALOG NO. on the inside of the bottom oven door, is R HV757002WH. The closest I have found online is RHV757 or RHV757*02. It has a small oven on top, a four-burner cooktop in the middle, and a large oven on the bottom. All together, the unit is about 5'10" tall. All the controls for both ovens and the cooktop are on the top oven, which tells me that it must have come as a single unit. My question concerns the bottom oven; the top oven has issues too, which I will describe for completeness, but this question focuses on the bottom oven.

Bottom oven

Yesterday we discovered that the bottom oven does not heat at all. It worked fine as recently as three days ago. The bake heating element looks fine.

Though there is never any heat, the preheat light only turns on for certain dial settings:

  • Off: light off, no heat
  • Halfway between Off and Bake: light on, no heat
  • Bake: light off, no heat
  • Time Bake: light on, no heat
  • Clean (with shield up and latch closed and time dials set appropriately): light off, no heat
  • Broil: light on dimly, no heat

By the way, the broiler in the bottom oven stopped working a while ago, and I have not done anything about it yet. I got this mixed up with the top oven. The broiler in the bottom oven stopped working when the bake element stopped working in the last day or two. It now produces no heat, just like the bake element, though they both worked fine three days ago.

Top oven

The top oven has started doing two undesirable things:

  1. It is cooking about 130 degrees too hot.
  2. The bake element is making little points of light, almost like sparks.

I don't know if this is related to the bottom oven not heating at all. I realize that the sparks mean I should probably replace the bake element, which I will when a new one arrives.

By the way, the broiler in the top oven stopped working a while ago, and I have not done anything about it yet.

Stove

All four stove burners work as expected.

What have I tried?

I attempted to remove the temperature sensor so I could test it with a multimeter. I couldn't get it out. One of the wires must be wrapped around something back in the oven. I can see and even touch the plastic socket, but I can't get it through the hole because the wire goes back into the oven instead of directly out the hole. (I should have taken photos…sorry.) So I would need to pull out the whole unit, and I'm not sure how to do it.

Best Answer

Electric ovens use heating elements to create heat. These are prone to "wear out" over a long period of time. The typical way that these fail is by going open (meaning no heat produced). This website (https://www.partselect.com/Range-Stove-Oven+Baking-Element-Testing+repair.htm) has good information on how to test and replace the element(s).

I suspect the problem with your top broiler might be a wore out element as well. Might as well check them both while you are looking at it.

Related Topic