Broken oven - Thermostat or element. How do I tell?

[Kermit power]

My oven isn't heating up at all.

I am told this means either the element or the thermostat has died.

Can anyone tell me how to figure out which one it is that has gone? Fixing it myself becomes less economical if I have to buy both parts and go trial or error!

[Kermit power]

Thanks!

It's a Smeg DUC08CSS.

[Kermit power]

eastlmark said:

I have these in stock £30 delivered genuine spare. email me if interested.

Oh bugger. Should've checked back into the thread before ordering elsewhere. You would've been cheaper too.

[Kermit power]

Kermit power said:

eastlmark said:

I have these in stock £30 delivered genuine spare. email me if interested.

Oh bugger. Should've checked back into the thread before ordering elsewhere. You would've been cheaper too.

Scratch that! I've just gone back onto the laptop to discover I hadn't clicked the last button on Paypal, so the order hadn't gone through! Email on its way.

[Kermit power]

Oddly, you are both correct!

It is indeed the built under model, but we had it moved to eye level when we had a new kitchen fitted.

Googling the model number only comes up with a single option for elements, so I assume it must be the one?

[Kermit power]

Well, I've finally got around to getting the back off the oven to fit the new element. All looks simple enough, but the insulation in the back of the oven is rather blackened. Apologies for the crapness of the pic!



Is this normal in a 6yr old oven, or is it something to worry about? It's sticky, and seems more likely to be grease that's escaping from the back of the actual ovens when it's in use rather than burning due to excess heat.

Needless to say, I'm fairly keen not to burn the house down!

[Kermit power]

vladcjelli said:

Did the OP get it all back up and running okay?

The new element is in. Now I'm just waiting for bloody Smeg to get off their fat Italian arses and send Mark up above the replacement seals so that I can finish the job!

[Kermit power]

To finish off the thread from my perspective, it turned out that the thermostat had seemingly blown as well as the element, but rather than failing to heat up at all, it had been failing to stop heating until some sort of emergency cut-off had been activating and switching the entire oven off to cool down. I imagine this is what had blown the element in the first place.

Having had a Smeg dishwasher fail three times in 5 years, a Smeg extractor hood fail after 4 and then a Smeg oven effectively on its third failure in 5 years as well, I decided it simply wasn't worth fixing the heap of junk again, only for it to fail once more probably within a year or two!

It therefore got replaced by a De Dietrich oven with pyrolitic cleaning cycle which is absolutely outstanding! Of course, I have to keep the faith that it will run longer than Smeg rubbish without breaking, but it surely can't be worse!

[Kermit power]

threadlock said:

Kermit power said:

It therefore got replaced by a De Dietrich oven with pyrolitic cleaning cycle which is absolutely outstanding! Of course, I have to keep the faith that it will run longer than Smeg rubbish without breaking, but it surely can't be worse!

OP, how's your De Dietrich oven getting along?

As an oven, it's brilliant, but that's already had an element replaced under warranty!

[Kermit power]

Kermit power said:

threadlock said:

Kermit power said:

It therefore got replaced by a De Dietrich oven with pyrolitic cleaning cycle which is absolutely outstanding! Of course, I have to keep the faith that it will run longer than Smeg rubbish without breaking, but it surely can't be worse!

OP, how's your De Dietrich oven getting along?

As an oven, it's brilliant, but that's already had an element replaced under warranty!

And as a further update, it's gone through a second element, this time out of warranty, but a new one cost the the princely sum of £30.54 including P&P and about half an hour to fit it, so still very happy with the oven.

I've never previously had one with a bread mode that I could set at 265 degrees. It's amazing for making pizza!