Oven Repair in La Jolla

An electric oven uses a bake element along the floor (sometimes hidden under the floor panel) and a broil element across the ceiling. During preheat, many models run both, then cycle the bake element to hold temperature. An element that has failed often shows a visible blister, split or bright spot; others look perfect and simply read open on a meter. Convection models add a third element wrapped around a rear fan.

A gas oven is more interesting. It uses a hot-surface igniter, a gray or silver glow bar, wired in series with a safety valve. The valve only opens when enough current flows through the igniter, and that current drops as the igniter ages. So an older igniter can glow orange, look completely healthy, and still not draw enough to open the valve. The result is an oven that glows, never lights, and slowly loses heat, or one that takes a minute or more to light and then preheats very slowly. Testing current draw, not just glow, is how we separate a weak igniter from a bad valve.

Broil on a gas oven uses either a second burner at the top of the cavity or the same lower burner in a drawer below, depending on the design. If bake works and broil doesn't, the broil igniter is the usual answer.