Oven Not Heating

Checks you can do safely before you call

If you smell gas, stop: don't light or start the appliance or work any switch or plug, leave the home and call your gas utility or 911 from outside.

1. Check the settings. Make sure no delay start, timed bake or Sabbath setting is active and the control lock is off. A range left in demo mode lights up and responds but never heats; the owner's manual shows how to turn that mode off.
2. Check the breaker. An electric range has a double breaker in your electrical panel, and a gas range still needs its 120-volt circuit for the igniter and the control. If the breaker has tripped, reset it once without removing the panel cover. If it trips a second time, don't keep resetting it; call instead.
3. Watch a gas oven try to light. Set Bake to 350°F, keep the door closed, stand back and watch through the window: the igniter should glow and the burner should light within a minute or two. If it glows longer with no flame, or the burner lights with a loud whoosh or bang, turn the oven off and leave it off until it's checked. Don't lift the oven floor, and never touch the burner, the igniter wiring or the gas valve.
4. Inspect an exposed bake element. With the breaker off and the oven fully cool, look along the lower element for a break, a blister or a burned spot. Skip this step if the element is hidden under a smooth oven floor.
5. Compare bake and broil. With power restored, run Broil for a few minutes with the door closed, standing back as in step 3, and see whether the top element glows or the broil burner lights. If your gas range broils in a drawer under the oven, bake and broil share one burner, so skip this step. Note which settings heat and which don't, then turn the oven off.

When to call a technician

• The igniter glows but the burner never lights, lights only after a long delay with a loud whoosh, or the igniter doesn't glow at all.
• An element is split, blistered or doesn't glow on its setting.
• The range breaker won't stay on.
• The oven stops well short of the set temperature, or runs far hotter.
• The oven quit right after a self-clean cycle, or an error code returns once the power is reset.

If the oven heats but bakes unevenly, uneven heating or hot spots is the closer guide, and self-cleaning problems covers ovens that fail during a clean.

What happens at the diagnostic visit

The technician confirms the symptom on bake and broil, reads any stored code and meters each part in the heating circuit: the igniter's current draw on a gas oven, the elements on an electric one, the temperature sensor, the thermal fuse and the control's output. On an electric range the supply voltage at the range is measured too.

The diagnostic visit is $89 for a standard residential appliance and $129 for a built-in unit or commercial equipment; a premium brand on its own doesn't make an appliance built-in. The repair price comes to you before anything is fixed. Our oven and range repair page lists the gas and electric ovens we work on.

Brand and model notes

• GE: on many GE electronic ranges and wall ovens, F3 and F4 codes point to the oven temperature sensor circuit, so the wiring and the control are tested along with the sensor. See GE.
• Whirlpool and Frigidaire: many gas ovens from both use a glow-bar igniter wired in series with the oven gas valve, which is why a weak igniter can glow without lighting. See Whirlpool and Frigidaire.
• Viking: many Viking gas ovens give the broil burner its own igniter, so an oven that broils but won't bake points to the bake igniter or its valve. See Viking.
• Thermador and Wolf: dual-fuel ranges from these brands pair a gas cooktop with an electric oven, so a cold oven points to an element, the sensor or the control rather than the gas side. See Thermador range and oven repair and Wolf.