Oven cooking differently after changing element

Soldato
Joined
14 Dec 2005
Posts
5,060
Seems like the oven isn't as hot since changing the element....things taking longer and not going crispy as easily!
I kinda thought maybe the new element is just a different wattage/rating, but surely if you set the temp to 180 or whatever then it shouldn't make a difference? Where does it take the temp reading from?
I cleaned the oven with Monsieur Muscle oven cleaner since it was in bits anyway...could that have done something to the thermostat?
 
I had to change the thermostat in ours last year, ours went and it basically failed to read the temp. They are a sealed unit so other than physical damage I dont really know how getting anything onto them would cause them to misread.

Odd because you have the same symptom as me, in that before I changed ours when our old one was working correctly we could pretty much go by any packet/recipe for cooking time/temp

Since the new one it seems to be under temp.I did use a meat probe sense and that seemed to agree about 10degress lower. We tend to add 10 degrees now to the indicated and most of the time thats fine.
However we do find some things that should cook quickly, say a fresh pizza seem to require longer. If anything I suspect the fan. Its possible it could be an element as well (if there are multiple)

When using the meat probe was interesting to watch the temp. If set to 180 on dial it would seem to get to about 170 on the probe, you could hear it click off. Then it would carry on rising to about 175, then start to drop, reach about 165 click back on, but still drop a few degrees before the warming from the element started to raise the temp again. Rinse repeat, about twice a minute for the whole cycle.

Have you tried anything to see what sort of temp you are getting?
 
Not got anything that could be put in the oven to measure temp but will get an oven thermometer and give it a try.

Like you say tho it just seems to be a less volatile heat now! With pizza etc.

I never paid much attention to how long it took to warm up etc before but pretty sure that takes longer now too....it's just different!
 
Could you have disturbed some of the fans while replacing the element? If the "fan" section of your oven isn't working, it won't distribute heat as well as it used to.
 
Only fan I saw was the one which the element surrounds.
That's prob a good way to describe it tho....it's now functioning more like a non fan oven.

Will investigate later
 
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