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I haven't been pleased with our GE gas range that we purchased 7 or 8
years ago. The first issue was that the broiler door was almost
impossible to open. I had to take the door off and file down the
friction locking mechanism so that the door could open. It is still
a little stiff even now. The next issue showed up in the fall of 2006. We noticed that the oven started turning on all by itself. The burner would stay lit for less than a minute and then it would turn off. This kept happening. I finally called a repairman to come take a look at it. He opened up the top and removed the front panel. He said that the oven had been assembled improperly and tightened up some hardware and declared it fixed. That cost about $90 as I recall. He was right. The oven worked fine for several years. Earlier this year I received a phone call from Joyce while I was driving home from work. She said the oven was on and it wouldn't turn off. It was getting very very hot. I explained how to turn off the entire range by throwing the circuit breaker to the off position in the breaker panel box in the basement. I talked her through finding the right breaker and it did turn off the oven. As I recall, I then had her turn the breaker back on to see if the oven would stay off. It didn't, but came right back on. She turned the breaker off and left it off to cool down. Later when I tested the oven I was unable to repeat the behavior. This happened again a few months later. Again I was unable to repeat the behavior while testing. A few months later it happened again. This became a scary situation. What if the oven turned on by itself during the night and stayed on? This could potentially burn down the house. I leaned the range forward so that I could unplug it from the concealed outlet and brought the cord up to the counter top. From then on we started plugging the range in only when we used it. That worked for awhile, but then one Sunday when we made a double batch of brownies the oven didn't quite work right. The burner was cycling, but the temperature at which it was cycling was much hotter than the knob setting. The brownies were dry and crumbly and tasted burnt. That was the last straw! Ruined brownies! Previous to this I had researched the cost of a replacement thermostat. The prices ranged from about $110 at the GE parts store to $57 at some other online applicance part websites. This particular thermostat seems to be a common part used in lots of different appliances. I ordered one for $62 at an eBay website. It came a few days later and today I installed it. So far the oven seems to be working just fine. |
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IMG_1396.JPG 2.24 MB |
IMG_1397.JPG 2.36 MB |
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IMG_1400.JPG 2.43 MB |
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IMG_1401.JPG 2.35 MB |