On Tue, 13 Feb 2007 22:00:36 -0600, Mike Hartigan
wrote:

In article ,
says...
Hi Mike,

My apologies for asking this, but is this something relatively new or
has it always been this way? I don't have a lot of experience with
electric ovens because I've always used gas, but this time around I
had to settle for a combination unit because an all gas version wasn't
available.

When I was a kid (1960's), our old Frigidaire did this. Today (still
a kid only bigger), our new Thermador does this. (ours is dual fuel,
not because all gas wasn't available, but because we wanted the
advantages of dual fuel.)

I did experiment with mine just now and here's what I found. There
are basically three heating options I can choose: "bake", "broil" and
"convection" and as far as I can tell all three work independently of
each other. When I turn on "broil" I can safely leave my hand on the
lower bake element and it remains cool to the touch; likewise, the
broiler never comes on when I select "bake" and neither of these two
elements are used when I pick "convection" (that appears to be a third
element hidden somewhere inside the oven's back wall).

Our Thermador uses the upper for broiling (duh!), both the upper and
lower to preheat, switching to lower only to maintain temperature.
The convection setting has its own element.

[...]

My built-in oven (old Frigidaire electric) uses both elements when
baking. I found out then the upper element quit working (not a bad
element, but the connector). Food would burn on the bottom and still
be raw on top.
--
Mark Lloyd
http://notstupid.laughingsquid.com

"Unlike biological evolution. 'intelligent design' is
not a genuine scientific theory and, therefore, has
no place in the curriculum of our nation's public
school classes." -- Ted Kennedy