Rav4Baby wrote:
Hi there,

I need some help to figure out why my range shorts out.

If I turn it on, but I just touch the indicator light (the little
light the size of your finger nail) that tells you the element is on,
the range breaker trips and then the main house breaker.

If I touch the on/off dial sometimes that trips the breaker too.
This is the 3rd time in 2 weeks. The 1st time was when I was cleaning
the dials with a damp cloth to remove some grease and that's when it
started happening.

This only happens to the controls on the right side of the range (the
side I cleaned). The left side doesn't seem to have the problem.

Anyone have ideas what is going on?


There's a loose connection or bare conductor that's getting moved when
you touch the controls/lights just right and ground it.

If you're comfortable looking for stuff like that, first trip the
breaker and take the rear cover off to expose the controls. If you're
lucky, the problem will be pretty evident.

If not, unless you know how to muck around in live power circuits w/o
getting yourself across somewhere you shouldn't, I'd suggest a repair
call is in your future.

I'd guess that simply looking at the controls in question w/o the power
will probably show up what is loose, making the problem though.

It's possible there could be a short inside the switch itself, too,
depending on how it and the indicator light are connected, but it
appears there's a mechanical movement causing the problem from the
description.

--