On Wednesday, September 6, 2017 at 2:14:36 PM UTC-4, KenK wrote:
trader_4 wrote in
:

On Wednesday, September 6, 2017 at 10:38:53 AM UTC-4, Ed Pawlowski
wrote:
On 9/6/2017 9:43 AM, KenK wrote:
Oven conked out while cooking yesterday. Found 240V breaker
tripped. Reset it and tried again, Breaker tripped again. Now to
figure out if problem is in the breaker or the oven. I'm hoping the
breaker.

Can't figure out how to tell which without replacing the breaker.
I'm afraid I'm not strong enough any more to pry that old breaker
out of the box so I'll have to call an expensive electrician.

Hoping breaker more likely to trip if worn out than oven to short
circuit - I'd think oven heating element would open up instead, but
what do I know?

Guesses? Suggestions? I'd like to get my oven back at a reasonable
cost,

TIA



Rare that a breaker goes bad under normal circumstances. I'd bet on
the oven. When you said you tried it again, did you mean you turned
the oven on and it tripped again? If so, that would make it an
oven, not breaker problem.

Along those lines, does it trip with the oven off?

Don't know. Just reset it. Will check tomorrow to see if it tripped.

If it trips
on oven bake, does it trip on broil?, etc. I'd agree the oven is
far more likely than the breaker.






Heating elements go bad on a regular basis. Sometimes they break,
other times they just short out. If you can get a good look at the
element you may even see the problem.

The element will only cost $20 to $30 and they are not difficult to
replace, but it may take more agility than you have. Figure about
$100 for a service call if you go that route.


Here is a recent crazy story of how easy it is to jump to wrong
conclusions and go down the wrong track. I have a 5 year old
Kitchenaid side by side fridge. One morning I opened it up and there
was no light, the control panel display was out, etc. Not good,
right? So, first thing I did was go check the breaker panel. There
was a tripped breaker. Not good right? So, I reset the breaker, it
held. I go back upstairs, fridge is still dead. VEry bad, right?
So, I pull it out, then test the outlet for power. There is power
there. Next I pull the back cover off the fridge, go online looking
for schematics, etc. to figure out what could be wrong. No breaker
or anything in the fridge. So, I plug it in and start tracing the
wires measuring continuity from the end of the plug to points in the
fridge, everything seems OK. I plug the fridge back in and start
probing for AC at various points, first it's there, then it looked
like it was gone, but with a test probe, you're never sure if what you
saw was because the probe moved a bit etc.

To make a long story short, what it turned out to be was the
receptacle was bad. This fridge is counter depth, they use one of
those flat style plugs where the cord winds up perpendicular to and
against the wall. I've seen those before, but this one, the cable
comes off it at a 45 deg angle, so there is always torque on the plug.
I have no doubt that contributed to the failure.

So, the only remaining mystery is why did the breaker trip? I
pondered that for a day, couldn't come up with a good reason, except
maybe if it was going on and off, it could have gotten to an overload
that way, but these new fridges use so little power and have overload
protection, that didn't seem likely. Finally it dawned on me. I was
doing some work in a rarely used bathroom and had turned the breaker
for that off a couple weeks earlier. When I went looking for a
tripped breaker, I saw one open, figured it had to be the fridge and
reset that one. The fridge breaker had never tripped, it was just the
bad receptacle. But I was happy, cost of the repair was just a
receptacle and a morning of screwing around. Also very lucky that I
caught it and fixed it without losing the food in the fridge.

I should be so lucky!




--
I love a good meal! That's why I don't cook.

If you're unsure if it's the oven or wiring, etc, I would not leave
the breaker on when no one is around. For example, it's possible there
is a fault in the wiring somewhere that could start a fire even with
the oven off.