In article ,
"Martin P Matthews" says...
We just bought a cooker which may not have been the bargain it appeared
at first. It's a dual fuel and the main element in the oven doesn't work
- no major problem (thinks I) I'll just fit a new one so we bought it.

The trouble is that when I went to remove the element the wiring on the
back had me puzzled. I expected three wires (I'm clever like that) -
negative, positive and earth.

A heating element will usually have only two connections - live and
neutral. Earth will be provided by contact with the chassis.

The earth is fine but the negative and
positive terminals are wired/bridged together (to each other!). It
doesn't surprise me therefore that the element doesn't work (it shows a
complete circuit so may be OK but looks dodgy so probably will have to
go anyway)!

How have you decided which connection is which? AC does not have -ve
and +ve, it has live and neutral. If these were bridged together
than there would be a bang when it was connected, after which they
wouldn't be connected any more.

There do not appear to be any spare wires dangling down so I am guessing
someone has been at it and messed it up. I'm OK with the multimeter so
should be able to track the relevant wires down but have no idea what is
going on in cookers so don't know where to plug them when I find them.
Should the +ve and -ve wires run straight to the element or does the
current have to go through another component and then to the element?

I strongly suspect that you shouldn't be messing around with things
that you don't appear to understand.