Home Improvement Product Reviews

May be dangerous, January 22, 2011

We bought this oven’s predecessor a number of years ago, and I’m writing this as a warning only because another reviewer experienced what sounds like the same problem on the current oven.

I’ll describe my oven. You’ll need to examine this oven to see if it has the same bad design features.

Here’s the problem: To keep the waste heat of the oven from damaging the cabinetry, the oven uses a squirrel cage fan to suck fresh air in through holes at the top of the oven, below the control panel (but outside the over itself). This air is then blown out through similar holes at the bottom of the oven enclosure. If those holes, which aren’t all that obvious, become obstructed in any way – with dust, grease, airborne cat hair, etc – the flow of air diminishes. This allows the oven enclosure to get too hot. Then one of two things can happen (both happened to us).

1. The thermal safety fuse on the back of the oven blows and shuts the oven off. The charge for this fuse, installed, is 0 – of which over 0 is the cost of the fuse itself.

2. Before that fuse blows, the extra heat rising to the top of the oven can deform the oven interlock assembly. This assembly includes a lock and a sensor that tells when the oven has been opened. When this is deformed, the oven will not unlock without disassembling the entire oven – not a good thing to happen in the middle of roasting something.

Our oven is (was!) self-cleaning, and the first time things failed it was during a cleaning cycle. The next two times it failed, it happened during ordinary baking, even though I was meticulous about keeping the air holes open.

When the interlock deformed I called Whirlpool. A new interlock would be 5, but they sold it to me for half price. When the second one went after only a few months I decided to remove the interlock and just not use the self-clean feature anymore (too dangerous to use w/o the interlock).

I wrote to Whirlpool and the CPSC complaining about what I thought was a flawed and possibly dangerous design. Whirlpool offered me a new oven for 10% off the LIST price. Thanks a lot.

The old oven works fine as an oven, though the broiler is really anemic, so I’ll keep it until it gives out. There’s no longer an interlock to deform, and there seems to be enough airflow to keep the thermal fuse from blowing at normal baking temps. I’ve gone back to EasyOff for oven cleaning, and that’s a whole lot less smelly than the self-clean was anyway.

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OVEN SHUTDOWN THERMAL FUSE blew on first self-cleaning cycle on new oven, September 2, 2010

By 

E. Miller “Miller” (sacramento,ca.USA) – See all my reviews

  

Nice oven, but OVEN SHUTDOWN THERMAL FUSE blew on first self-clean cycle. Oven only 1.5 years old, purchased new, professional installation. Recommend you don’t use self-clean cycle or plan to replace the fuse. Fuse is one-time use, can’t be reset. Local quote for fuse was for part, plus more for labor, got fuse online for delivered.

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