Come, follow the gripping saga of a blind, helpless grasshopper as he struggles with a cooling fan problem in his Jenn Air range. Watch with awe as Sublime Master “Trying To Help” leads him to the Promised Land of appliance enlightenment.
For more information about your range or to order parts, click here.
The most commonly misunderstood aspect of oven operation that we encounter in the field is oven temperature regulation. We find that many of our customers mistakenly believe that when they set their oven to cook at, say, 350ºF, that the oven will bake at exactly 350ºF for the duration of the cook. In fact, this is rarely the case.
The actual sequence of operation is this:
When the oven is initially turned on and set at the target bake temperature, again say 350ºF for illustrative purposes, the oven will fire the bake burner or energize the bake element until the thermostat senses that the oven temperature has overshot the target temperature by as much as 80ºF in some models. At this point, the thermostat will turn off the bake burner or de-energize the bake element until the oven cools to a temperature below the target temperature, again by as much as 80ºF in some models. The end result is that the oven cooks at an average temperature of 350ºF (again, in this example).
The better, higher-end ovens will have tighter deviations from the target temperature but the basic operation is the same: all ovens achieve the target temperature by an average of the temperature fluctuations above and below the target.
“But,” you may ask, “if that’s true, why does that cheap oven thermometer I bought at the hardware store read 350ºF when I set the oven to 350ºF?” Or, “How come it now says it’s 425ºF in the oven when I set it to 350ºF?” The answer is that the oven thermometers that you place in the oven are, by design, slow to react to temperature variations in the oven so you are, in effect, reading an average temperature on your hardware-store thermometer.
The other possibilities are that your thermometer is showing you an erroneous reading or that your oven thermostat calibration has actually changed. Many people don’t realize that it requires a sophisticated thermocouple-type thermometer to measure temperature accurately and precisely. If your oven thermostat seems to be out of calibration, don’t despair–most thermostats can be recalibrated and adjusted.
To learn more about your range/stove/oven, or to order parts, click here.
Recommended Reading:
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name = Greg
email = *********@yahoo.com
country = USA
comments = You have given me a TON of info about my dryer vent, and I appreciate it. Can you help me with the one problem that is driving me mad? I can’t get my vent to stay attached to the back of my drier! Is it safe to use duct tape to tape it in place? How long does the hose have to be? My dryer is close to a wall (in a closet) and I am wondering if I am using too long a vent hose and this might be making it easier for the thing to fall off. OH GREAT SAMURAI, HELP ME!!!
Please open your appliance repair hymnal to page 127: The Ultimate Dryer Venting Guide. Wherein it is written… well, lots of stuff about dryer venting and dryer venting materials. Of particular interest to you would be the 4″ vent hose clamps at the bottom of the list. Here’s a free tip: always make your 90-degree turns using a pre-formed, aluminum fitting, such as this one. And the spiral-wound slinky hose should only be used sparingly, to make tricky connections. See The Ultimate Dryer Venting Guide for lots of other dryer vent construction materials and kits.
As for dryer vent length, that depends on several things, like the vent material, number of turns and bends, and type of discharge hood. The diagram shown here explains, click it for a larger view.
For more information about your dryer or to order parts, click here.
Or not. You know the drill: you have a broken appliance but you’re dreading calling Cheeky the Repairclown. Good news: you don’t have to! Fix it yourself and save big bucks. This website is all about helping you fix your own appliances so you don’t have to gouge out your eyeballs after getting an eye full of Cheeky in action.
So let me list all the helps available to you here at this cornucopia of appliance repair help:
So grab a tall mug of your flavorite fermented grain beverage, get comfy and look around. The truth is out there… here, I mean; the truth is here.
This website has over 3,000 pages packed with pearls of appliance repair wisdom just waiting for you to feast your bleary, blood-shot squinties upon them. Just use the search form below.
In my vast and awesome experience running this website for 10 years now, I’ve realized that most people don’t know how to use a search function. Quick review: in searching, always start with the most general terms and then add terms to narrow your search. For example, if you have a Maytag Neptune MAH3000AWW that leaks, your first search should be something like, “washer leak.” Then, to narrow the results, progressively add more terms such as, “Maytag,” or “Neptune.” Ok, now you try…
I can’t believe it was 10 years ago this month that I registered the domain name, Fixitnow.com, and started this do-it-yourself appliance repair website. Yay me!
Seems to be a lot of confusion about this among Grasshoppers. And lots of people have at least one major appliance on a GFI, usually the refrigerator on the kitchen GFI circuit. But most appliance manufacturers explicitly state that GFIs should not be used on appliances. For more info, see this topic in the Samurai Appliance Repair Forum.
In stock and ready to ship; 30-day money-back guarantee; 100% safe and secure ordering; next-day delivery available. Click it to git it.
Jenn Air Cartridge – Radiant Element (Manufacturer’s Number AR141B) – Expressions Collection. Black.
Jenn Air Cartridge – Radiant Element (Manufacturer’s Number A122W) – Smooth top stove cartridge, white trim. Designer Line. White
Jenn Air Grill Cover (Manufacturer’s Number A341) – Electric Designer Line. Black.
Nickfixit, a veteran appliance servicer with a large, national retail and appliance service company and one of the fine Sublime Masters of Appliantology in the Samurai Appliance Repair Forum, offered this erudite analysis of the ill-fated Whirlpool Calypso washing machine. Take ye heed…
Ok, I can see Whirlpool had good intentions when they came out with the Calypso. They wanted it to work, but things pretty much went to sh1t. So over the years, Whirlpool has brought out the Duet and now the Cabrio to meet the high efficiency needs of todays market. As the Calypso’s die off, we steer them to the new, and better, product. So far, so good.
But, today I had a customer who had an older Calypso die when covered under a service contract. They replaced it with a NEW Calypso. Here we are waiting for these fetid piles of stinking monkey dung to die off and go away, and these stupid bastards are putting brand new units in peoples homes. This is the last straw, if they are going to be this stupid, I going to start telling the CUSTOMERS what I think.
Some things I have or will say…
“I hate to even touch these, I don’t want the stench of failure to follow me all day.”
“I wouldn’t take one of these as a gift.”
“A child could have built a better machine.”
“I could fix it so it’s like new, but that ain’t saying much.”
Or maybe I should tell every customer to do a web search for “Calypso class action suit.”
Nick
So, we just completed a detailed and exhaustive accounting of all the income and expenses associated with running Fixitnow.com and the Samurai Appliance Repair Forum and we discovered something verrrry interestink: the forum generates less than 7% of the revenue that the main site, Fixitnow.com, does yet it comprises more than 82% of the overhead because of higher hosting fees and bandwidth charges! In other words, I’m losing my a$$ running this forum. 😯
But I figured out a way to keep the forum running…
Access to the forum will continue to be free on a read-only basis. As an unregistered user (Lurking at the Threshold), you will not be able to search the forum, send private messages, start a new topic or reply to an existing topic. As a registered user (Grasshopper), still free, you may search the forum (a very server CPU time-intensive operation which was causing problems with the server). But in order to start a new topic or reply to an existing topic, Grasshoppers will need to pay a one-time access fee of $5, after which they’ll be promoted to Apprentice Appliantologist and have full posting rights forever. BTW, if you have ever donated any amount over $5 to the United Samurai Beer Fund, you don’t need to pay the one-time forum fee– just let me know the email address from which you made the donation and, wallah!, I’ll make you an Apprentice Appliantologist.
In order to get posting access, first register as a Grasshopper and then go to the “Subscriptions” tab in your account and select, “Lifetime Membership in the Samurai Appliance Repair Forum,” here’s the direct link.
Of course, professional appliance techs will never be charged because they contribute to the forum intellectually by answering questions. If you’re a professional appliance tech and would like to participate in the forum, just contact me (samurai _AT_ fixitnow.com) or one of the forum moderators and you’ll get promoted to Master Appliantologist without ever having to pay the one-time fee. The idea is to only charge a one-time nominal fee to Grasshoppers and then *only* if they’d like to post in the forum.
This forum is successful and popular because people get expert help from lots of different techs. Thanks for helping to ensure that the Samurai Appliance Repair Forum will continue to be here both now and the next time you need help fixing your broken appliances! 8)
As long-time readers of these hallowed electrons know, Fixitnow.com Samurai Appliance Repair Man awards the widely-acclaimed Intergalactic Samurai-Approved Certification (ISAC) each year to an outstanding bidness in the appliance repair field. I am pleased to announce that RepairClinic.com has earned the coveted ISAC for 2006.
Recently, I flew the Samurai Learjet to Detroit and visited the good folks at RepairClinic.com, the biggest (and best) online appliance parts store. When I landed at Detroit Metro, I was pleased to see that the limousine was already there waiting for me.
At their brand-new, modern, 72,000 square-foot facility in Canton, MI, the Repairclinic machine hums away, day and night, taking orders and shipping out parts all over the US (Canada coming soon! …maybe …hopefully 
)– a very impressive and high-tech operation. Here’s an aerial shot of the Samurai inspecting the RepairClinic facility and staff.
So, how did RepairClinic earn the coveted and cherished ISAC? Well, for starters, all orders are received, processed, and shipped right from their own facility in Canton, MI. This means you get your parts FAST. In fact, almost all orders are shipped the same day the order is received. All the other online parts stores use some other third party, unknown to you, for order fulfillment. In addition to increasing costs for you and delaying your shipment, these kinds of third-party arrangements also complicates things like returns. Speaking of returns…
If you click through any link on this website to get to RepairClinic, such as this one, and order parts, you can return that part, no matter what it is, for any reason, even electrical parts! Lemme run that last part by you again in case you missed it, Slick: …even electrical parts. This is unheard of in all the dark, murky underworld of home appliances. I dare you to find any other vendor with a similar policy. No, I DOUBLE dare you!
But, of course, it wasn’t all work during my visit to RepairClinic; we made time for socializing and getting to know each other. For example, here’s a picture of me cracking up RepairClinic’s CEO, Larry Beach (right), and President, Chris Hall (left), with my really cool Darth Vader imitation. Good times, good times.
Congratulations to the RepairClinic Team! 
If you suspect that your oven temperature is off, the first thang you gotta do is get an accurate temperature reading inside that oven. That means you need to start with an accurate thermometer. Your assessment of your oven’s temperature accuracy is only as good as the thermometer you’re using. So, start with an accurate thermometer, such as this one to verify the actual temperature of the oven.
During the course of my vast and awesome experience practicing the ancient martial art of Fixite Do, I’ve learned that most inexpensive dial thermometers are no more accurate than the oven’s built-in thermostat, which are notoriously inaccurate. To get a good reading, I always use a thermocouple-type thermometer. Oh, I know, that’s a big ol’ expensive-sounding title but I have one that’s very well suited for this purpose and at a good price. Check it out, Hoss.
Ovens take time to reach the temperature you set. Even a preheat cycle only gets the oven temperature close to where you’ve set it. To get an accurate reading, let the oven cycle on and off at least three times, which takes about 20 minutes.
Also, even the best oven thermostats have an ‘acceptable range’ of operation. This means that most manufacturers consider a thermostat in perfect working operation if it can achieve an oven temperature within 25 degrees of what you’ve set it to. For example, if you’ve set your oven to 350 degrees, it is acceptable for the actual temperature to be 325-375 degrees. That’s one of the reasons recipes typically offer a range of time for baking. Plus, factors like humidity and altitude also affect baking time.
Too many technicians have tried to satisfy a customer by replacing a thermostat that was 25 degrees low – only to find the new one is 25 degrees high! That’s why you need an accurate thermocouple-type oven thermometer to double-check the calibration of the oven’s thermostat.
To learn more about your range/stove/oven, or to order parts, click here.
This is usually a bad motor. Follow the gripping saga of one grasshopper’s valiant struggle with this noisy problem.
Here we are well into Autumn, the grills are getting stored for winter and you’re re-discovering your oven… only to find, to your utter shock and dismay, that your strategy of fixing the oven by ignoring it all summer and using the outside grill exclusively completely failed to fix anything in the oven. So, here, now, are three pearls of wisdom for the most common oven problems.
Gas Oven Doesn’t Bake Fast Enough
When the food takes far too long to finish cooking, you may have a weak bake igniter. “No, I know the ignitor’s good because I saw it glowing.” Oh, please, stop embarrassing yourself and just keep reading… quietly.
Often, you need to replace the igniter even if it seems to glow properly; this condition is often misdiagnosed as a gas valve failure. If you want to know for sure, you’ll need to spend about $100 for a clampon ampmeter, learn how to use it, which means you’ll need to read more *gasp*, understand how gas control circuits work so that you can interpret the current draw measurement of the ignitor. Or you could just use the generally-accepted rule of thumb: the gas should ignite 1 to 3 minutes after the igniter begins glowing. If it takes much longer than this, then your ignitor is bad– come git you one.
For additional potential causes of uneven baking see the range/stove/oven repair help for your specific oven type.
The Broiler in Your Gas Oven Won’t Broil
No broiler flame – This is usually caused by a weak or burned out broiler igniter. Hmm, where have we heard this before… oh yeah, see above; it’s like weird science except there’s really nothing weird about it, pretty straight-forward stuff.
The igniter (bake or broil) is a small, round or rectangular device, about 1 inch by 4 to 8 inches. Look for the igniter near the tube-type device (burner) that the gas flows through before it’s ignited. The burner has small holes on the sides where the gas when ignited forms a long, low flame. If the igniter is weak, if it glows red but doesn’t get hot enough, or if it’s burned out, the gas doesn’t flow to the burner and the burner won’t ignite. If this is the problem, you may need to replace the igniter. You can find a replacement igniter for your oven with the PartDetective.
The Oven Light Doesn’t Work
The interior oven light in most ovens (gas and electric) is a standard 40 watt appliance bulb. Often, to change the bulb, you first need to remove a shield or glass dome. It may help to see a breakdown diagram of your range before proceeding on your repair odyssey. If the bulb isn’t burned out, the problem may be with the switch on the oven door frame. If the switch works poorly, intermittently, or not at all then it’s FUBAR and you will need to replace it— it ain’t repairable, Hoss.
Some clear guidelines and cogent discussion on dryer venting principles in this repair forum topic.
Jenn Air Cartridge – Conventional Coil, Stainless Steel (Manufacturer’s Number A100) – Designer Collection. Stainless steel.
Jenn Air Cartridge – Conventional Coil, Black (Manufacturer’s Number A100B) – Designer Collection. Black.
Jenn Air Griddle – Electric (Manufacturer’s Number A302) – Electric Designer Line. Griddle for electric range or cooktop.
Jenn-Air Griddle for Gas Range – Designer Line (Manufacturer’s Number AG302) – Jenn-Air Designer Line griddle for gas range. (Manufacturer Number AG302) 
Jenn Air Cartridge – Gas Two-Burner Module (Manufacturer’s Number AG202MG) – Porcelain-on-cast-iron burner grates. White with matte gray grates.
Jenn Air Cartridge – Radiant Element (Manufacturer’s Number A122B) – Stove cartridge assembly, smooth top, black. Designer Line.
Jenn Air Cartridge – Energy Saver Electric Grill Assembly (Manufacturer’s Number A158) – Designer Line. Excalibur nonstick grill grate finish. 2800-watt grill element. For cooktop or range.
