PSA: Gas Ovens

[Closeacademy]

Sharing our story in hopes that it helps prevent someone from having a fire.

 

We had a scary one at our house on Tuesday night.  The house was hot and we'd been baking things off and on all afternoon but it had been over an hour since we turned it off.  I went and checked the knobs on the stove and they were all in the off position but the stove top was still really hot. We looked inside and there were no flames that we could see.

 

But even a few hours later the house was still really hot and the air was working and the stove was even hotter than it was before.  So hot that my husband had to use hot pads to move the stove.  He turned off the gas but the oven was still burning hot.  So he unplugged it and it finally quit.

 

We talked to our heating and air guy and he said that it happens some times with gas ranges.  The temperature gauge stops working and they get to be 8-900 degrees.  

 

Warning signs that we see now thinking back on things:

 

The oven has been running hot, so hot that I would turn it down 25 degrees from what was suggested when cooking.

It was burning things like rolls in 5 minutes or so.

It started burning other things even with reduced temps and times.

The top of the oven was hot after baking more that it should have been.

 

So it you have a gas oven be careful.  Ours was about 8 years old and a GE.  I'm just grateful that I listened to my inner voice and kept checking things out instead of going to bed.  Our whole house could have burned down.

[Guest]

My parents had that happen with an electric oven. It just wouldn't stop getting hot one day. The scary part is that my parents are farmers so they often put something in the oven and go outside to work for awhile. Never leave an oven or a dryer unattended.

[MEmama]

Yikes!

Glad you are okay!

[SparklyUnicorn]

Wow!  Never heard of something like that.  Glad it ended up ok.  Guess you need a new oven now though. 

[EmilyGF]

Thanks for posting! Never thought of that.

 

My parents were really strict about never letting the dryer run when people where gone or asleep, and while I've followed that rule all my adult life, I knew I was basically the only one. I asked my parents about it recently and it turns out friends of ours had their house burn down when a dryer fire started. So, watch your appliances. 

[Closeacademy]

Wow!  Never heard of something like that.  Glad it ended up ok.  Guess you need a new oven now though. 

It's being delivered on Friday.  It's a good thing we have a good stove for camping and I kept my crock-pot.  We can have simple things that I can cook outdoors.   :lol:

[ktgrok]

Thanks for posting! Never thought of that.

 

My parents were really strict about never letting the dryer run when people where gone or asleep, and while I've followed that rule all my adult life, I knew I was basically the only one. I asked my parents about it recently and it turns out friends of ours had their house burn down when a dryer fire started. So, watch your appliances. 

 

I have the same rule, and we also had friends who had their house burn down from a dryer fire, when I was a kid. And my parents have had their dishwasher catch on fire as well (heating element), so I won't run that either unless someone is awake. 

[SparklyUnicorn]

Yep I never leave stuff running when not home.  My big thing is the dishwasher.  It once did leak severely due to a cracked seal and if I had not been home that could have been bad.  Since I caught it immediately it wasn't a big deal.

 

 

[ktgrok]

Yep I never leave stuff running when not home.  My big thing is the dishwasher.  It once did leak severely due to a cracked seal and if I had not been home that could have been bad.  Since I caught it immediately it wasn't a big deal.

 

True story. We had $20,000 worth of damage from a dishwasher flood. And that was with us home! 

[SparklyUnicorn]

True story. We had $20,000 worth of damage from a dishwasher flood. And that was with us home! 

 

OMG..that's awful. 

[ktgrok]

OMG..that's awful. 

It was very very inconvenient, But...we had good homeowners insurance. And my husband is handy. So we used that money to make upgrades and had my husband do the work himself, rather than hiring it out at higher cost. So I have a very very nice kitchen now, compared to before the flood :) It's the nicest room in the house. 

 

But, having to make do in a temporary kitchen put together with 2 x4s and some peel and stick tile (as a counter top, my idea) for months and months was less than fun. And I was pregnant during part of it. 

[JFSinIL]

It rained on my kitchen once...the day after hubby worked on the washing machine and forgot to put the water discharge hose back into the discharge pipe. I started laundry, went back down stairs, and a short while later it ws raining in the kitchen. Silly man. But good thing I was home to run up and turn it off. I always leave the dryer unpluged and do not plug it in and use it unless I am home. Once in a blue moon with more than one dryer the timer would fail and it would not turn off, basically baking the clothes (ah, crispy underwear!).

[lispy]

We had a similar incident, but with an electric oven.  It was actually turning itself on and the continuing to heat to very high temps....so much so that our smoke detectors started going off (a good thing because we were outside).   At first, we just assumed we only *thought* that we had turned it off.  But then we realized we couldn't turn it off.  Dh unplugged it, so all was good.   We did plug it back in the next day and used it like normal (obviously, in hind sight that was a very dumb thing to do).  It worked fine for cooking the meal, and we turned it off.  We were planning to unplug it before bed,  but within an hour it came back on and started heating.  So at that point we unplugged it and got a new one the next day!  Very weird.

 

Glad you were safe.

[mommyoffive]

Thank you.  

[ashfern]

Scary! Thanks for the heads up.

[TravelingChris]

My dd's dorm kitchen must have one like that.  It sets whatever is in there on fire and then the fire alarm rings.  MOst people knew not to use it but one guy didn't and set his heart shaped pie for his girlfriend on fire.

[Guest]

Yikes!

 

We have had the opposite problem where our sensor got gunky and the oven kept not lighting and shutting itself off in the middle of baking. It took two or three cleaning cycles to rectify that.

[northcoast]

Our Hotpoint (made be GE) gas oven was also running hot.  DH was able to replace the thermostat for about $50.00 is was a relatively easy fix if I remember correctly.  No problems in the 4 years since then.  It was something to try instead of buying an new stove at the time.   

[Stacia]

I always try to unplug most kitchen appliances when not being used.

 

In my case, it's because when I was a kid, my mom went grocery shopping & brought bags home. She set them on the counter & then had to run back out on a different errand. Apparently one shifted & leaned over on the electric can opener... which started running & running & running until it set the grocery bag on fire. (This was in the days before smoke alarms were popular/common, I think.) My dad was at home taking a nap but, fortunately, he has a good sense of smell & woke because of a smoke smell & was able to put out the fire before it got too bad.

 

Weird, random stuff can happen.

 

Thanks for the cautions on the stoves. I hadn't ever heard of problems like that.

[jjeepa]

Thank you for this warning!  We have a gas stove that's only 3 years old but has recently started running hot.  I will keep on eye on it!  

[frugalmamatx]

Thank you for the warning! I have an elderly gas stove and it does run hot. It doesn't have anything electric though - there isn't even a plug in that spot for it {which is why we had to get a new to us stove suddenly after moving in}. I guess I would have to shut off the gas if it happened - better figure out how to do that!

 

I always double check that it has cooled before leaving that part of the house though.