Of things unspoken I shall now mention. Our oven decided to stop functioning in a normal manner on Thanksgiving day. Fortunately or unfortunately we did not notice until the next day. By that statement I mean that the oven did not impede Thanksgiving in any way whatsoever so we had that going for us. Something to be thankful for, yes.

At this point your eyes should begin to glaze over just like my wife's when I begin to explain how something works. Here goes: what happened when the oven quit functioning normally is that when it was turned off, it did not turn off. By that, I do mean the controls indicated the oven to be turned off, but the oven was hot, indeed very hot because the broiler was on - on at about 450 or 500 degrees.

My first guess was that a relay had welded itself shut. Way back when this happened I disassembled the oven and after looking at the main control board, decided to simply replace the entire control board rather than trying to replace a single relay. I made this decision because the relay in question did not appear to be stuck shut when power was removed from the oven. I believed that was the correct call then and I stand by it. Even though replacing the main control board did not fix the oven and has thus proven me wrong. (I now have a spare controller board in the event one quits!)

After that did not work, I took another look at what could possibly be the cause for the oven broiler being stuck on. (This is what you would the shot gun approach to trouble shooting an appliance.) On all the time that is. Well, not really all the time - if you unplug it, it does turn off. Or if you turn off the breaker. But anyway, after checking all the obvious stuff, I was just sitting around on the cold-hard-tile floor behind the oven trying to decide what to do next. Perhaps a walk in the park. Since I had a schematic and nothing was making much sense, I decided to check anything and everything I could based on the diagnostic information available on the schematic. - It turns out there are several interesting diagnostic modes built into the stove that working by pressing a super-secret-sequence of buttons. .

I eventually discover that the lower element in this oven (it is a dual oven) was open. By that I mean it measured zero ohms between the terminals. The schematic indicated what the resistance should be, but it was not. This did not make sense to me. One element is out, so the other one is on all the time. How can that be?

So anyway, even though it makes no sense whatsoever, I decided to go head and replace the faulty element (it really is bad, unlike the controller board). Once the element arrives I will install it and we will see if the oven magically starts working correctly. I don't really believe it will so therefore it probably will just to spite me.

To recap. The oven quit ON over a month ago. My first attempt to repair it was costly and a miserable failure. My second attempt to fix it is not so costly thought I don't expect it to work. And it has taken me about a month to get around to ordering the part which is not available locally. Why did it take me so long to order the park? Because I don't believe it will fix it. Why am I trying it anyway? Because the oven hasn't worked in almost six weeks.

And because the other oven is not cooperating with my homemade biscuits. :(