We have a 16 year old Westinghouse in wall oven. About 6 months ago the element around the fan stopped working, one night the oven just wouldn't get hot on fan bake. Google said most likelyl the element died so I ordered another and installed it myself. Worked fine.
On Friday night the oven was on and at 250'C when I heard quite a loud "whump!" noise from the kitchen. The oven had tripped the RCD/breaker switch. I turned it back on and the oven display came back on. I noticed that where the display is seemed to be very hot, but I don't actually know if thats normal. The fan element is now no longer working again. Possibly important: the breaker didn't trip the first time the element died.
Because I got the element so recently I am wondering if the element hasn't failed and if something else has gone wrong. I would prefer not to get a service person in because I am certain they will tell me thats its old and i should just replace it rather than paying them to fix it as something else might break soon, and charge me $180 for the visit. There's a few wonky buttons etc so I think that's good advice. But if it is just an element then that's a cheap $79 fix at a time when we've had few bills come in. Or maybe its something else small that people think I could fix myself.
My questions are:
1. Is it likely that an element would fail just 6 months after new? I believe it was a genuine part.
2. When an element goes does it make a loud "whump" sound? Or would this indicate its probably something else.
3. Is it possible for me to test if the element has failed? I don't own a multi-meter but i'd happily buy one if that was needed because I have borrowed on a couple of times lately. I wouldn't want to buy a replacement element only to have it not be the problem.
Ive been thinking about pulling the oven partially out at some stage because some of the buttons are "loose" and when you push them instead of it registering it instead pushes the display back, I sort of have to hold onto another button to stop it being pushed back when I want to push my intended button. I think it has come loose and it could just be a screw holding the display in place (suggested by google), and to access it you partially pull the oven out and take the "lid" off the oven and access the display and circuit board etc. So if anyone thinks that could reveal something useful too I could try that.
