GE Self-Cleaning Ovens
Hi Sandy I did not suggest not getting the clock fixed as the new owner even said that it was very important to him to have everything working. However there is probably little if any danger in leaving an electric SCO in the clean cycle for hours, all day, a full week or even a month. The oven only gets so hot and even the early GE SC ovens had a backup thermostat to the main one that regulates the clean temperature. And GE actually made a basic 30" electric range with a SCO that had NO clock or timer what so ever, it merely had the word Clean on the selector switch and thermostat and the instructions said to turn it on and turn it off several hours later. We also must have several hundred customers that have various brands of SCO ranges where the clocks have not worked in years and I have never heard of it causing a problem let alone a fire as they continue to use this feature. The way GE and most other companies designed the clock on SCOs you could easily set the clean cycle for 12 hours and I am again sure that some people probably at least did so by accident and again never heard of a problem. If all these broken clocks were posing a safety problem the Consumer Product Safety Commission would force GE and others to do a recall to fix.
Moparguy [ Jeff ] Your GE gas range does use the same type clock, your range was manufactured by Tappan, GE had Tappan build most all of their gas ranges in the later 1980s when they decided to get into the gas range business. By the early 1990s they started building their own gas ranges in Mexico where they still make their gas ranges today.
Hi Sandy I did not suggest not getting the clock fixed as the new owner even said that it was very important to him to have everything working. However there is probably little if any danger in leaving an electric SCO in the clean cycle for hours, all day, a full week or even a month. The oven only gets so hot and even the early GE SC ovens had a backup thermostat to the main one that regulates the clean temperature. And GE actually made a basic 30" electric range with a SCO that had NO clock or timer what so ever, it merely had the word Clean on the selector switch and thermostat and the instructions said to turn it on and turn it off several hours later. We also must have several hundred customers that have various brands of SCO ranges where the clocks have not worked in years and I have never heard of it causing a problem let alone a fire as they continue to use this feature. The way GE and most other companies designed the clock on SCOs you could easily set the clean cycle for 12 hours and I am again sure that some people probably at least did so by accident and again never heard of a problem. If all these broken clocks were posing a safety problem the Consumer Product Safety Commission would force GE and others to do a recall to fix.
Moparguy [ Jeff ] Your GE gas range does use the same type clock, your range was manufactured by Tappan, GE had Tappan build most all of their gas ranges in the later 1980s when they decided to get into the gas range business. By the early 1990s they started building their own gas ranges in Mexico where they still make their gas ranges today.