Explosive Caloric Wall Oven

[whirlcool]

We were visiting some friends of ours and his wife asked us if I work on ovens. I said maybe and asked what's wrong with their gas wall oven. This is what I was told.

"When I use our wall oven I turn it up to about 250F and then walk away. About 5 minutes later I hear a "pop" sound and both the oven door and the broiler door come flying open all on their own. Then the oven is heating up and I can increase the temp to whatever I wish with no further problems. What could be wrong?"

I looked at the oven and my friend says this is a 1980's model oven but when I look inside I don't think the thing has ever been cleaned. The broiler area was what I considered to be unusable because of all the dirt & grime. It's not a self cleaning model. Just a single gas wall oven with broiler.

It's a Caloric Model: RXP-212 S/N:5285719. I told her to stop using it because waiting until the thing backfires and blows the doors of the oven open is just not safe. Could it be that the ignitor has been contaminated by all the dirt in the oven and is not working correctly? What do you all think?

 

[vintagekitchen]

Sounds plausible..

An aunt of my ex had an older gas stove, (I can't remember the brand), with a pilot light rather than if igniter, which would do that, of course the oven didnt blow fully open, the door would bounce a few inches open and slam shut, thanks to the springs .

I finally convinced her to get it looked at, and it was a simple matter of the pilot light being adjusted. After that it was fine.

 

[tomturbomatic]

A classic case of delayed ignition. Igniters get weak and have to be replaced, although I was under the impression that a certain temperature had to be measured in a link between the igniter and the gas valve before the gas valve would open. I would not work on any gas appliance unless I had lots of liability insurance. It is a job best left to professionals so that if there is some unfortunate after effect, there would at least be training/certification to show that they were not entirely responsible for any destruction.

 

[statenislandgwm]

My mother....

had a BRAND NEW Magic ---- stove and the oven was making a booming noise also. The repair man told her she was lucky the thing didn't blow up as the entire oven filled with gas until the ignitor came on.

 

[polkanut]

YIKES!!!

 

[tomturbomatic]

I wonder if you could hold the doors closed and force flame out of the oven vent. That would make a good video in the style of the guys who blow up microwave ovens.

 

[retromania]

Gas Appliances

I love gas appliances and I've never heard that one!! I think I would be yoooo-hoooing the appliance repair people.

 

[whirlcool]

I'll pass that on to the people who own the oven. Taking the oven out of the wall to run the wire from the igniter to the gas valve would be a bitch to do. I am sure that these ovens are not lightweight.

I'll bet anything that any repair guy they call will tell them just to buy a new oven. That seems to be the way things go these days.

 

[goatfarmer]

If it's that dirty, it's possible that only one side of the burner is lighting. The raw gas would escape from the other side, until the flame lights it. Try a good cleaning of the burner.

 

[combo52]

Exploding Coloric Gas Wall Oven

This was a very common problem with Coloric Gas wall ovens and free standing ranges with the Ultra-Ray broiler burner in the 1980s and to some extent with ALL GAS OVENS, with flat hot surface igniters.  Allen does this oven have the UR burner? or a regular looking burner tube with holes punched down both sides.

 

 

The most common reason for this occurring is an old weak igniter, but as I mentioned Coloric had problems with the gas getting to the hot ignitor on the UR burners so additional adjustments needed to be made to make these ovens work properly.

 

[tomturbomatic]

I wonder why she starts it at 250 and then turns the thermostat higher after the doors blow open.

 

[combo52]

Exploding Coloric Gas Wall Oven

I am sure it does not make any difference what the thermostat is set for when turned on for the first time and often once everything is heated the delayed ignition does not happen again. I guess it just makes the user feel better if she works the temperature gradually, LOL.

 

[whirlcool]

I asked her about that and she said that's the way she always has used it. What does the UltraRay burner look like? Is it kind of a flat burner with holes around the parimeter edges near the top?

It has a square igniter that looks like it's mounted with two screws on the right hand side of the burner.

 

[tomturbomatic]

The Caloric Ultraray burners I have seen have a surface that looks like stainless steel screen.

I asked about the 250 setting because all of the instructions I have seen for gas and electric ovens simply say to turn the thermostat to the desired setting. Some older gas ranges tell you to strike the match before turning the thermostat knob.

It might be interesting to watch the burner from when the oven is switched on to see what happens.

 

[whirlcool]

Nope, no screen like things in there.

I'm reminded of my sister from years ago. Our parent at one time had a manually lit gas oven. You light the match, turn the gas on and drop the match down a hole on the floor of the oven at the front of the oven where it said "MATCH>"

One day my sister turned the oven on and realized that she didn't have any matches nearby, so she went searched the house until she found some. She then went back to the oven and lit the match so she could light the oven. As soon as she lit the match she said the oven came up off the floor about a foot and it made a big boom! noise. Her eyebrows were singed off of her face and some of her hair was singed. I remember laughing my you know what off at her. But it could have been a very dangerous situation. She was about 12 at the time.

So you have to be careful around those things.

 

[DADoES]

 
Granny's previous gas range had a weak igniter (glow bar) for some long while until it quit completely.  Took several minutes for the oven to light, and usually there was a mild fooom when it did.  Substitute replacement part was available but more expen$ive than rea$onable so the oven was unused for a couple years until we replaced the range.

 

[rp2813]

Singed Hair

A common occurrence next door when I was a kid.  The mom there, Coral, couldn't hold her alcohol.  One drink and she'd be flying.  Harry, the patriarch, was Irish so it's no surprise that the household revolved around alcohol (the atmosphere there was always festive) so Coral was flying most evenings.  Thankfully, she never drove a car, but a lot of her luncheoning and card partying friends did.  At least those events ended well before commute time.

 

Coral was always the life of any party.  My dad would say, when Coral walked in, she lit up the room.  She also had an affinity for lighting up her cigarettes via gas burner on the stove.  Every once in a while my mom would share what didn't take long to become old rehashed news over the years:  "Coral singed her hair again last night."

 

It's probably been 20 years since Coral left for the big party in the sky, but I still miss her.  It was a big loss to the old guard in the 'hood here.   As my sister put it, growing up in that family was like having Holly Golightly for a mom.

 

[whirlcool]

I sent a video over to my friend who owns this oven. It explains how the ignition system works. So he pulled the floor of the oven and looked around the burner and the ignitor and found nothing. So he reassembled it all and tried it again and within 15 seconds after turning the oven on the burner ignited. No more explosive doors.

He tried this 10 more times over a 24 hour period. It worked each and every time.
He thinks that maybe there could have been a weak connection. If it does it again he's going to replace the oven.

But he said thanks to all of you who helped me out with this!

 

[tomturbomatic]

I'll bet that in reassembling the parts, he positioned something slightly differently so that the gas flows more toward the igniter than it did previously. Modern gas ovens, for the most part, use a sheet of steel over the burner instead of the cast iron like old gas stoves used and that thin steel warps which causes several problems.