Stoves without thermostats

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Chetlaham

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Has a stove without a thermostat ever existed? One where the temperature of the stove is controlled by varying the intensity of the heating elements?

I know in the USSR cooktops achieved varying temperatures by putting the elements in series/parallel or switching sets in and out instead of an infinite cycling switch- but has this ever been done with ovens?

chetlaham-2019070412113202936_1.jpg
 
>> Has a stove without a thermostat ever existed? One where the temperature of the stove
>> is controlled by varying the intensity of the heating elements?

There sure was, and they were quite popular!

You had your choice of 100W, 75W, 60W, etc for the elements, and they sold replacements in various wattages at most hardware stores.

:D

lowefficiency-2019070412224608886_1.jpg
 
Early gas ovens did not have thermostats; the cook turned down the flame. Magic Chef was among the first with the Big Red Wheel oven regulator.

Westinghouse ranges in the 1920s had a non cycling circuit breaker type of control. The desired temperature was set on one side of the scale of the control and the heaters were switched on. When the red pointer on the opposite side of the scale reached the arrow at the set point, the current snapped off. The door was opened, the food put in and the door closed. The breaker was reset and the current came back on. The cook had to pay close attention to the oven while baking, but it did provide controlled heat. The insulation helped to hold the temperature steady so a glance at the red arrow told the cook when to reset the breaker. I saw this range at the John and Mabel Ringling home in Sarasota. It was next to two large gas ranges that were probably used for banquets in the winter when the circus was home. The ovens on those had three linear burners with valves at floor level that could be adjusted to regulate the oven heat. The Westinghouse was probably a God-send in the summer heat, even with the breeze off the Gulf.
 
Didn't some of the early legged GE/Hotpoint ranges have a 3 heat setting switch for the oven, along with a temperature gauge?

I'd like to visit the Ringling mansion. I have been to the museum and grounds but we did not get to go in the home.
 
We`ve had them too. There were usually two separate rotary switches (0-1-2-3) one for top and one for bottom heat.
One of my older cookbooks from 1953 mentioned them as oldfashioned, but a 1963 baking book still gave directions on how to use them.
Usually both top and bottom was preheated for 10 min on "3", then you turned down the top heat to "1" or "2" but left bottom heat on a full "3".

They were called "Schalterbacköfen" (switch stoves) in Germany. Interestingly Google only comes up with Backofen Schalter which means oven switches.
It`s amazing you get 10,000 hits of switches but nada on those long forgotten electric stoves, but we`ve had a similar situation on syndets and hybrids as well some time ago...
 
This model has the three heat switches for the upper and lower elements, but I guess it is a thermostat on the side of the oven. Also those burners are odd. Anyone know what kind those are?

https://www.ebay.com/i/201536887190...7&rk=2&rkt=8&sd=152641393153&itm=201536887190

This unit is similar but it has Bake, Broil and Preheat settings with one knob instead, and the same thermostat on the side. Strange the burners on this one too are Chromalox? Thought the Calrod elements were Hotpoint's trademark, so fact it doesn't have them is odd to me.

https://www.ebay.com/i/233037728913...7&rk=5&rkt=8&sd=152641393153&itm=233037728913
 
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Chetlaham, wish I could tell you more but unfortunately have never had a chance to use one of those in person.

There is a museum in Hamburg I visited last year which is run by very nice people who seem to live for vintage appliances just like us on AW.
I could imagine they might be helpful on specific questions if you get in touch with them.[this post was last edited: 7/4/2019-15:11]

https://www.electrum-hamburg.de/
 
Electrum Hamburg

Gonna have to make a sunday expedition there since I can get to Hamburg for free on my student ticket.

Fun fact: Many induction cooktops do not have any thermal control besides the usual safety guards and just cycle and&#92or vary power.
On both the IKEA branded probably Whirlpool made and the BSH induction cooktop we had on the lower 2/3 of the power scale they would cycle their lowest power modulation (you can audibly hear the system cycling on and off) while above that the continous power would increase.

On ovens I know that some ovens broilers were not temperature guided, but that was more lower end models.

Also, to this day, many gas ovens over here do not have temperatures per se but settings from 1 through 7 or 8.
And obviously ovens without electric igniter or pilot light could not cycle.

And on the modern side of things I heared rumors that the eco bake settings on new ovens often have a mix of time and temperature based heating.
 
Reply # 8

Is a GE and it has a thermostat.

 

It would be easy to take any electric range and use two infinite switches, one for the broiler element and one for the bake element and control the heat manually, but why brother. 

 

I can't believe that any serious oven in Brazil today does not have a thermostat, it would simply be too dangerous and take way too much attention to cook in.

 

I guess the only good thing about not having a thermostat is every oven would be self-cleaning, LOL

 

John L.
 
Big thanks! Is the thermostat adjustable, fixed or a high limit?

Self cleaning- perhaps- but the idea is that on the highest setting the heating elements would only output enough heat such that it would equal the heat loss at say 450*F. Same for the lower settings.

Down side would be preheating time- which honestly I don't know how to calculate- but would imagine take some time.

The prospect of an oven without a stat if very elegant and beautiful IMO. I want to build one if I had the ability to do so- could tinker around with a range and a variac come time.
 
Chetlaham, Your lack of knowledge about ranges and wiring diagrams is painful. We have explained to you about oven thermostats and gas ovens without thermostats, but you either don't read or don't comprehend and have led this thread on a goose chase. I think you might have been confused by the oven switches for the top and bottom elements that allow a cook to vary the intensity of the heat, but not the temperature, so that if the oven was full of pans of food the pans right under the top element would not be burned because it could be either turned off completely or operated at a minimum input.

You say that you would like to try the control in #13. It is not an oven control. There is nothing special about it. Most GE and Hotpoint ranges had the 5 heat switches for the surface units and, while they did not look the same, early Westinghouse & Frigidaire ranges had them, too, but you jumped the track from talking about ovens without thermostats to surface unit switches that allow a certain fixed wattage input without the need for thermostats.

Henne, those numbers from 1 through 7 are known as gas marks and they correspond to oven temperatures. You will see them used in British cookbooks.
 
"Chetlaham, Your lack of knowledge about ranges and wiring diagrams is painful."

Ok, so which part is that which triggered you?

"We have explained to you about oven thermostats and gas ovens without thermostats, but you either don't read or don't comprehend and have led this thread on a goose chase. I think you might have been confused by the oven switches for the top and bottom elements that allow a cook to vary the intensity of the heat, but not the temperature, so that if the oven was full of pans of food the pans right under the top element would not be burned because it could be either turned off completely or operated at a minimum input."

And what have I said the leads you to think I do not comprehend? TC 80 thermo- how do I know TC does not mean thermal cutout as in a high limit? I've never seen one of these ranges in person nor do I know anything about them beyond what has been stated thus far hence why I am asking about them.
 
"You say that you would like to try the control in #13. It is not an oven control."

Of course!



Its offensive for you to think that I don't know its for surface unit.

"There is nothing special about it. Most GE and Hotpoint ranges had the 5 heat switches for the surface units and, while they did not look the same, early Westinghouse & Frigidaire ranges had them, too, but you jumped the track from talking about ovens without thermostats to surface unit switches that allow a certain fixed wattage input without the need for thermostats."

Its not a jump track- I want to apply the same concept to an oven- which is what I have been imagining all along. Have 3 or 4 heating elements inside the oven and using various series/parallel/on/off combinations to achieve multiple temperature options. If it works for a surface burner, why not an oven.
 
>> If it works for a surface burner, why not an oven.

You absolutely could make what you're describing for an oven, and you absolutely could cook food in that oven.
But using it would be a miserable process.

Surface burners have controls which vary their heat output, but only as a percentage of their maximum output, not as a temperature setting. They can do this because the thermostat in the system is YOU, the cook!

Surface burner controls are like the accelerator pedal on your car. Let off the pedal and you get your idling engine's minimum output. Floor it and you get your engine's maximum output. But no position of pressing the pedal strictly correlates with vehicle speed - it is up to the driver to vary the pedal input to accelerate to, and maintain, their target speed. Want to go 40 mph on flat ground? It might take a medium amount of pedal. Want to go 40mph up a steep mountain incline? It might take most of the pedal's throw and significant laboring of the engine to do so. Want to go 40mph DOWN a steep incline? You may need to let off the pedal entirely.

The human driver adjusts the power input to what is necessary, just as you do for a pan cooking pancakes, or a huge pot boiling water. On a vehicle, the cruise control is a good equivalent for the thermostat - set the cruise control to 40mph, and it throttles the engine as necessary to maintain your speed regardless of the conditions.

For an oven, you could do the equivalent manual process, having multiple taps of fixed power level inputs. But to obtain your target temperature will take a lot of waiting, monitoring, and adjusting. It becomes very easy to overshoot and burn your pie, or undershoot and change the way your meal cooks. Recipe guidance is based on a measurable time+temperature quantity - take away the stability of the temperature, and the cook time also varies, meaning you have more guesswork and checking to see if things are actually done. And you toss repeatability out the window - a pizza baked tomorrow will take a different amount of time than your pizza did today, just because of the temperature swings, heat soak, etc. Recipe books would be a disaster, as there would be no consistency between oven brands or models, let alone adjustments for the local climate or other factors that influence the temperature inside the oven. And the system becomes extremely sensitive to interference, such as heat loss when opening the oven door.

Doesn't sound very fun, does it?
 
Theoretically, you could preheat in an identical amount of time. With or without a thermostat, the preheating would just be turning everything on full power and waiting until the desired temperature is reached, then turning it down to a reasonable power level to maintain that temp.

But you would have to be paying attention, as a failure to change the setting would be equivalent to starting a self-clean operation!
 
Not sure if such a stove would meet today`s safety standards, maybe if a thermal fuse was part of the system and I wonder what the benefits might be as thermostats aren`t that expensive anymore.
On the other hand I don`t think a Schalterbackofen ever reached temperatures even close to self cleaning even if someone forgot to turn it down.
Suppose overall maximum Wattage was way too low. The suggested 10 min preheating time rather seems like a bit of a prewarming. Guess you just had too put the food in early because of economical reasons, in other words to save on current.
Just think of early electric clothes irons, they were more in the 300 W range if at all vs. about 1000 W when thermostats became the norm.
 
Reply #15

If the oven was designed to be able to only reach about 450 F it would be near useless, you would never be able to do even simple things like baking cookies where you need nearly 400F and you are oping and closing the door at least every 5 minutes as you rotate two sheets of cookies.

 

And when you do a large roast or turkey it might even be dangerous because the food might not cook quickly enough to stay safe.

 

OK I'll bite, what is the point of building an oven without automatic heat control, it seems a little building a car without brakes or steering, it might be beautifully simple but about useless.

 

John L.
 
@mrboilwash, that is the plan. The total oven wattage on high would be such that the oven could not overheat.

Combo52: You have a point, opening the door would cause a very big drop in temperature which would take a much longer time to recover from. Also large foods as Turkeys will probably pull the temp down substantially. Though as you know I am curious to see the severity in reality.

An oven without a thermostat would have the pros of being more reliable, no swinging temperatures once stabilized (Breville has built its business on this and yes I am aware they use an electronic thermostat) and possibly being cheaper. PRC (Peoples Republic of China) is already building warmers and compact ovens with fixed PTC resistors- a somewhat similar concept.

And to the person who liked reply #17- life is short to be filled with so much malcontent. Let people imagine, let others try something new even if it might fail in the end.
 
Did a little research on Ebay and there are still some of these stoves to be found. Looks like they made it well into the 1950`s just because they were cheaper to buy than a "Reglerbackofen" (one with an infinite thermostat).

An AEG model has a picture of a somewhat corroded rating plate where the top element is rated 600 and the bottom element is 500 Watts if I`m not mistaken.
Those German pre and postwar stoves were not turkey size of course, but a roasted duck or goose could be made in a reasonable time.
The most powerful one I could find has 1500 Watts for both elements together, which is almost as much as one of the "weaker" thermostat controlled ones of that time.

It may also be worth to mention that an electric stove that can only be controlled over 11 possible combinations of top and bottom heats instead of a thermostat is still a godsend over a wood or coal fired stove.

https://www.ebay.de/itm/Antiker-AEG...048168?hash=item3d8e93ae68:g:aJwAAOSwW3VaxkQs
 
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Mr. Boilwash, thank you! This is immensely inspirational. The more I think about it the more I smittened by it.

And yes, I am not surprised at all. The elements will have to be of lower power to prevent the oven from going over say 500-600*F.
 
fan-of-fans<span style="display: inline !important; float: none; background-color: transparent; color: rgb(255, 0, 0); font-family: Arial; font-size: 13.33px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 700; letter-spacing: normal; line-height: 20px; orphans: 2; text-align: left; text-decoration: none; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; white-space: normal; word-spacing: 0px;"> [COLOR=#000000; font-family: Times New Roman; font-size: medium]wrote:[/COLOR]</span>

<span style="display: inline !important; float: none; background-color: transparent; color: rgb(255, 0, 0); font-family: Arial; font-size: 13.33px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 700; letter-spacing: normal; line-height: 20px; orphans: 2; text-align: left; text-decoration: none; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; white-space: normal; word-spacing: 0px;"><span style="text-align: left; color: rgb(0, 0, 0); text-transform: none; line-height: 20px; text-indent: 0px; letter-spacing: normal; font-family: Times New Roman; font-size: 16px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; text-decoration: none; word-spacing: 0px; display: inline !important; white-space: normal; orphans: 2; float: none; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; background-color: transparent;">"<span style="display: inline !important; float: none; background-color: transparent; color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: Times New Roman; font-size: 16px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 700; letter-spacing: normal; line-height: 20px; orphans: 2; text-align: left; text-decoration: none; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; white-space: normal; word-spacing: 0px;">This model has the three heat switches for the upper and lower elements, but I guess it is a thermostat on the side of the oven" </span></span></span>

 

 

<span style="display: inline !important; float: none; background-color: transparent; color: #ff0000; font-family: Arial; font-size: 13.33px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: bold; letter-spacing: normal; line-height: 20px; orphans: 2; text-align: left; text-decoration: none; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; white-space: normal; word-spacing: 0px;"><span style="text-align: left; color: #000000; text-transform: none; line-height: 20px; text-indent: 0px; letter-spacing: normal; font-family: Times New Roman; font-size: 16px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; text-decoration: none; word-spacing: 0px; display: inline !important; white-space: normal; orphans: 2; float: none; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; background-color: transparent;"><span style="display: inline !important; float: none; background-color: transparent; color: #000000; font-family: Times New Roman; font-size: 16px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: bold; letter-spacing: normal; line-height: 20px; orphans: 2; text-align: left; text-decoration: none; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; white-space: normal; word-spacing: 0px;">I'm thinking that may be a simple thermometer.  The cook would watch the thermometer and manipulates the switches accordingly.</span></span></span>

 

<span style="display: inline !important; float: none; background-color: transparent; color: #ff0000; font-family: Arial; font-size: 13.33px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: bold; letter-spacing: normal; line-height: 20px; orphans: 2; text-align: left; text-decoration: none; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; white-space: normal; word-spacing: 0px;"><span style="text-align: left; color: #000000; text-transform: none; line-height: 20px; text-indent: 0px; letter-spacing: normal; font-family: Times New Roman; font-size: 16px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; text-decoration: none; word-spacing: 0px; display: inline !important; white-space: normal; orphans: 2; float: none; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; background-color: transparent;"><span style="display: inline !important; float: none; background-color: transparent; color: #000000; font-family: Times New Roman; font-size: 16px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: bold; letter-spacing: normal; line-height: 20px; orphans: 2; text-align: left; text-decoration: none; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; white-space: normal; word-spacing: 0px;">I believe that Hotpoint came out with the Calrod heating element in the late 1920s.  Is it possible that these ranges are older than that?</span></span></span>

 

 
 
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