Saturday, October 16, 2010

Last night


I opened the preheating oven the oven to put the first part of dinner in, and saw something I have seen in an oven once before, about twenty years ago. Guess what? This is not really something you want to see happening to your oven element. I decided to go ahead and chance cooking dinner in there and see what happened.

Dinner cooked, and apparently the problem moved along too, which I have to admit to not really expecting. The last time I had an oven element look like that, it flamed up and made a puddle of melted metal in the bottom of the oven. This time it kept sparking its way along the element, around the curves and turns. Yes, I know I should have turned it off and I probably spiked our electrical usage for the month (or more), but I really wanted to eat dinner. I did check on it a couple of times to make sure it wasn't doing anything drastic (and Chan, I promise the fire extinguisher was right there).
Sometimes when I checked it, the element just had a red hot spot, and sometimes it was white hot and sparking like a sparkler.

Which is pretty much what it looks like all cooled off and ready to have a new element installed. We are hoping that Home Depot sells them so that life can be back to baking as normal around here before Tuesday.

6 comments:

gMarie said...

First - I'm thankful that your dinner got cooked. Second - I love that you took photos of the element. :) g

Bubblesknits said...

Wow! That's pretty cool (in a kind of destructive way). =)

bruce said...

you poor thing, using an electric stove. The electric oven is ok. BBS is right on top of things as usual...

Jayhawk said...

Oh, Barbara. Do you know what your electrician uncle is thinking right now? Your electrician uncle is thinking, among other things, that it is truely wonderful and utterly amazing that he still has a niece.

What he is thinking about the intelligence of that niece really does not bear exposure in a family journal.

SissySees said...

I can only imagine how traumatic it is for you to have a not-functional oven!! But props for getting photos just the same...

AlisonH said...

Oh.My.Goodness.! (While guffawing at your uncle.)