How Long Does an Oven Element Last?

HIGH USE APPLIANCE EXCEPTION

Warranty can be affected by high use appliances!
Car user understand that warranty periods come with exceptions! 12 Months / 100,000km warranty period. This is understood to mean whichever comes first. Part warranty is typically 12 months within the appliance repair industry. Over 80% of our warranty claims (which are remarkably low within the appliance repair industry) are directly associated with high use ovens. Unlike cars, ovens don't have speedometers that record the mileage.

The concept it driven primarily by the electrical industry term "Duty Cycle". Duty cycle is the ratio of the time a load or circuit is ON compared to the time the load or circuit is OFF. Duty cycle, sometimes called "duty factor," is expressed as a percentage of ON time. A 60% duty cycle is a signal that is ON 60% of the time and OFF the other 40%.

In relationship to an oven's duty cycle this refers to the frequency the oven is used. Some ovens work daily, others weekly, and like mine it's lucky to be monthly. When an oven manufacturer designs an oven they would use some statistics that determines the average use of an oven, which then informs the engineers who determine the appropriate duty cycles of: thermostats, function switches, door switches etc. Unfortunately the oven manufactures don't make these statistics available for the general public. If an oven published the fact that it was designed to be used once a week, this would directly impact a customers buying decision. They don't want customers being able to use such a definitive criteria for making such a buying decision.

As it relates to repair work on ovens and the term of a warranty, it would be very helpful to be able to say to customers "your oven has only been designed to operate twice a week for no more than an hour and a half at an average temperature of 180 degrees celsius. As repairers this would mean our 12month warranty period would be limited by 150 hours per annum. Which of course no one would be able to prove.

The point of this discussion is to understand that some oven users exceed to average use and should expect a higher fault rate meaning more regular dates with your repairer.