Argh, everything is breaking at the same time!

[Lookslikerain]

Popped a lovely joint of beef in the oven for Sunday lunch this afternoon. It was looking lovely, smelling good so we left the oven to it for an hour. On return, oven was no longer hot, and was cooling down. On further investigation, it seems to no longer be heating. Light comes on, fan turns but no heat. It's only about 14 months old, argh!

Then later, tried to light the gas fire and it won't light. It did last night so not sure what has changed. I can hear the gas but think it's maybe not sparking?

Anyone know if we could tackle either of these problems ourselves? Google would suggest that it's the oven's heating element and that I should clean out the innards of the fire. I don't fancy forking out for both to be fixed if I could do it myself however I'm keen not to blow anyone up or get electrocuted so would get someone in if that's a better idea.

Any words of wisdom? Is there somewhere better to post this?

Visit the espares website and buy a new element. They have good videos of how to do simple jobs like this . Make sure you turn off the power first!!

No idea about gas fires though.

YouTube is your friend here. I, personally, wouldn't mess around with gas beyond the simple stuff like cleaning, but would try to fix the heating element of my oven. I've changed the heating element of my dryer and have put in new carbon brushes on my washing machine and currently have a kit to fix my freezer which is not freezing. All using online videos and information from this site.

Have you checked your warranty on the oven? Some are automatically two years these days. And personally I would say that a heating element which breaks down in just over a year is not of merchantable quality, so it could be worth taking up with the retailer/manufacturer anyway.

This explains your rights a bit better.

Could you use a spark maker (like you would light camping gas stove with) to light the fire? If that doesn't work it's a job for the experts.

Thanks all.

I bought the oven through the company that fitted my kitchen at the end of last year. This brand of oven is made only for them. I will call them tomorrow, as I agree that it seems a bit quick for the heating element to go. Thank for the link, exexpat, I'll give it a read beforehand.

I'm not keen on messing about with gas appliances either. I once stayed in a rented flat where the gas fire broke and the man sent to fix it just took it apart, hoovered all the coals etc, and put it back together! I was amazed. I would have thought it was much more complicated!

Take off the front of your gas fire and check to see if your gas fire uses a battery to spark, it may need to be replaced.

Offa. Didn't know that. I'll check tomorrow. Thank you.

Found out the oven comes with 2 year warranty so at least I don't need to worry about it. I have someone organised to take a look at it this week.