It’s a Sears Kenmore electric stove, about 10 years old. The burners can be pulled right out of the slots. When I turn the big burner on, it makes a crackling sparking and has to be jiggled to ‘connect’, or else it doesn’t heat up. It’s like there’s a short in it. Now the other stove burner is doing this.
Would ordering new burners from Sears fix this problem? Should I call and have a repairman come? Or would it be better to just buy a new stove. The oven works fine, but now I’m down to two little burners.
Sounds like either the plug or the socket for the coils are corroded. This causes a poor connection which causes the sparking (which probably causes more corrosion). If the corrosion is limited to the plugs, you can replace the coils or try cleaning them with some sandpaper. If it’s the socket – then I don’t know if those are easily replaceable.
By the way, it’s not a “short”. A short in a circuit means that there’s a lot of current flowing across it which would cause lots of heat and blown fuses. I think you’d notice that.
The sparking tells me it’s just a bad connection (but still getting juice). Check for corrosion (as mentioned above). You could also try slightly bending the prongs so they make a better connection. If either of those work, I’d suggestion bringing them down to whatever store in your area sells appliances and getting replacements.
Oh, well, I’ll take a look at the plug-in parts of the burners and see if they look corroded and could be cleaned. Thanks for the advice, that was fast!
If it’s a standard coil type stove it doesn’t require “Sears” parts. Open of the top of the stove (it hinges up like the hood of a car) and look at the connectors to see if they look OK (not burnt or melted) and make sure they are all properly seated. Use a flashlight to see if the connectors look clean. What you basically have are 4 power lines running to clips that the burner plugs into.
If everything appears to look to be in good shape (not melted or corroded) then put the top back down and swap a good burner in to the malfunctioning one and see if it works OK. If it works OK you have a bad burner.
THIS . Many stoves use 220 / 240 VAC which can kill you dead. Don’t mess around with stove current. Throw the breaker.
When my Kenmore burner coils died (ie the burner coils themselves fail) I took them to the local Sears parts dept and got new burner coils. Possibly some generics will work also, but it was suprising to me how specific and non-generic Kenmore stove parts were. I asked several applicance repair stores and Sears was the only game in town for the Kenmore parts.
You can also lift the stove top, and replace the female sockets the coil prongs plug into if you suspect they are loose or corroded.