Replacing igniter on wallmount gas oven
If your gas oven isn't firing up, start your diagnosis by checking the ignitor for the proper current draw. "Uh, do what?" you ax, with glazed eyes. Don't be intimidated by techie-sounding procedures. This is simple stuff- if you can fog a mirror, you can measure current draw. This article explains how to make simple electrical measurements and this one explains what you're looking for in the gas oven ignitor.Once you've proven that the ignitor is drawing insufficient current (and, therefore, is the correct part to replace to fix the problem), use this handy pictorial guide to hepya change it out. The wiring for most range ignitors is accessed underneath the oven by removing the pots drawer, as shown here. Why do you need to access the wiring? Two reasons: 1) so you can measure the current draw and 2) it's part of replacing the ignitor since the new one has to be wired in the same way as the existing one. Take note of where the wires go. The ignitor wires are not polarity-sensitive so don't worry about "reversing" them.In this particular range (a Maytag), I had to remove a covering panel to expose all the wires.Here, I have my clamp-on ammeter on one of the ignitor wires to make a current draw measurement. You can see the closeup of the meter in the next pic. You can see the current draw reading is 2.4 amps. For a square ignitor, such as this one (you'll see it in a subsequent picture), the minimum acceptable current draw is 3.4 amps, well above what I'm measuring here. Obviously, in order to make this measurement, the oven has to be turned on and the ignitor getting voltage. This is a LIVE test, meaning there's live voltage on the circuit. Fire in the hole! Fry yo ace if'n you ain't careful, Hoss, so... BE CAREFUL!On some ranges, you'll need to remove the back panel to get to wiring for one or both ignitors (there's one each for bake and broil). Yes, this means the range needs to be pulled out from the wall. In the case of a wall oven where the freakin' engineers didn't bother to make it service-friendly, you'll need to remove the entire wall oven from the cavity. If this is the case with yours, you'll quickly understand why I abhor wall ovens. Here's a typical bake ignitor. Note that this one is square. Some ranges, such as older Whirlpools and GEs, use a round ignitor. These two types of ignitors have different current draw specs and are made to be used with different types of valves. This means they are not interchangeable. So, if your range uses the square ignitors, you can only replace it with another square ignitor. The brand doesn't matter since, by convention, all square ignitors have the same current draw and all round ignitors have the same current draw. For replacement square ignitors, I find that the Maytag universal square ignitor kit is the most cost-effective and reliable. I use this kit in all brands that require a square ignitor.
