Getting the oven to stay lit + resealing the oven door

This Euromaid gas oven (Davoren Park, Adelaide) would light but wouldn’t stay lit. It was the common case of lighting the pilot flame without any trouble but then when you released the gas knob, the pilot flame would go out.

This oven took some taking apart! Once I had access to the flame failure safety components, I was able to test the thermocouple. The test showed that the thermocouple was faulty so out it came. I had a new one the right length in my van, threaded it through the oven and tested oven operation.

It worked just like it should so the oven went back together. It was all going great until it was time to reattach the oven door. Not only was it very difficult to get back on, I couldn’t get it to seal shut once I did. The door had been opened and then forced open some more (either accidentally swung open or something heavy was put on the oven door while it was open). This caused the oven door frame to bend where the door hinges lock in which then prevented the door from closing properly.

So I got the oven to light and run, but this oven was going to work like a room heater. I wasn’t happy to leave it like that even though the tenant confirmed it was already that way before I arrived. This oven was going to cook food very slowly and the tenant’s gas bill would be higher than it should.

Oven door hinge detail

Shown left, the lock-out tag is in its usual position. Shown right, the lock-out tag is folded out and ready to stop the oven door from closing. Set the tags on both hinges like this and you can lift your oven door out.

I needed to bend the door frame back to how was when it left the factory. I tried a few things until I realised I could use the hinge lock-out tags to stop the door from closing more than half way, and then force the oven door towards the closed position from there. Success! The frame bent back again and the door closed and sealed nicely.

There was one last thing to take care of. The anti-tilt chain the oven came with was not fastened to the wall. AS5601:2010 requires that free standing ovens must be installed with the anti-tilt device provided by the oven manufacturer so I attached the chain to the wall to make the oven installation code compliant.