An oven that has stopped heating is one of the more alarming faults, mainly because of the timing. It almost never happens in June. It happens the week you have people coming.
The good news is that "not heating" covers four quite different faults, and three of them are cheap. The bad news is that the fourth one usually means a new oven. This guide helps you work out which you're looking at before anyone charges you a call-out fee.
First, the two-minute checks
Do these before anything else. They sound obvious. They are also, between them, a decent share of the engineer call-outs that end in an embarrassed customer and a £80 bill.
- Is the clock set? This is the single most common cause of an electric oven that will not heat. Most built-in ovens will not run the oven at all if the timer has been reset — after a power cut, for instance — and is sitting flashing. Set the time of day and try again.
- Is it on a timed programme? If the auto or delay function is set, the oven waits. Cancel the programme and switch to manual.
- Is the child lock on? Look for a key or padlock symbol on the display.
- Has the circuit tripped? Check your consumer unit. An oven is usually on its own breaker. If it has tripped and trips again straight away when you reset it, stop — that is a genuine electrical fault and needs an electrician.
- Is the door closing fully? Some ovens will not heat with the door ajar, and a warped or dropped door can look shut without actually being shut.
Is it not heating, or not heating enough?
These are different problems and worth separating before you go further.
Buy an oven thermometer — they cost about £10 — hang it in the middle of the oven, set the oven to 180°C and leave it for twenty minutes. Then look.
| What you see | What it points to |
|---|---|
| No heat at all, no glow, no warmth | Element, thermostat, or the electrical supply |
| Heats, but only reaches 120–150°C | One element of two has failed, or the thermostat is drifting |
| Reaches temperature but food cooks badly | Fan motor, or a failed door seal letting heat out |
| Wildly over or under the dial | Thermostat |
An oven that is 30°C out is worth knowing about even if you were not planning to fix it. It explains a lot of ruined baking.
The four common causes, cheapest first
1. The grill or fan element has blown
The most common real fault on an electric oven. Elements have a finite life and they fail with age and thermal cycling. If yours has gone, you will often see it: a visible break, a blister, or a bright scorch mark on the element itself.
Many ovens have two elements — a fan element at the back and a grill element at the top. If one fails, the oven may still warm up, just slowly and never to temperature. That is the classic "it takes forever and nothing browns" complaint.
A replacement element is typically £20–£50 for the part. Fitting is an hour's labour. Call it £100–£150 fitted, less if you are confident and the oven is out of warranty — though it means isolating the oven at the consumer unit and pulling it out of its housing, which is a two-person job on a built-in.
2. The thermostat has drifted or failed
A thermostat tells the oven when to stop heating. When it fails it either stops the oven heating at all, or lets it run far hotter or cooler than the dial says.
Symptoms worth noticing: food burning on the outside and raw inside, cakes that sink, or an oven that seems to run at full tilt and never cycles off. Parts are usually £25–£60, so again roughly £100–£160 fitted.
3. The fan motor has seized or worn
In a fan oven the element heats air and the fan moves it. If the fan stops, you get a hot patch at the back and nothing else, and most ovens will cut out on a safety thermostat before long.
You can usually hear this one coming — a grinding or droning noise for weeks beforehand. A fan motor is a bigger job than an element and typically runs £120–£200 fitted.
4. The PCB or control board has failed
This is the expensive one. On a modern oven the control board runs everything, and boards are not cheap — frequently £150–£300 for the part alone, before labour.
Signs point this way when the display behaves oddly, buttons do nothing or do the wrong thing, the oven turns itself off, or error codes appear that the manual does not resolve. On an oven more than about seven years old, a failed board is usually the point at which repair stops making sense.
Gas ovens: read this bit carefully
Do not attempt gas repairs yourself. By law, work on gas appliances in the UK must be carried out by a Gas Safe registered engineer. This is not a formality — it is the difference between a working oven and carbon monoxide in your kitchen.
What you can safely check:
- Other gas appliances — if the hob and boiler are also dead, it is the supply, not the oven
- Whether your gas meter has a credit or prepayment issue
- Whether the oven lights at all, and whether the flame stays lit when you release the knob
That last one is informative. A gas oven that lights and then goes out the moment you let go of the control usually has a failed thermocouple — a safety device that shuts the gas off if it cannot detect a flame. It is a common, relatively inexpensive repair, but it is still a Gas Safe job.
If you can smell gas, do not touch any switches. Turn the supply off at the meter, open the windows, leave, and call the National Gas Emergency Service on 0800 111 999.
Repair or replace? The honest maths
The rule of thumb most engineers use: if the repair costs more than half the price of a comparable new appliance, replace it.
Put concrete numbers on it. A mid-range built-in oven is £300–£600. So:
| Repair | Typical cost fitted | Worth it? |
|---|---|---|
| Element | £100–£150 | Almost always, unless the oven is over 12 years old |
| Thermostat | £100–£160 | Usually |
| Fan motor | £120–£200 | Marginal on an older oven |
| Control board | £200–£400 | Rarely, past about seven years |
Three other things belong in that calculation and usually get left out.
Age. A built-in oven lasts roughly 10 to 13 years. Fixing a twelve-year-old oven buys you time, not a solution — and the next fault is already on its way.
Running cost. An oven from 2012 uses meaningfully more electricity than one bought now. Over several years that gap is real money, though it rarely closes the whole price difference on its own.
What else is tired. If the seals have gone, the shelves are warped and the enamel is pitted, you are repairing one part of something that is generally worn out.
If you do replace it
A few things worth getting right, because they are expensive to get wrong:
- Measure the housing, not the old oven. Built-in ovens are broadly standardised at 60cm, but aperture heights vary and so do the required ventilation gaps.
- Check who disconnects the old one. An oven on a dedicated circuit is an electrician's job to disconnect and reconnect, not a delivery driver's.
- Think about whether a single oven is still right. If the thing that broke was your only oven and Christmas exists, a compact second oven is worth a thought while the housing is open.
- Pyrolytic or not. Self-cleaning adds cost but removes a chore you will otherwise do by hand for the next decade — we've written about whether it's worth it.
Our built-in ovens and cookers and range cookers are all new, with manufacturer warranty and free UK delivery. If you want help working out what fits your existing housing, send us the aperture measurements and we'll tell you straight whether something will go in.
Related reading
- Built-In Ovens Explained: The Complete UK Buying Guide
- How Long Do Kitchen Appliances Really Last?
- Will Your Oven Cope With Christmas Dinner?
This guide is general information, not a substitute for a qualified engineer. Prices are typical UK figures for 2026 and will vary by brand, region and parts availability. Never attempt gas work yourself.
