Melting plastic smell from oven when there is no visible plastic melting in the oven--advice?
5Turned on the oven today and got a two-room-filling melting plastic smell. Turned off the oven after I established there was no more immediate source of melting plastic. Found a little round metal filter-looking thing on the bottom of the oven, which looks like it may have been blocking a hole at the top of the oven. Left oven door open to dissipate smell, turned off power to oven. Not sure what next step is, other than not using oven in the near future. We probably don’t want to replace the oven if we don’t have to, as we will be moving… eventually… somewhere… maybe this summer, maybe in the fall. Possibly even the winter. Don’t want to burn the house down in the meantime, either. Is there any way I can figure this out myself? I’m assuming not, but it never hurts to ask strangers on the internet.
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You sure about that?
It sounds like this is an electric oven and given that, I wonder if the plastic smell is electrical vs something burning in the oven. In that case, you definitely want to get it figured out as a short is nothing to mess with.
And if you really are moving soon and don’t want to spend a bunch, it may actually be cheaper to go to a used appliance store and get it replaced for a few hundred bucks. It will likely come with a 90-day warranty, you know that the old one will get properly repaired (or parted out if it can’t be), you have the peace of mind that you aren’t using (or leaving for the next owner) something that is unsafe, and you haven’t spent a bundle on something you aren’t going to keep.
@ybmuG There was nothing in the oven, it was being preheated. I had just plugged a new power cord into my computer, so my first thought was that I was melting my laptop. It is indeed an electric oven. I hope we’re moving soon, I live in dread of things failing and us not fixing them “because we’re moving” and then it’s another 10 months of being inconvienced. I really didn’t think it would be the oven first. Except for the door.
@mossygreen @ybmuG My oven door hinge is broken. Fortunately I have a nice toaster oven.
@sammydog01 @ybmuG Our door swings out to the side, and the bottom hinge pin is poorly held in with thread locker and two kinds of tape. I have a pretty nice toaster oven, but it could be nicer.
@mossygreen @sammydog01 if only i knew of a deal-a-day site with a sister site that sells Cuisinart appliances at heavily discounted prices…
Or maybe you’ll get one in an IRK?
@sammydog01 @ybmuG If only! But surely such a magical deal-a-day site is merely the stuff of legend…
Got any pics?
My gut answer is a plastic insulator at a terminal, but it’s always possible to be the wires themselves – which is not good. Further dismantling will be necessary here.
@narfcake A picture of what you found would be helpful; I think that is what narfcake is asking for, it is definitely what I want to see.
@bdb @narfcake I don’t think pics will help, but I’ll be happy to post pictures of the small metal filter-looking-thing and the hole which it probably covered. But yeah, I’m concerned. I don’t like unusual smells.
@narfcake this is precisely what happened to an old stove burner we had. Using a blurry pic from the webs, but the burner arced through the middle wall of the coupler between terminals - probably a couple mm thick.
It is quite possible, probable even, that what you are smelling is a wire overheating somewhere in the oven.
This is a bad thing, with the possibility (but not likelihood) of fire and electrical shock. Modern appliances are designed so that the failure modes are self contained - if a fire started, as an example, it will likely be small and internal to the oven, but no guarantees.
I suggest two safety measures: First, put a sign on it so everybody knows to not use it, or even better unplug it or turn off the circuit.
Second, if/when you turn it on again to see if it still smells bad, only touch the oven with one hand. The most dangerous shocks are those that travel from one arm to the other.
@bdb
If this is a built-in oven or a range/oven, it should be on a separate breaker. If it is a range, throwing the breaker will make your stovetop useless.
If it is a built-in oven, flipping the breaker off will ensure it won’t be turned on accidently.
I second the notion of getting a good convection/countertop toaster oven if you don’t already have one.
@bdb @chienfou I promise you the SECOND thing I did was run downstairs and flip the circuit breaker.
@mossygreen
is it a wall oven or a range? I might be hesitant to use the stovetop on a range even if it was when the oven was on that you smelled the plastic burning…
@chienfou It’s a wall oven, I’m already hesitant to use the stovetop because it’s glass and last year one corner cracked, and then cracked some more, and I swear the second crack is getting wider (well, higher on one side).
@chienfou @mossygreen
Wall ovens are not really that hard to replace. It is usually just shoved into a cabinet with an opening bigger than the oven but smaller than the overlapping surround mounting plate. Might be held in by silicone caulking (high temp rated).
Hopefully you didn’t have some DIY youtuber-inspired idiot glue the thing in with gorilla glue so you have to destroy your cabinet to replace it.
I do a lot of appliance repairs using YouTube. YouTube is great for that.
But if I were you I would buy a nice toaster oven.
My first thought is that if you had the smell of burning plastic filling two rooms, if you started taking it apart it should be obvious where the problem was. No guarantee how far you’d have to take it apart to find the problem though. Once it’s cooled off, it may be possible to follow your nose to the part that is responsible for the smell, is it in the top, the bottom, the front, the back?
Make sure you can completely disconnect it from power before messing with anything. And don’t exceed your comfort level too far. Sometimes it’s best to call a pro or just replace it.
@djslack Weirdly, my mother (who was preheating the oven) never smelled anything, and is taking my word that there was a terrible melting plastic smell and we can’t use the oven. It’s a wall oven, so I don’t think there’s any way I can take it apart? And there’s always the concern that I’m overreacting and/or my mother is losing her sense of smell.
@mossygreen yeah, a built-in wall oven means it is a bit more difficult to both work on and replace. But it had to go in there so it does come out. But that may be way outside your comfort zone.
If your mother didn’t smell anything and you think you may have been overreacting, maybe bring a third person over and have a test bake?
@mossygreen check her for covid!
@djslack @mossygreen
also, if the smell started while she was in the kitchen and got stronger over time, she may have not noticed it, much like you won’t smell the bacon you are cooking after a little while unless you get closer to it or it gets overdone…
@earlyre She’s been fully vaccinated for over a month and no symptoms!
@mossygreen obvs, my point being lack of sense of smell…if you can’t smell burning plastics…you might wanna get that looked at…
Check appliancepartspros.com
Lots of help can be found, if your goal is to track down the part, or debug the smell. Use the forums as well as the videos.
Interesting story. I was working on the car in the garage. I drained/refilled gear oil in the rear differential. It not engine oil. This smells like the buttholes of millions of dead, rotting dinosaurs. I had garage door open, fans, etc.
Later, pre-heating oven, the whole house was introduced to the smell of those rotting dino assholes.
Turns out, the little bit of smell that came into the house grows into a giant fucking stench when heated.
Who knew? Google knew.
@G1 That’s pretty interesting. If you think about it, pretty much everything made with petroleum has some fraction of rotted dinosaur assholes in it. Oils, gas, plastics, synthetic fabrics, fertilizers, detergents, furniture polish, artificial flavors and scents have many molecules of rotted dino holes in them. You are almost certainly touching, breathing smelling, tasting rotted dinosaur assholes right this second.
Thought #2 - Maybe that smell is the real reason why they went extinct in the first place
Gimme the brand, model number, and serial number. I’ll see if it’s common enough to find a solution.
@G1 It’s old enough that we have no idea where the paperwork is, and couldn’t find a model or serial number in the oven itself (a plate that looks like it could have text on it is unreadable). But if we find it I’ll let you know, thanks!
I had a vaguely plastic/electrical smell in the kitchen for a couple weeks, wondering what the cause could be. Then the microwave stopped turning on and the smell got stronger. I could smell it in the next room too until I got around to moving the dead microwave to the garage, where it awaits its eventual fate. So it was definitely the source of the odor.
Basically, yeah, it might be dying, but I couldn’t say what from. Hopefully it’s something easy to fix before the end happens, and if it ends, it’s a quiet and uneventful end.
I had the same thing when I used my gas oven for the first time. Turns out the previous owner left a plastic bag in the warming drawer.
Most wall ovens have screws that mount into the cabinet from the side when you open the door. Sometimes there’s a cover plate at the bottom you need to remove first. You can pull the oven out and inspect the wiring at the back.
These suckers can be very heavy.
It’s going to have a long conduit that you’ll have to loop a string around to hold it up when you put the oven back in place.
I recommend looking up the manual for your specific model to see the install instructions.
@RiotDemon Yeah, I need to find the manual. It’s in a binder. Somewhere. I hope.
Is it a convection oven or is there an exhaust fan that runs while it’s in use? The smell could be a motor burning out.
Do you have kids? Have you checked for Legos or other plastic toys in there?
@stolicat No kids, don’t use the convection function. Only thing found in the oven was the weird metal filter-looking-thing of which I have still not taken a photo, which probably fell off of the oven ceiling (do ovens have ceilings?) or was an apport from the spirits, who probably used gravity to pry it off of the oven ceiling (if ovens have ceilings).
One offbeat suggestion is to check where the heat exhaust goes. I have an island oven (yes, I read yours is a wall), so the heat exhausts directly at the top back center of the stove itself. It gets hot there. Once I left a plastic microwave splatter cover too close to it, and it melted a half-dollar sized hole in it.
Loose parts falling from the oven ceiling are probably a better clue. But… heating elements can also smell funny when they start to burn out. If you ever dare turn it on again, look for a bright spot on the heating element. It’ll glow red in that spot before the whole thing heats up and be much brighter than the rest after.
Alternative hypothesis: Your oven is fine, it is your nose. ever since I had the plague19 last year my sense of smell is all over the map. Every time I walk into a room I haven’t been in in a while, I just get like a random grab-bag smell from a list of like my 10 most pungent smells. Using the oven or opening the refrigerator/cupboards frequently seems to also have this hippocampus-searing-like-a-tuna-steak effect, which tuna is actually one of those 10 smells.
Concussion #3 didn’t do me any favors, but it was definitely the 'rona that caused the bertie botts mystery smells. Just this morning, my soaking wet cat using the litter box smell like a brisk morning walk through Northern California Redwoods, and my preheat of the oven smell like Japanese street-meat Yakitori being sold outside of a musty textiles factory with a natural gas leak (it’s not even a gas oven).
@rogerbacon
I think you should be chosen (or volunteer) as a wine rat for Meh’s sister site, Casemates.com.
I think your reviews would be most entertaining.
Or just split a case and post a review anyway. I’m not sure if your Mehmbership (heart badge)
covers shipping over on Casemates like it does for VMPs (V badge).
@mike808 LOL I’m quite flattered but I did a couple lifetime’s worth of drinking before I turned 30, and said drinking nearly precluded said turning, so I save the sauce for my chicken tendies these days
I just installed a new Samsung range in my mother’s kitchen. The old-but-in-good-condition Whirlpool is in the garage. Glass top, five burners, 6cu ft oven Come n get it!