- Appliance
- Wolf professional range
- Symptom
- Slow preheat, temperature drifted on long bakes
- Resolution
- Oven igniters replaced, recovery time checked
- Location
- Mercer Island, WA
What the customer reported
Long bakes came out inconsistent. The oven reached temperature eventually but drifted during the cycle, which is the sort of fault that shows up in results before it shows up on the display.
What we found
Each time the oven cycled to maintain temperature, the weak igniter delayed the valve opening. Those delays add up across an hour-long bake, and the average temperature ends up well below the setting even though the display says otherwise.
What we did
Replaced the igniters and confirmed both the initial preheat time and the recovery time on each maintenance cycle, which is where the drift was actually happening.
Why this happens
A thermostat gets blamed for this constantly. The tell is that a bad thermostat usually misses in one direction from the start, while a weak igniter produces a slow, cycling drift — the oven is fine on a quick roast and hopeless on a long bake.