Is my oven broken or am I stupid?

sparklewing

This may be the stupidest question ever but I'm going to ask it anyway.

We moved into our house in November and the oven came with the house.

It has an electric hob and the grill and oven are in one compartment if you see what I mean. I've only ever had a seperate oven and grill before hence my confusion.

the oven seems to cook things really quickly and burn things.

On the dial I turn it to the picture that shows 2 straight lines, one at top and one at bottom, is that right?

Other options are 1 straight line top, 1 straight line bottom, 1 wiggly line top (grill) and one with a mini squiggle (little grill????) and a lightbulb?????

Anyhoo tonight I put in some aunt bessies yorkshires on 200 with the dial at top and bottom straight, and I noticed the grill bars were red, do they normally heat up when you turn on oven? The yorkshires went crispy in a grilled type way and now I'm wondering if I've been using the wrong part of the dial for oven cooking hence everything burning?

Can anyone shed some light? Please?

shellsuit

Is there one or 2 dials on it?

taurusgb

Have you tried googling the make and model number of the cooker to see if you can find an online download for the manual?

Good luck - must be very frustrating

weegie.geek

I don't know much about ovens, but I do know that broken ovens and stupidity aren't mutually exclusive, so don't limit yourself.

What kind of oven is it? Maybe someone else has the same one. Or maybe the manual's downloadable.

Tigsteroonie

Sorry I cannot be of much help - my oven is simpler than yours! I only have a bulb setting (turns on just the light), a dial of temperatures with a single bottom-line symbol (oven) and a squiggly top-line symbol (grill).

I wonder if you have an oven+grill setting? Or perhaps just a more sophisticated oven where it heats from both bottom and top.

sparklewing

shellsuit wrote: »

Is there one or 2 dials on it?

Just the one. Well 2 if you include the temperature one.

sparklewing

It's a HOmARK no model number that I can see it's dark brown/black though. Woman I bought the house off said it was quite a new oven but onsidering some of the other things she told us which turned out to be lies I can't be sure.

Stompa

Post the make/model of the oven - somebody else is bound to have one.

Tigsteroonie

Just been digging around a few oven manuals (it's a sad life I live).

You appear to have an oven with both top & bottom heating elements:

• straight line top = top heating element only
• straight line bottom = bottom heating element only
• straight lines top & bottom = use both heating elements

Squiggly line is indeed grill. Not sure about smaller squiggly line, but I wonder if it's an option to only use part (eg the centre) of the grill? If you only wanted to grill one piece of cheese on toast?

Now, as to which heating element is better for cooking what type of food ..... over to the cooking experts!

sparklewing

I'm just googling to see if I can see any instructions for it. Stupid oven. I want a nice new one that is easy to understand :rolleyes:

Thanks for all the replies and for not just replying to laugh at my inability to use an oven

tanith

Tigsteroonie wrote: »

Just been digging around a few oven manuals (it's a sad life I live).

You appear to have an oven with both top & bottom heating elements:

• straight line top = top heating element only
• straight line bottom = bottom heating element only
• straight lines top & bottom = use both heating elements

Squiggly line is indeed grill. Not sure about smaller squiggly line, but I wonder if it's an option to only use part (eg the centre) of the grill? If you only wanted to grill one piece of cheese on toast?

Now, as to which heating element is better for cooking what type of food ..... over to the cooking experts!

I have a bosch oven and I agree with the above thats how mine works .. squiggly lines for the grill and straight lines for oven....