Your GE Oven vents too much heat because of a blocked oven vent. One of the best ways to fix this issue is to Clean your vent thoroughly with soapy water to remove grease, grime, or other blockages. Other common reasons your oven vents too much heat could range from a defective fan blower to high-temperature settings. Follow our quick DIY guides to resolve the faults that cause your oven to vent too much heat.
If your oven is venting too much heat, especially more than it should, it’s an indication that something’s wrong with your oven. It could announce some internal damage or fault that needs to be rectified.
In this article, we’ll explore all the possible reasons why your GE Oven vents too much heat and simple fixes you can try at home.
Why Does Your Oven Emit So Much Heat?
Here are the most common reasons why your GE Oven is venting too much heat:
- A blocked oven vent
- Temperatures set too high
- The cooling fan blower is defective
- A faulty oven door gasket
A Blocked Oven Vent
The oven vent is responsible for ventilation within your GE oven – letting out hot air from the oven during cooking cycles. A blocked vent can cause the oven to overheat and vent too much heat.
Grease, grime, and other food blockages could prevent your oven vent from letting heat escape gently. Heat accumulates in your oven as a consequence. And then your oven starts to vent way more heat than it normally should.
How To Fix a Blocked Oven Vent
- Turn off the oven and wait for it to cool off completely
- Turn to the back of your oven to find the vent.
- Check the vent for blockages and remove any obstructions: Inspect the vent for grease, grime, or other blockages.
- Not sure if the vent is blocked? Check that you can feel hot air escaping through the vent holes.
- Use soapy water to clean your vent thoroughly and remove obstructions.
Temperatures Set Too High
If you are using a high-temperature setting, it is normal for the oven to vent more heat. Try using a lower temperature setting to reduce the amount of heat being vented.
GE ranges and ovens have oven temperature limits for the bake, broil, and convection bake/roast functions. GE ovens with electronic touchpad Clock controls also have a 12-hour automatic oven shut-off, which should activate under normal circumstances.
Although you should expect ovens to heat up during operation, your GE oven will heat up more if you exceed the temperature limit or cook something for hours in the oven with high heat. In that case, the vent may appear to be venting too much heat, which may also be felt in the room where the oven is.
How to Manage Temperatures on Your GE Oven
Take these precautions to ensure your GE oven isn’t venting too much heat:
- Ensure you operate the oven within the recommended temperature limits during a bake, broil, or convection cycle.
- Do not deactivate the 12-hour automatic oven shut-off as a safety precaution.
- If your oven is venting too much heat during a self-clean cycle, ventilate the room by opening the windows.
The Cooling Fan Blower is Defective
GE ovens come with a built-in cooling fan blower that helps evenly spread heat throughout the oven during cooking or baking cycles.
If the cooling fan blower is defective, the heat is inadequately dissipated. The oven overheats and the area around the control panel feel extremely hot. This explains why your oven vents too much heat.
How To Fix a Defective Cooling Fan Blower
You’ll have to replace a defective cooling fan blower. However, you must first determine if the fan blower is the problem.
Important Precaution! Testing a GE oven fan blower for faults and replacing it is a complex process and can be risky if you don’t have electrical knowledge. As such, I recommend that you call a trained GE oven service technician to do the job.
To test if the cooling fan blower is faulty, follow these steps:
- Cycle power to the oven to reset it.
- Press and hold the number “2” and “Broil” pads on the control board for 3 seconds. This operation activates your GE oven’s error/fault retrieval mode.
- Press the number “1” key. If the fan blower is defective, your oven will display the F350/ F352 error code. This signals a fan blower that isn’t turning on or doing so at an extremely slow speed.
- Press and hold the number “1” and “Broil” keys again to activate the control panel ERC test mode.
- Press the number “3” pad to run the blower in the test mode and peep through the vent trim at the maintop to see if the fan blower is turning. If the fan blower turns at a slow speed or doesn’t turn at all, you need to replace it.
- Turn off the power to the oven and wait a few minutes for any hot range parts to cool.
- Once cool, remove the oven top panel.
- Check the fan blower wheel for any obstructing objects and rotate it by hand to see if it moves freely. If it does, proceed to test the blower wiring for resistance. The white-to-red wires should record a reading of around 31 ohms, and the black-to-white wires 47 ohms. If this isn’t the case, replace the fan blower. If the wires are sound, move on to testing the fan wires on the control board.
- The control board fan wires should be tested with the oven powered and in Service Mode. The neutral white wire and the low-speed black wire should show 120 volts. If not, remove and replace the oven fan blower.
Remember that your safety is even more important than having a functional oven. So, call a professional GE oven technician whenever you aren’t sure how to tackle an oven problem.
You’re Using Oversized Cookware
One more reason why your GE oven might be venting too much heat is the use of oversized cookware. When you use a pan that is too large for your cooktop burner, this causes two problems:
- Heat can get trapped between the bottom of the pan and the cooktop. The heat does not distribute evenly across the pan’s bottom.
- When the pan’s bottom does not make full contact with the burner, heat gets trapped and accumulates between the bottom of the pan.
In both cases, the excess heat is transferred to the cooktop, which causes your oven to vent more heat than it normally should.
How to Fix Oversized Cookware Issues
To prevent your oversized cookware from impacting your oven’s heat output, use the right size cookware for your burners. As a rule of thumb, your pans should not hang over more than one inch on each side of any surface burner.
If your cookware is too large for your burner, it’s time to invest in new pots and pans that are the appropriate size for your cooktop. When selecting new cookware, make sure to check the size of the bottom of the pan to ensure it is compatible with your burner.
Faulty GE Oven Door Gasket
The gasket is designed to prevent heat from escaping from your GE oven by creating a door seal. A damaged or worn-out door gasket can cause heat to escape from the oven.
The fix here is to check the gasket for any tears, gaps, or damage. If you find any, replace it with a new one.
Here’s how to do it:
- Turn off your GE oven and allow it to cool down completely before you start.
- Open the oven door and inspect the gasket around the perimeter of the door. Look for any signs of tears, gaps, or damage. Any bumps or tears indicate damage to the gasket. Consider replacing it.
- If you notice any damage, try to gently stretch the gasket back into place. If it does not stay in place, it may need to be replaced.
Call a professional for help if you’re not comfortable doing these fixes yourself.
Conclusion
A GE oven venting too much heat indicates a bigger problem inside your oven. So it’s absolutely worth checking. There are multiple reasons why your GE oven is venting too much heat, including a blocked oven vent, a defective cooling fan blower, or a faulty oven door gasket.
Follow the troubleshooting guides we share in this post to identify the exact reason why your oven vents too much heat, plus quick fixes to try at home.
