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- 18 Feb 2007
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Mrs Hysteresis has bought a new Belling All Gas Range cooker to replace an ageing Leisure Ringmaster oven. The reason for change was spares availability.
We have been very pleased with the Leisure cooker and thought a replacement unit would be pretty much the same after all it is a gas heated box.
Initial trials of this new unit was disappointing in that the oven seamed rather cooler than the Leisure of at the same Gas Mark setting. we played around with it and found that the cooking on the top shelf was near that which we would expect from a particular Gas Mark Setting but on lower shelves the results were totally different suggesting a much lower gas Mark Temperature. Certainly totally different characteristics to the Leisure Unit.
This resulted in me doing some tests on the oven to try and determine what the problem was or indeed if there was a problem.
I used a high temperature digital thermometer to determine the oven temperature. I used a Gas Mark Setting of 7 , which equates to 220'C. I allowed the oven temperature 10 minutes to stabilise with the temperature probe on the shelf near the top of the oven. I returned a temp of 238'C which sound about right as it was high in the oven. I then repeated the test with the probe 5 inches lower and after a 10 minute stabilisation period the temperature indicated 188'C equivalent to Gas Mark 4 (Wow!!! 50'C difference in only 5 inches). I thought that must be wrong so I repeated the tests twice more and returned similar results.
I did yet another test with the probe in the base of the oven at 3 inches below the test on the low position shelf, this returned a temperature of 168'C equivalent to Gas Mark 3.
Obviously the lower the position in the oven then the lower the temperature but a 50'C reduction in only 5 inches change in height seems rather excessive.
The new Belling ovens are fitted with fans so I would have expected a very much more unified temperature, but the temperature gradient I am measuring makes these ovens virtually un-useable. It would suggest to me maybe a door seal problem but, Hey, this is a brand new oven.
I do not profess to be a Gas Oven expert by any stretch of the imagination, but would anyone who knows considerably more then me comment on what I consider to be a grossly unacceptable temperature gradient.
Maybe my expectation based on our Leisure cooker experience is unreasonable and would welcome your advice before I take the performance back to the Manufacturers Belling
We have been very pleased with the Leisure cooker and thought a replacement unit would be pretty much the same after all it is a gas heated box.
Initial trials of this new unit was disappointing in that the oven seamed rather cooler than the Leisure of at the same Gas Mark setting. we played around with it and found that the cooking on the top shelf was near that which we would expect from a particular Gas Mark Setting but on lower shelves the results were totally different suggesting a much lower gas Mark Temperature. Certainly totally different characteristics to the Leisure Unit.
This resulted in me doing some tests on the oven to try and determine what the problem was or indeed if there was a problem.
I used a high temperature digital thermometer to determine the oven temperature. I used a Gas Mark Setting of 7 , which equates to 220'C. I allowed the oven temperature 10 minutes to stabilise with the temperature probe on the shelf near the top of the oven. I returned a temp of 238'C which sound about right as it was high in the oven. I then repeated the test with the probe 5 inches lower and after a 10 minute stabilisation period the temperature indicated 188'C equivalent to Gas Mark 4 (Wow!!! 50'C difference in only 5 inches). I thought that must be wrong so I repeated the tests twice more and returned similar results.
I did yet another test with the probe in the base of the oven at 3 inches below the test on the low position shelf, this returned a temperature of 168'C equivalent to Gas Mark 3.
Obviously the lower the position in the oven then the lower the temperature but a 50'C reduction in only 5 inches change in height seems rather excessive.
The new Belling ovens are fitted with fans so I would have expected a very much more unified temperature, but the temperature gradient I am measuring makes these ovens virtually un-useable. It would suggest to me maybe a door seal problem but, Hey, this is a brand new oven.
I do not profess to be a Gas Oven expert by any stretch of the imagination, but would anyone who knows considerably more then me comment on what I consider to be a grossly unacceptable temperature gradient.
Maybe my expectation based on our Leisure cooker experience is unreasonable and would welcome your advice before I take the performance back to the Manufacturers Belling