My wife and I recently found ourselves shopping for a new electric range. The unit in our home was original to the home and, thus, 18 years old. It was still working well, but my wife yearned for some of the modern conveniences included in the more contemporary models.
We also have a young son who is testing boundaries, and the existing stove did not have the tip-over protection that newer models include as standard. That little bracket on the back foot is not sold separately, by the way, so adding it to the existing appliance was not an option.
We did our research and found several models we liked. One feature we really wanted was an oven door lock so we could keep our son from opening it. Many models had the lock feature and we made sure the model we settled on had it as well. However, in talking to the salesman, we found that the designers had limited the lock's use.
Several of the options include a button labeled "Oven Lock" or "Control Lock," but this only locks the electronic control panel. The only way to lock the oven is to turn it on self-clean, and, even in self-clean, many do not lock until the oven reaches 400 to 500 degrees. To the best of our knowledge, there are no models on the market with an electronic lock that can be actuated by the owner without activating the self-clean cycle.
This means that the actuation of the lock is available to the main processor and there is a button labeled lock, but the smart folks did not put the two together. I realize that few people need the door to lock as the population interested in this feature is limited to those with little people at their feet. However, I am having trouble making sense of who would want to lock the control panel. If a child can reach the control panel, he is either tall enough to unlock it himself, or he is sitting on the counter top or stove. So the lock is of no use.
If my 20-month-old son is sitting on the stove, he can't turn on the oven controls but he can turn a knob for the stove top and get one powerful seat warmer going. Maybe the microprocessor ran out of storage to make that connection happen. We enjoy our new stove, so far, but I am still at a loss for how the monkeys didn't see that the oven lock button should actually lock the oven.
This entry was submitted by Nathan Taylor and edited by Rob Spiegel
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I've done a few oven controls, and the door doesn't lock right away so that the user can attend to a fire, if one should occur. Also, remove anything that may be in the oven when the self-clean starts. The door does latch after a certain temperature (the number escapes me) because at such high oven temperatures, around 950F, your clothes can actually ignite, which UL always frowns upon. The control does lock to prevent the oven from turning on, but the range control and oven control are usually two separate controls, so the feature set doesn't carry over. This may sound like monkeys at work, but a low-end oven will still have a control but nothing but traditional gas valves or an infinite switch for the range. A high-end unit will have the same oven control, but a real electronic control for the range.
@jmillion I agree with you about parents today depend upon way too many other people to do their job of being parents. I was born in the mid 1970's and was taught to not talk to strangers, cross the street without an adult, etc.
I think it would be great if a company did add this as a safety feature I also feel that parents need to teach their children what they can and can not do from a safety stand point. Another example of this is the anoying "no need to speed" signs in neighborhoods I see frequently. I would love to put up a sign that read "need for speed, parents stop relying on everyone else to watch your children, get off your lazy darieaire and watch your own children"
@jmillion. I think you are over reacting. Kids do stupid things and taking precauton is not nanny state, it is part of parenting. So your toddler has been taught boundries so he will never do something stupid. Yet he probably still believes in Santa Claus, the tooth fairy and magic. Did he not learn those boundries or is that part of the growth factor that separates kids fro adults. My parents certainly never taught me to put a hairpin in an electric outlet, but I did it because my fellow 4 year old dared me to. Kids do stupid things. Just look at some of the idiotic things done in front of a video camera so it can be posted on You Tube.
So there is a lock on an oven door. How big of a deal is that? I put on my seat belt, wear a helmet on my motorcyle and a life vest when water sking. Guess that must be nanny something.
Doesn't everyone know that the U.S. constitution says that it's Governments job to protect all of us from ourselves? We need far more legislation and laws to make sure there's nothing that could possibly harm anyone in anyway. We also need far more lawyers to make sure anyone that is involved in causing harm is fined millions and permanently put away to prevent them from ever harming again.
My girlfriend's mother told a wonderful story about ovens and their entertainment utility. Allegedly she caught her daughter helping her younger sister into the oven. They were both too young to remember the incident themselves.
As an EE who also happens to a Paramedic, I can tell you that the anti-tip bracket for an Oven is a MUST MUST have, even if you don't have children (and even if you don't plan to climb into the oven)! I once responded to an emergency call for a woman who had a pot of boiling water on the stove top and then opened the oven door to put something into the oven. As she was reaching into the oven, she slipped and put her weight down on the open door. The oven tipped over and the pot of boiling water fell onto her. She suffered some first and second degree burns to her back and arms, pretty nasty stuff, and got a ride to our area's burn center. So this anti-tip bracket is REALLY important to have on all ovens, kids in the house or not! If you don't have it now, get it installed ASAP! I believe you can order them as a "part" from most of the parts websites out there, or for us handy Engineer Types, we can design our own!
Your right Andrew - it's amazing that any of us lived to adulthood without a plethora of "protective" devices. Of course, my mom would have had an eye on me at that age and I would never have had the opportunity to do anything that was that dangerous. And if I tried, I would not have had a little 5-minute "time out" either.
Yes, I mentioned in an earlier post there is a lock for about $5.00. After the kids reach a certain age, you can detach all of the little protective items. You're right, Andrew, you only need them for a specific period of time.
I can't speak for all areas, but in the metro Atlanta area, anti-tip brackets are REQUIRED to be installed by the building codes. I found this out when purchasing my house (a 2-year old resale) in 2003. The home inspector's report noted that although the stove was equipped with the latch, the mating bracket was never installed. This was added to the "punch list" of violations to be remedied before closing the sale, and it was a trivial thing to have done. BTW, we are in our 60's, and certainly didn't need this done then (later our 1st grandchild was born and we were glad it was). Codes vary in the requirements on retrofits and remodeling, but anything that requires a building permit usually mandates an upgrade to current code.
It never would have occurred to either my wife or myself to even consider this; our previous homes all had cooktops and wall-mounted ovens, etc. Also, the previous owners DID have 3 small children (all under 3), but apparently were unaware of the flaw. The house had been a "spec"/model home, and the appliances were installed before they purchased it. Caveat emptor....
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