---
title: "Oven Broils but Will Not Bake: What That Split Tells a Technician"
description: "Why does my oven broil but not bake: two separate circuits, what the split rules out, and why a glowing ignitor still fails."
url: "https://bertazzonimiami.support/blog/why-does-my-oven-broil-but-not-bake/"
date_modified: "2026-08-27"
Category: "Common Problems"
---


# Oven Broils but Will Not Bake: What That Split Tells a Technician

## Why does my oven broil but not bake? Because they are two different circuits

They share a cavity and nothing else.

On a gas oven, **bake has its own burner and its own ignitor under the oven floor**, and **broil has its own at the roof**. On an electric or dual-fuel cavity, each has its own element. In both cases the control switches them independently.

That is why the split is worth so much: half the appliance has just been eliminated.

## What the split rules out for free

If broil works, then all of this is already proven healthy:

- the electrical supply to the appliance;- the control board's power and its ability to switch a load;- the door and its interlocks;- the temperature sensing shared between modes;- on a gas machine, the gas supply to the appliance.

None of that needs testing. A technician arriving with that information starts at the bake circuit rather than at the wall.

## On a gas cavity: the ignitor, still glowing

Here is the cause that costs people the most money on gas ovens, and it costs them because it looks fine.

The bake ignitor is not just a heat source. It is the **current-sensing element in the safety circuit**. The gas valve is designed to open only when a certain current passes through the ignitor — proof that the ignitor is hot enough to light the gas the instant it arrives.

As an ignitor ages, its resistance rises. The current through it falls. Below the valve's threshold, **the gas never comes** — and the ignitor goes on glowing a bright, convincing orange the whole time.

People replace thermostats and control boards over this. Some replace the whole oven.

The test is a current measurement and it takes minutes.

## On an electric cavity: the element or the relay

Eleven machines in this line are dual-fuel, and the wall ovens are electric throughout.

A bake element that has failed usually **shows it**: a blister, a bright spot, or a visible break, most often near one of the ends where it passes through the rear wall. Where the element looks perfect and still does nothing, the relay on the control board that switches it is the next suspect, and that is a measurement rather than an inspection.

## What to have ready

The model number from the plate — behind the kick panel on a range, inside the door frame on a wall oven. Whether it is gas, electric or dual-fuel. And the split, established cleanly: fifteen minutes on bake alone, then a few minutes on broil alone, and what happened in each.

---

**[Read full article: Oven Broils but Will Not Bake: What That Split Tells a Technician](https://bertazzonimiami.support/blog/why-does-my-oven-broil-but-not-bake/)**