Oven heating element: €1.98 at Alcampo or €35 from Balay

Repairing an oven under warranty: the heating element that ranges from €1.98 to €35

An oven with a faulty lower heating element, still under warranty. The owner opens it up to diagnose, takes measurements, discovers the part is blown and runs into the classic problem: the official repair can cost more than the part bought the cheap way. The question that opens the case is specific: where can you buy this heating element cheaply? And the answer that emerges from the exchange is a price range running from 1.98 euros to 35 euros for the same component.

The appliance is a HRA512ES0/87, an oven with two heating elements: the large one and the small one. The large one measures 60 ohms and works. The small one is open, in other words, broken. The diagnosis was made with a multimeter: the pizza test —heating it up and checking that the base doesn't reach temperature— confirmed that no heat comes from below. The grill element, on the other hand, responds.

Where to buy a cheap oven heating element

The price range is the central fact. At one end, according to one message in the thread, a white unbranded element with no accessories for 1.98 euros at Alcampo, with the trick of reusing the old rings to avoid spending 0.99 euros on new ones. At the other, according to another message, the official brand part for 35 euros with shipping included. In between, the doubt over whether it's worth paying the difference for a part that, electrically speaking, does the same job.

The technical calculation circulating in the conversation is simple: 1,100 watts at 240 volts gives a resistance of 52 ohms. Any value well above that figure indicates the component is open. The owner's measurement didn't give the expected figure, which should fall between 20 and 80 ohms.

Is it worth repairing an oven under warranty that you've peine?

The warranty is the elephant in the room. Opening the appliance before calling technical service may have broken seals or stickers that betray the tampering. The advice repeated in the thread is to put everything back together, disguise the damage —including a broken plastic little piece that held the element and a bent metal sheet— and call technical service playing dumb. If the technician detects the tampering, the free repair is off and you have to pay.

The economic question is whether the visit costs anything when the technician discovers the warranty has been voided. The answer suggested is that, if they spot it quickly, they'll leave without charging. If the appliance has to be dismantled to detect it, things change.

The new-oven trick and the return

The most controversial proposal in the exchange is to buy an identical oven, carefully open it, take out the good part, put the faulty one in the new oven and return it. The next buyer inherits the problem and the warranty. It's a practice that borders on fraud and, in a responsible-consumption forum, appears without much filtering.

Against that, the legal route: buy the compatible element, make sure it has the same wattage and replace it yourself. The risk is that the part isn't the right one or the installation goes wrong and the oven still doesn't heat from below.

What those who've been through this say

The experience of others suggests the fault isn't always in the element. Some maintain that what blows is the thermal fuse and that the element is fine. In that case, bridging the fuse helps to test it. But if the other element —the grill one— works, the diagnosis points to the small part.

The underlying problem is that the oven doesn't reach the expected temperature even though only one of the two elements has failed. The pizza base doesn't cook. And that's where the thread ends: with the part identified, the cheap price found and the warranty up in the air.

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The full calculation, with the ohm measurement and the buying alternatives, is in the original source.