Why does my oven smell of burning?

Burning smells from an oven fall into four groups, and they are distinguishable by nose alone if you know what you are separating. Three of them are ordinary and one of them is a reason to stop. The gas case is not on this list at all, because gas is never something you investigate with the appliance running.

Safety

Step by step

1. First, decide whether it is gas.Gas smells of rotten eggs or sulphur, because an odorant is added specifically so leaks are noticed. It does not smell of burning. If that is what you can smell, stop reading and follow the emergency steps above.
2. Ask whether the oven is new or newly installed.A new oven smells of hot metal, oil and sometimes a faint chemical note for the first two or three uses. That is protective coatings and manufacturing residues curing off. Run it empty at 200°C for an hour with the window open and it will go.
3. Look at the cavity floor and the element for spills.Fat, sugar or a fallen piece of food carbonising on the base or on the grill element gives sweet, acrid smoke that comes back every time you preheat. It looks like a small black patch. Cold cleaning removes it and removes the smell with it.
4. Check nothing was left inside.Packaging, polystyrene inserts, a plastic shelf protector, oven-glove fluff, a chopping board stored in the cavity. Melting plastic is unmistakable and it is more often something forgotten than something failing.
5. Distinguish burning plastic from an electrical smell.An electrical fault smells sharp and slightly fishy or like hot varnish rather than like a melting bag, and it is often accompanied by the oven behaving oddly — cutting out, tripping, or an element glowing unevenly. That combination means switch off at the wall and call an engineer.
6. Check the extraction and the surroundings.A hood filter loaded with old grease, a plastic utensil resting on a warm hob, or a cupboard door being scorched by a badly fitted oven can all produce a burning smell that is not coming from inside the cavity at all.
7. If the smell has an obvious cause, remove it and test.Clean the cavity and the element area cold, run the oven empty at 200°C for 30 minutes with the extractor on and a window open, and see whether the smell returns. A smell that survives a clean and a burn-off is a fault rather than a residue.

Tips

• Never clean an element by scraping it. Let deposits burn off, or wipe the element only when completely cold with a barely damp cloth. Elements are thin and easily punctured.
• A smell that appears only on the grill setting points at the grill element or something on the roof of the cavity, which is the part people never look at.
• Line the shelf below a spill-prone dish rather than the cavity floor. Foil on the base of an oven traps heat against the bottom element and is a common cause of both burning smells and element failure.

If it doesn't work