If you’re pulling food out of the oven only to find that it’s still pale around the edges or cold in the center—even though you followed your recipe to the letter!—then you’ve likely got a problem with your oven’s temperature sensor.

See, when you preheat your oven, you’re relying on the oven’s internal temperature sensor to know when it’s reached the temperature you set. However, when that sensor becomes weak or faulty in some way, it may think the oven has reached the correct temperature when it actually hasn’t. This can lead to many unfortunate cooking mishaps.

Thankfully, there are a few common causes of this problem that can be easily fixed. Keep reading to find out more!

Common Causes of Incorrect Oven Temperature

• Temperature sensor is touching the wall.
• Move the sensor so it’s not making any contact with the wall of your oven. This could be what’s causing the sensor to think the oven is hotter than it actually is.
• Defective temperature sensor.
• If moving the sensor to a different position in the oven didn’t fix the problem, you’ll need to test that the sensor is working. This requires an ohmmeter. If you don’t own one or don’t know how to use it, you’ll need the assistance of a technician.
• Sensor needs to be re-calibrated.
• Buy an oven thermometer and place it in the middle of your oven.
• Heat the oven to 350° F. Take a temperature reading every 20 minutes for 2 hours total. Add up the temperature readings and divide the sum by the number of readings you took to get the average temperature. How close is that to 350? The difference is what you’ll need to know so you can adjust your preheat temperatures accordingly.

If these temperature sensor tricks don’t fix the problem, then the issue might be related to your electric heating elements or gas igniter. In this case, you’ll need to call Morris County Appliance Repair for help. We’re standing by to help local homeowners in Morris County get their appliances running smoothly again!