- Rack sitting on its rails
- Rack rails down the side wall
- Burner cap off, on the counter
Warning signs · Viking ovens
Why does a new Viking oven smell of burning?
A brand-new oven smells for its first few hot runs while the oils and coatings left from the factory burn away, and it fades a little every time. What never counts as normal is hot plastic, singed insulation or anything electrical. If that is what you can smell, switch off and call (213) 652-7030.
What you can see, what it means, what to do now
See it
Thin haze or a faint smoke at the vent during the first bakes, and a smell like a hot iron. An electrical smell is sharper and sits in the back of your throat; it may come with a buzz or a flicker of the lights.
What it means
On a new appliance it is protective coating and machining oil giving themselves up to the heat, which is why each run smells less than the last. On an oven of any age, a smell of melting plastic is something getting hot that was never meant to, and it will not improve on its own.
What to do tonight
For a first-use smell, open the windows, give the kitchen as much ventilation as you can, and run the oven empty until the air clears. For a plastic or electrical smell, stop: turn the oven off, switch the breaker off, and do not use it again until it has been looked at.
Still doing it after that? Call Viking Repair Pros of Los Angeles on (213) 652-7030. The $89 visit covers the fault-finding and comes off the repair.
The smells that are not the oven at all
Plenty of burning smells in a kitchen come from the cavity rather than the appliance. Fat that ran off a roast, a spill down the side of a tray, a scrap of paper left on a rack — all of them burn at baking temperature and all of them smell alarming. Let the oven cool, take a look at the floor of the cavity and the rails, and see whether there is something in there that should not be.
The other common one is packaging. Protective film, a foam block or a cardboard insert tucked somewhere out of sight will announce itself the first time the oven gets hot, and it is worth a proper look before you assume the appliance is at fault.
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Follow-ups
How many bakes before it stops smelling?
Fewer than most people expect, and it should be noticeably weaker each time rather than the same on the fifth bake as on the first. A smell that is not fading, or one that arrives months later on an appliance that had long settled in, is no longer a burn-off and deserves a look.
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Signed
Birgit Halloran
- Works on
- ovens and heating
- Time served
- 24 years
