Oven Temperature Issues: Why Your Oven Won't Heat Right and How to Fix It

When your oven temperature issues, problems where an oven doesn't maintain or reach the correct cooking temperature. Also known as inaccurate oven heating, it often means your food is undercooked, burnt, or takes way longer than it should. This isn’t just annoying—it’s a safety and money problem. If your oven’s off by 50 degrees, you’re wasting energy, ruining meals, and maybe even risking a fire if the thermostat’s stuck.

Most oven temperature issues come down to three things: a broken oven element, the heating coil inside the oven that glows red when working, a faulty oven thermostat, the sensor that tells the oven when to turn heat on or off, or a simple calibration error, when the display shows the wrong temperature even though the oven works fine. You don’t need a pro to check the first two. Look for dark spots or cracks on the element. If it doesn’t glow when the oven’s on, it’s dead. The thermostat? It can drift over time—especially in older ovens. A $15 oven thermometer on the rack will tell you if the oven’s lying to you.

People often blame the oven for bad baking, but it’s usually the temperature control. A faulty thermostat might make your oven think it’s at 350°F when it’s really only at 280°F. That’s why your cookies spread too much or your roast stays raw inside. And if you’ve ever reset your oven and it worked for a day, then went back to acting up? That’s the control board starting to fail. It’s not always the big parts. Sometimes it’s just a loose wire, a dirty temperature sensor, or even grease buildup blocking airflow around the element.

You’ll find real fixes in the posts below—step-by-step checks for when your oven won’t heat, how to test the element with a multimeter, what error codes mean, and when it’s cheaper to replace than repair. No fluff. No guesswork. Just what actually works for home cooks and busy households in the UK. Whether you’re dealing with a sudden drop in heat, uneven baking, or an oven that won’t stay on, you’ll find the answer here.